Soviet Film: The 1950

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Soviet Film The 1950s and the 1980s
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Cinema in the 1950s

• 1951 saw low output in overall production
• 8 movies produced in that year
• Low amounts, didnt mean high quality
• Nineteenth CPSU Congress passed resolutions to
  increase film productions
• 1953 20
• 1954 54
• 1955 - 66
• Notable Movies
• Taras Shevchenko, Belinsky, Test of Fidelity,
  There Came a Soldier from the Front

Film Poster for Taras Shevenchenko
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The Cranes are Flying

• Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov in 1957
• Script was based on the play Eternally Allive
• Story about guilt and atonement rather glorious
  exploits of the characters
• Explored the use of perputual motion shots

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Ballad of a Soldier

• Screen play written by Valentin Yezhov
• Directed by Girgori Chukhrai
• ..could have become a good father and a
  wonderful citizen. He could have grown wheat and
  adorned the earth with gardens. But all he
  managed in his short life was to become a soldier

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Destiny of a Man

• Directed by Sergei Bondarchuk
• Based on the short story by Mikhail Sholokhov
• Very taboo, talked about prisoners of war

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Soviet Cinema in the 1980s

• Gorbachevs Policy of Glasnost opened a whole new
  opportunity for films
• Many films finally released including
• End of censorship in 1990

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The Commissar

• Directed by Alexander Askoldovin 1967
• Not allowed to be shown until the 1980s
• Focuses on the individual and not the greater
  cause
• Showed how the revolution could corrupt even the
  most innocent

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Repentance

• Directed by Tenghiz in 1984 and released in 1987
• Described abuses during Stalin period
• Extremely popular both in Russia and abroad
• Caused heated debates and analysis of the time
  period

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Musicals

• Not very popular and widespread
• Only 14 musicals made after 1950 in all the
  Soviet bloc countries, including West Germany,
  Poland, Hungary, Rumania and the USSR
• Most famous musical is the 1937 classic Volga
  Volga

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The Greatest Influence on Soviet Film