Schizo!!

I would recommend this movie, Schizo, to anybody in the class.
It is technically a movie about illegal fist fighting in the former soviet republic of kazakhstan, but it is so much more.
The most interesting part to me was the relationships that the title character has with the people around him. In my mind, it is a condemnation of the current state of kazakhstan. there are no jobs, the police are inept, and there are few honorable people around. even the "hero" of the movie is a murderer.
It is a strange film definitely, but a must see.

Night Light

I enjoyed this film. It was definitely distinct from the other movies we have watched in class. It also, however, had a couple of similarities. First of all, there were many questions left unanswered. Additionally, the ending was by no means a happy one. I think the commentary that is apparent about human nature is very poignant(at least in relation to my social interactions). There is typically a good and evil side. Which side is good and which side is evil is determined by which side a person is on. Each person is looking out for their self-interest, making it the good side. Yes, it can be argued that sometimes people look out for the greater good, but that term can be relative as well. The greater good for your own people? the greater good for the planet? the greater good for sheep? It is relative. There are occasions when there is a right and wrong, but in large instances like in Night Watch there is no black and white just a lot of gray.

I also am very interested in reading these novels. Has anybody read them? If so, would you recommend them?

Why did you Return?

As an audience member, I am left wondering the same thing as Ivan was. Why did the father come back? Why did he leave in the first place? Many questions were left unanswered in this visual masterpiece.

In this film, St. Petersburg did not feel the same at all. It was probably on the outskirts of the city in the first place, but the mother was not particularly worried about her children running all over the city. It did not seem like there was the same type of fear in the air. It definitely had more of an air of stability in it.

The mother seems to be wary of the father returning. she does not seem particularly pleased. She is tentative around him, and tentative to let her boys go off with him. She whispers when he is not in the room, particularly at the children's bedside.

In my mind, the father is a negative character. If my father returned in the middle of my childhood, I would have been unbelievably angry. He never provides a reason for his absence. He never tries to explain himself. He just acts like nothing has ever happened. I would have acted very similarly to Ivan did. He is less accepting of his father and questions his motives. I would have become incensed when i did not return after the agreed upon two days. Especially without my mother being aware of what was going on.

I do not htink we ever find out why he brought his boys along. I think he would have been better off without bringing them. Something may have been planned for after he recovered whatever he found, but we do not have an idea.

The title of the film is very ambiguous. Is it referring to the father's return? Is it referring to the boy's return home? or perhaps the boy's return of the father to the boat? I think it referred to all of these things, principally the father's return. This movie examines the two possible reactions to a father returning after being absent for a majority of a child's life. Andrey welcomes him with open arms while Ivan does very little to welcome him back.

The Pendulum of Power

I have no idea if I want to characterize Danila as a hero or something else. i would not characterize him as a villain because he has many endearing qualities.
He is definitely a family man and he is willing to help people out with the money he earns. He is also honest, as can be seen by him promising not to kill those two people.

While all these things are positive, they are positive in a negative light. Yeah he spares two people, but kills several others in cold blood. He also gives money to a stoner and keeps most of the money for himself.

He seems to believe that violence will get him what he wants. He kills or hurts people in order to get his way. We are not supposed to think this is the proper way to do things, which is why I think Sveta is shown to go back with her husband. Otherwise, we would have seen Danila benefit from all of the violence he uses.

The most interesting thing to me about this film was the power structure. There is no longer a strong, or even a weak, Soviet state. The government is hardly represented and not represented at all in St. Petersburg. We see the local cops in Danila’s home town, but that is the extent of the presence of the government. In the past we have seen Commissars and government housing. These are indicators of a strong state. The mob has become the rulers of the cities. They control who is selling things on the street. Danila, instead of getting a job through the government, now gets a job through the mob.

REAL socialist realism

when this movie was released, stalin must have repeatedly spun around in his grave. This is not the portrayal of soviet russia that his regime(or following regimes) would have condoned. This film boils life down to the bitter dregs.
The mood of this film offers a sharp contrast to that of Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. There is hope in Moscow that the characters in Little Vera do not share. Even after divorcing, Ludmilla still holds out hope to one day hit the "moscow lottery." Little Vera and Sergei, as well as the parents, do not seem to have the same positive disposition towards life in the USSR.
Alcoholism is criticized in this film without it being of a comical nature. I think that irony of fate approached the subject as well, but they did so through comedy. This film confronts it head on. The father is accused of wasting his money away on booze and also becomes violent and argumentative when under the influence. This treatment of alcohol reminded me of alcoholism's portrayal in Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. In both of these novels, alcoholics suffer, become violent, and are extremely argumentative. It is looked upon as a social evil as opposed to a cultural norm as it is presented in some other films.
This movie also confronts generation gap issues. During perestroika there seemed to be a lot of uncertainty with the new generation(teenagers and people in their young twenties). They did not know the role of the welfare state(whether or not they would be guaranteed jobs, healthcare, education). As a result of the uncertainty, we get Vera who does not seem particularly motivated to do a whole lot. Viktor, as hard as he was working, could still not afford to bring his family with him to visit his parents. Then there was rebellious behavior and unemployment.
I think the movie placed the blame on both the youth of the nation and the parents of the nation. Yes, Vera does not do anything particularly proactive, but her father is an alcoholic and her mother is not the strong soviet woman that could be relied on.

