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A beneficiary of the pioneering incorporation of sound and synchronicity into cinema, the Hollywood musical became the most popular film genre in America’s thirties and forties. Its eastward migration resulted in a barrage of Polish screen musicals that relied on the country’s famous cabaret stars, while in the Soviet Union it inspired the audience-pleasing kolkhoz musicals of Ivan Pyr’ev and their urban counterpart, directed by Grigorii Aleksandrov. Like Stalin, Slavic moviegoers delectated tuneful melodies, mobile bodies in choreographed dance numbers, colorful costumes, and the notion that “all’s well that ends well.” Yet Slavic versions of the musical elaborated scenarios that differed from the Hollywood model. This volume examines the vagaries of this genre in both countries, from its early instantiations to its contemporary variations almost a century after its dramatic birth.
"This volume will excite scholars looking for novel scholarly work on the history, aesthetics, and culture of the film musical in general and Polish-Russian-Soviet film in particular."
— A. J. DeBlasio, Dickinson College, CHOICE
“In Singing a Different Tune: The Slavic Film Musical in a Transnational Context, Goscilo as editor works the magic that only the best directors can achieve: all her contributors give outstanding performances, covering material from two different countries and multiple time periods while never missing a step. The essays in this volume confirm what Busby Berkeley showed his audiences in Gold Diggers of 1933: tough times can make for great musicals.”
— Eliot Borenstein, Professor & Chair, Russian & Slavic Studies, New York University
Helena Goscilo’s current research resides in the domains of celebrity studies and film: namely, an edited collection titled Starlight and Stargazers: Slavic Screen Celebrities and a monograph on current Polish women film directors, Film's Feisty Femmes: Current Polish Directors. Down the line are a co-written book on the multimedia Anna Karenina and resumption of work on a study of graphics from Stalin to Yeltsin.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One—Polish Musical Films
1. Early Polish Language Musicals: The Tug of War between Genre Film and Cabaret
Beth Holmgren
2. Between the Market and the Mirror: Stanisław Bareja’s Marriage of Convenience
Helena Goscilo
3. Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War: Music, Space, and Identity
Elżbieta Ostrowska
4. The Allure of Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s Lure (2015) as an Intrepid Feminist Hybrid
Helena Goscilo
Part Two—Russian Musical Films
5. Perplexing Popularity: Ivan Pyr′ev’s Kolkhoz Musical Comedy Films
Rimgaila Salys
6. The Thaw as Carnival: Soviet Musical Comedy after Stalin
Lilya Kaganovsky
7. Constructing the Pop Diva: Alla Pugacheva, Sofia Rotaru, and the Celebrity Musical of the 1970s–1980s
Alexander Prokhorov and Elena Prokhorov
8. Postmodernity, Freedom, and Authenticity in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Leto (2018)
Justin Wilmes
Filmography