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The early years of the twenty-first century have been an exciting transitional period in Russian cinema, as the industry recovered from the crises of the late 1990s and again stepped onto the global stage. During these years four generations, from the late Soviet directors through post-Soviet and New Russian filmmakers to the Russian millennials, have worked in varying visual styles and with diverse narrative strategies, while searching for a new cinematic language. Financing and distribution models have evolved, along with conservative politics driving Ministry of Culture regulation. This reader is intended both for contemporary Russian cinema courses and for modern Russian culture courses that emphasize film. It does not attempt to establish a canon for the period but seeks to provide undergraduate students with an introduction to significant Russian films released between 2005 and 2016 that are also available with English subtitles. The twenty-one essays on individual films provide background information on directors’ careers, detailed analyses of selected films, along with suggested further readings both in English and Russian.
“All the films covered in the volume are discussed competently and with expert knowledge. The chapters follow a template with a general introduction and contextualization, a close reading, and some critical context. … Overall, this is a welcome addition to a range of publications on contemporary cinema. The individual entries are all very competent, and attention has been paid to cater for a student audience through consistent contextual information.” —Sofya Khagi, University of Michigan, Russian Review
Rimgaila Salys is Professor of Russian Studies Emerita at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is a specialist in twentieth-century film, literature, and art, and the author of the catalogue raisonné of Leonid Pasternak’s Russian works (OUP) and a study of the musical comedy films of Grigorii Aleksandrov (Intellect Press and NLO). She is also the editor of a collection on Iurii Olesha’s Envy (Northwestern University Press) and the memoirs of Josephine Pasternak (Slavica). Most recently, she has edited and contributed to the two volume Russian Cinema Reader for Academic Studies Press.
Preface
Introduction: Russian Cinema in the Era of Globalization
Vlad Strukov
Dead Man’s Bluff (Aleksei Balabanov, 2005)
Aleksandr Prokhorov
The Sun (dir. Aleksandr Sokurov, 2005)
Denise J. Youngblood
Cargo 200 (dir. Aleksei Balabanov, 2007)
Anthony Anemone
Mermaid (dir. Anna Melikian, 2007)
Helena Goscilo
Hipsters (dir. Valery Todorovsky, 2008)
Rimgaila Salys
Silent Souls (dir. Aleksei Fedorchenko, 2010)
Imaginary Documents: Inventing Traditions in Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Cinema
Serguey Oushakine
The Smoke of the Fatherland: Body as Territory, Sexuality as Identity in Silent Souls
Tatiana Mikhailova
My Joy (dir. Sergei Loznitsa, 2010)
Justin Wilmes
Elena (dir. Andrei Zviagintsev, 2011)
Andrei Zviagintsev: Unblinking Chronicler of Family Crisis and Human Frailty
Julian Graffy
Crime without Punishment? Andrei Zviagintsev’s Elena between Art Cinema and Social
Drama
Elena Prokhorova
The Target (dir. Aleksandr Zel′dovich, 2011)
Ilya Kukulin
The Horde (dir. Andrei Proshkin, 2012)
Tomhomas Roberts
Short Stories (dir. Mikhail Segal, 2012)
Lost in Translation
Mark Lipovetsky
Tell Me What You Know about Russia?
Liliia Nemchenko
Legend Number 17 (dir. Nikolai Lebedev, 2013)
Greg Dolgopolov
Hard to be a God (dir. Aleksei German, 2013)
God Complex
Anton Dolin
Aleksei German. From Realism to Modernism
Elena Stishova
Leviathan (dir. Andrei Zviagintsev, 2014)
Julian Graffy
The Land of Oz (dir. Vasily Sigarev, 2015)
Liliia Nemchenko
My Good Hans (dir. Aleksandr Mindadze, 2015)
Steve Norris
Paradise (dir. Andrei Konchalovsky, 2016)
Jeremy Hicks
Contributors