to go...or not to go.

i cannot believe that she abandoned her newborn child in order to rejoin the red army. this is the ultimate sacrifice for the Party.
She clearly struggles with her duty to her regiment and her duty to herself throughout the film. she is restless at the beginning of her stay with the jewish family. Eventually, she seems to become content. she does not want to abandon her regiment, but she has to in order to have the baby. this is a conflict of interest that she never gets over, hence her abandonment of her baby.

i saw more similarities with chapaev that i thought i would. first of all it has the white army winning(or at least being moderately successful). i thought both these movies would have had the red army winning in a romp or at least holding off the charging whites. secondly, the main character is faulted. chapaev had many issues, but his final devotion to the state was his redeeming quality. vavilova also had issues like having the baby of a person we do not meet. her ultimate devotion to the state screams socialist realism. at the end, the party and state win out over self-interest and the individual.

I think the film was prohibited from showing back in the 60s because the natural human instinct is disgust at vavilova's decision. this does not reflect the socialist dream in a positive light. it should not come before basic human needs and responsibilities. the state probably did not want this negative assessment to become the calling card for comrades.

it's a wonderful life....for now

First off, I really liked this film. I thought it was clever and funny, as well as creating likeable characters that still have their flaws. I think a lot of movies create two kinds of characters that are utterly predictable. The protagonist is typically flawless or flawed in ways that they overcome. The antagonist is a despicable character who hardly has any redeeming qualities. This oftentimes creates a bland and boring movie. Sometimes the movie is cute or inspiring, but often it is run of the mill.

The three women we are introduced to at the beginning of the film are definitely different. First we have Katya, a motivated young lady who wants to get into college to study chemistry. Next, Lyudmila, who wants to "get lucky" in Moscow and marry a well to do young professional. Finally we have Antonina, who seems to just want happiness. Katya fails her test to get into college, but comes back determined to pass the test the next time. Her plan stalls when Lyudmila is able to convince her to go along with a scheme to meet prominent young men. I was surprised that Katya went along with this scheme. In most other parts of the movie she seems independent and able to do things on her own, without the help of dishonesty or scheming. The scheme works and even though Katya wants to tell Rudolph about her true position in life, she does not. Rudolph portrayed originally as a man on the rise while still maintaining a healthy family life, turns out to be more interested in the connections Katya could potentially make for him. The relationship falls apart and Katya moves on as a single mother.

The second half of the film shows Katya as a prominent factory director, a true example of her ability to get things done on her own. She has her own apartment and appears to have raised her daughter pretty darn well. Then, we see another surprising insight into Katya's life. She is seeing a married man. Katya, once again, does not live up to her strong Russian woman appearance. She clearly has her flaws in addition to her avid determination. After meeting Gosha, I again thought she appeared weaker than I thought she was. She lets him say chauvinistic things and lets him believe he is going to be the breadwinner. Her modesty was not the surprising part. The surprising part was the willingness she showed to let Gosha yell at her in front of Alexandra and make ultimatums.

Gosha and Katya's romance is believable to me. Katya is not looking for someone else to look after. She needed a man that did not need to be watched or looked after. Gosha shows that he can do pretty well for himself in a multitude of situations. He is a hard working man who does not need to use people (as Rudolph appeared to want to do). I did not expect Katya to let Gosha get away with chauvinist comments, but I think this was to keep quiet her superior status and income.

One of the most intriguing characters is Antonina. She seems to be the largest bit of propaganda in the film. We do not get that much insight into her life, but maybe that is the way she is supposed to be portrayed. She comes to the city looking for happiness. She is not looking for advancement or to latch onto a wealthy family. She looks for happiness and she finds it. She is the only character to stay with her love interest the entire film and is consistently turned to for support. Her husband originally portrayed as rather simple who ultimately turns out to save the day for Katya.

I may be looking too far into the potentially chauvinistic characteristics of this film, but they are there. They may not be the main focus, but I think it is hard to deny they exist.

say what?

