1988: Little Vera (Vasily Pichul) Daria Ezerova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema “A Bomb into the Lap of Mother Russia”: Little Vera (Vasiliy Pichul, 1988) In May 1989, an issue of the American magazine Playboy caused a furore in ...
1925: The Death Ray (Lev Kuleshov) Natalie Ryabchikova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema A Cinephile in the Land of the Bolsheviks: The Death Ray (Lev Kuleshov, 1925) Lev Kuleshov’s Luch smerti (The Death Ray, 1925) is wedged between the ...
1976: The Irony of Fate, or I Hope You Have a Nice Bath! (Eldar Riazanov) Masha Shpolberg December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema A Soviet Fairy Tale: Ironiya sudby, ili S legkim parom! (The Irony of Fate, or I Hope You Have a Nice Bath!, Eldar Riazanov, 1976) Canon formation te...
1924: Strike (Sergei Eisenstein) Natalie Ryabchikova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema The Master’s Debut: Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1924) As Eisenstein himself described it years later, Stachka (Strike, 1924) had been “Awkward. Angula...
2007: Cargo 200 (Aleksei Balabanov) Jeremi Szaniawski December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Balabanov’s Law: Cargo 200 (Aleksei Balabanov, 2007) Throughout his short but prolific career, Aleksei Balabanov (1959-2013) produced an oeuvre – mos...
1929: The Old and the New (Sergei Eisenstein) Julia Vassilieva December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Historical Rapture: The Old and the New (Sergei Eisenstein, 1929) Sergei Eisenstein’s fourth silent feature, General Line, which was released under t...
2014: Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) Julia Vassilieva December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema The Excesses of Power: Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014) Heralded as Russia's greatest cinematic accomplishment in recent years, Andrey Zvyagintse...
1997: Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov) Jeremi Szaniawski December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Before Empire Come: Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1997) The story of a mother slowly dying while in the care of her son, Mat i syn (Mother and S...
1929: Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema From Failed Propaganda to Timeless Masterpiece: Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) In 1927 while Soviet cinema was celebrating the tenth an...
1964: Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev) Daniel Fairfax December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Adapting the Cinema to Shakespeare: Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, 1964) It is perhaps a measure of the state of Soviet film culture in the Khrushchev er...
2013: Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German) Lukas Brasiskis December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Hope in Despair, and Beauty in Revulsion: Trudno byt bogom (Aleksei German, 2013) Labeled as one of the biggest perfectionists among his peers, Russi...
1950: The Fall of Berlin (Mikheil Chiaurelli) Brad Weismann December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Autocrat as Messiah: The Fall of Berlin Padenie Berlina (The Fall of Berlin, Mikheil Chiaurelli, 1950) is the epitome of the politically correct fil...