After a day of reflection, I still do not know what the heck happened in The Mirror. It seemed like it was a bunch of different memories strung together in an absolutely random way. That is not to say it was not a beautiful film.
Many of the screenshots, if taken as still images, would have been beautiful photographs or paintings. The shots that struck me the most were the shots of people walking either through the trees into the large field, or from the field and into the trees. They were stunning and full of emotion. There were several other shots like this, as the director seemed to focus a lot on what he was putting on camera. It stuck out to me much more than the acting or dialogue.
Once again, this movie made very little sense to me. It reminded me of reading Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. The first part of that book was told by a mentally handicapped man who has several memories that are strung together from his life. This movie seemed to repeatedly flash back to memories and it was very difficult to tell what the plot was. In fact, at least The Sound and the Fury had a plot, even if you had to read it a couple of times to figure it out. I think I would be much better off if I watch the movie several more times. The beauty of the film makes me think it has a valuable story that I need to be enlightened by.

war hurts

i really hoped this movie was going to have a happy ending.
The best part about this movie was its applicability to practically any soldier in world war II. Yes, Alyosha destroyed two tanks, but in reality, it wasn't much more than blind luck. He is just a regular kid fighting in a brutal war. He misses home and would do almost anything to get back there. This is the story of a generation of russian, french, english, german, italian, japanese belgian, american men. i believe the reason this film was so successful overseas was that if you didn't hear russian words being spoken, you could identify with it.

One of the most interesting things about this "war" movie was that it had very little war in it. There was plenty of talk about war and lots of debris, but aside from the bridge being blown up and alyosha blowing up two tanks, war takes a back seat to alyosha's journey home. Instead of touting party ideals as a be all and end all, this movie focuses on the goodness of an individual character. Alyosha's willingness to help others and sacrifice his own self-interest is a noble cause. His determination to get home just to say hi is also very impressive. There is not a focus on "saving the motherland." The questions about the war have mostly to do with the health of a child. Everyone cares about their individual kid as opposed to sacrificing whatever they can for Mother Russia.

I'd place this film in the entertainment section. It has some propaganda in it, but not the way we have traditionally seen it. The director, in my opinion, was condemning war as ruinous to young men with potential. So, it was not propaganda from the Party, but there was a point to be heard loud and clear.

ivan the misunderstood? the clever? the pointy bearded?

I do not think I would have been able to recognize both Battleship and Ivan as Eisenstein films. This is not because they do not have their similarities, but because I am not advanced enough in my film watching to always recognize similar directing styles.
Since i knew that they were directed by Eisenstein, I did notice some similarities. First of all, both movies use zoom effectively. Sometimes it is needed to have a close-up, and both of these films demonstrate that technique well. Other times, the camera needs to give a wide panoramic view, and while this is not a popular shot in Ivan, it can be seen in the final scene.
Another interesting similarity i noticed was the amount of scenes with no actors in them. There were several scenes that began, ended, or stood by themselves without having actors in them. Sometimes there were shadows, but many times it was of the scenery and props.

Eisenstein, in my opinion had a view that was skewed negatively toward ivan the terrible. I believe stalin would have disagreed with me before seeing the second film. the reasons i say it was negative was because as the movie progressed, ivan makes more and more comments about power. He wants it, he wants to strengthen it, and he wants to get it from the people. At the beginning, ivan seems noble in his quest to unite the peoples of russia, but that desire weakens and a type of revenge towards the boyars starts to grow.

burnt by the sun

In this film, being burnt by the sun seems to preclude or coincide with death. This is not always the case though. The burning sun seemed to linger around the dacha for awhile before Kotov is finally taken.

Another interesting theme in this film was the french language. It seemed to be the "cultured" language. Maybe even the capitalist language in a sense. It is used when they talk about how things were. It is used to talk about singing and art. Mitya is presented as not the typical comrade by having spent a long time in Paris and whatnot, and he seems to use French the most, even calling Nadya Nadine repeatedly.

I think this film was made mostly for an international audience. It seemed like it was crying out that there is culture in Russia even after the Soviet Union. That they too could make poignant films that confronted serious political issues. It also could have been directed at the general russian public as a kind of proclamation of these newfound freedoms. While this may have been started with Gorbachev's glasnost, this seems to be a russian comrade breaking free of the bonds of the Soviet regime.

I thought it was very interesting that just three years after the USSR fell, there was already a movie at least partially condemning the previous regime. When studying the Falange and Franco in Spain, we learned that the generation that experienced the oppressive regime of Franco ignored the massive amounts of murders committed by the regime. They still do not recognize the many that went missing or were outright killed during the time. The quick turnaround by the Russians is very interesting and I think it has a lot to do with glasnost and perestroika. this is because the country was already beginning to open up before the USSR fell. People were getting used to the idea and were slowly being able to express opinions contrary to the Party's opinion.

Circus

I was going to place this movie in the entertainment part of the triangle. Then, it ended.
Aside from the early parts of the movie where she flees the United States, it seemed relatively low key politically. All of a sudden it was infused with a whole lot of propaganda all at once, culminating in a parade.

The thing I find interesting about watching these movies with Soviet progaganda is that the promises they deliver are similar to things that our government promises us: happiness, freedom, life, and open minds. Especially in this movie, the acceptance of others is strongly encouraged, similar to our ideas of equality. In reality, both countries at this particular point in time were not very open minded at all. Jim Crow laws still existed in the South and the USSR required passports stating your ethnicity. Once again, the movie was showcasing an ideal situation as opposed to a realistic situation.

Chapaev Response
While watching the film today, I could not believe that one character(Chapaev and in some ways Furmanov) was being glorified above all others. Communism places a lot of emphasis on community and denounces individuality. Chapaev definitely seemed to be glorified for being a little different and inspring his soldiers. By being different, he was being successful. This seemed like something the Soviets would not want to encourage. Finally, at the end of the film everything made sense. Chapaev was killed by the White Army and the Red Army was able to vanguish the White Army without Chapaev's help. The ability of the Red Army to succeed without Chapaev is key because it shows that the cause(communism) extended beyond outstanding individuals and that only through excitement and determination by individuals would the cause be realized.

This combination of individual heroism and the overriding theme of community probably made this film the blockbuster that it was. It was not clearly propaganda, making it palatable for the proletariat. The former proletariat general also contributed to its popularity among the proletariat. The themes of community and the cause being bigger than the invidual made it popular among members of the Party and allowable by the Stalin regime.

Reality TV

The movie today was unbelievably different from anything I think I have ever seen.
One of the first impressions I got was one of a reality tv show. The camera was not following actors, it was showing regular people doing regular things. It was very interesting to get some insight into people's lives during that time.

Another impression I got was one of familiarity. One of my friends got a video camera recently, and some of the creative shots and strange things that were done we did when we were experimenting. It really seemed like the director was trying to show off or test out all the techniques that he could manage to throw together. It was really cool and unbelievably creative. I'd like to know what the director was thinking or what his reflections were after the movie.

I was ultimately surprised that the Soviets allowed this film to be made. I don't remember if it was the book or the packet we read, but it said that the Soviets were very careful about movies that showcased regular people doing regular things. This movie didn't present it in a particularly bad light, but it did present some ideas that were not exactly perfect. I doubt that this film would have been allowed if it were made ten or twenty years later.

Also, the musical score was unbelievably better in this movie. It really accentuated the movie as a whole. It coincided with big events, it captured sadness, triumph, and tension beautifully well. As we talked about in class, it really set up the audience.

Red Rising

After watching the Battleship Potemkin, I am now a communist.

Just kidding. I did, however, think it portrayed its propagandic message loud and clear. What struck me early on was the use of "comrades" and when the intertitles said "dissolved in the mess." It really showed a unified front and the things that could be by embracing communist ideals. The revolutionaries were presented as the good guys.

I thought the use of black and white to identify people as revolutionaries or tsarist was very clever. It made the distinction clear and, if this were being used to send a message, this would be ideal. Not only were the clothes of the tsarists black, but the prayer plate was also black. Needless to say, the priest was also dressed in black. This distinction is lost a little when we see Odessa and when some of the revolutionaries put on their black jackets or some of the petty officers rebel, but it is there nonetheless.

The first thing that I'd like to write about is the shock and amazement generated at seeing your first film. I can't think of the first movie I saw. I think this is because we show movies to babies and toddlers before they are really making memories. I do remember being fascinated by going to the movies, but I cannot imagine being my age and seeing a movie for the first time.


Mayakovsky says that theatre as an art was created by cinema--"until we came along, theatre and cinema, in as far as they were independent, only duplicated life."
Based on my experiences with stage productions, movies, and plays from the past, i disagree. It is an artform to see an actor act on stage. It is distinct from acting in movies(which can also be an artform). The dialogue and written word in plays is also art. Mayakovsky seems to disregard this. I wonder if he also thought that novels, essays, or poetry were also not forms of art. Art is not only seen in visuals but also in words that convey meaning or beauty. Andreyev, in his essay, said that word is a weakness of cinema. I disagree in this matter as well for the same reasons as I disagree with Mayakovsky. It is narrowminded to think you cannot find art in the written or spoken word. It is also incorrect to assume that the spoken word is not distinct on stage than it is in a movie.

"the word is its weakness rather than its strength. the word will merely drive cinema from its unique articstic path and direct it towards the well-trodden, well-rutted and well-worn path of theatre."