The first presentation of film in Russia was made in May 4, 1896 by Francis Doublier at Aquarium Theatre in St. Petersburg. A Lumiere camera and films were used.
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The first film produced in Russia Cossack Trick Riders in 1896.
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The first feature film over 1 hour was Signal in 1918.
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The first 'talkie' in was the Earth Thirsts in 1930.
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The first color film was Nightingale, Little Nightingale in 1936.
I have nothing on my film pages about Russian cinema after the fall of communism.
Russia On Reels : The Russian Idea in Post-Soviet Cinema * This is the first book to deal exclusively with Russian cinema of the 1990s. It introduces readers to the currents and common interests of contemporary Russian cinema, offers close studies of the work of filmmakers like Sokurov, Muratova and Astrakhan, reviews the Russian film industry in a period of massive economic transformation, and assesses cinema’s function as a definer of Russia’s new identity.
Cinema and Soviet Society : From the Revolution to the Death of Stalin (KINO - The Russian Cinema) * The story of Soviet film in the period covered by Peter Kenez is central to the history of world cinema. The author explores the roots of Soviet cinema in the film heritage of pre-Revolutionary Russia; the changes in content, style, technical means, and production capacities generated by the Revolution of 1917; the constraints on form and subject imposed from the 1930s in the name of Socialist Realism; the relative freedom of expression accorded to film-makers during World War Two; and the extraordinary repression during the final years of the Stalin era.
The Mirror (1974) - English subtitles Tarkovsky : This most personal of Tarkovsky's intensely personal body of work is essentially biographical, but no self-respecting member of the Russian intelligentsia, at least not one of Tarkovsky's disposition, could ever justify such a self-indulgence as mere biography. Consequently, we never see the protagonist, save for his hand when he is ill and overhearing his voice. This erasure of his adult self, and the inclusion of newsreel footage of key historical moments during the protagonist's life, aim at creating a generalized biography for all of Russia. An especially striking moment shows news footage of Russian soldiers slogging muddily through a bog. As soon as one has the full impression that this is human life in a thoroughly degraded condition, a voiceover of one of Tarkovsky's father's poems talks of immortality, sublime beauty, the very loftiest of human sentiments on spirituality. The contrast is deliberate, but not ironic, and illustrates a triumph of the human spirit in even the most unlikely of places and times. Elsewhere, Tarkovsky makes a religion of elevating the mundane. In his book on his work, he admits that one of his techniques (he denies there is anything symbolic in his work) is to focus on an object for so long that the viewer inevitably begins to wonder at, and thereby increase the significance of it.
Stalker Tarkovsky: This science fiction milestone from director Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris) takes you into the Zone, a mysterious, guarded realm containing a mystical Room in which occupants' secret dreams come true. Stalker, a man able to lead others to this holy grail, escorts a writer and a scientist through this foreboding territory and confronts several unexpected challenges along the way. Based on the novel "Roadside Picnic" by Russian sci-fi writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Andrey Tarkovsky: Sculpting in Time : Reflections on the Cinema Paperback: 254 pages *
Publisher: University of Texas Press; Reprint edition (April 1, 1989)
The idea behind the title of the book is that the film-goer goes to the cinema to experience time, and that the director's job is to sculpt the time that the audience experiences-- cut away the inessential words and seconds and pieces. This book is an introduction to the rules that Tarkovsky set for himself in achieving this goal.
Part II: POLITICS & POETICS of CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN CINEMA
This page can't cover variety of thematic and stylistic film movements, as well as genres in the history of Soviet/Russian filmmaking. Most of my time is devoted to Tarkovsky (See also Mirror, lost page). Theory -- Eisenstein on Montage
Historical Overview
Beginning from Khruschev's "thaw" and cultural revival in the early 60's, came the innovative film trends - from the breakthrough of the "sixtnieks" generation to the Aesopian parables or bitter historical truth of fictional accounts in the 70's and the emergence of the new postmodernist directors after the collapse of the Soviet Union. [Also, the structure of the state-controlled film industry, aesthetic theories developed by the filmmakers themselves against the background of the political context of this period.]
I Worked for Stalin, Semeon Aranovich's documentary is a brilliant assembly of eyewitness testimony and rare archival photographs and materials. the film records the Machiavellian power plays between Zhdanov, Andreyev, Khrushchev, Malenkov, Suslov and Molotov as they maneuvered for power and prestige to gain the inside track of becoming Stalin's successor. The film is a chilling record of the inner workings of an authoritarian state. Russian with English subtitles.
~VHS: S18686. $29.95. ISBN: 1-56580-054-0 UPC: 7-36899-18686-9 Semeon Aranovich USSR 1990 67 mins.
People's Gala Concert, A landmark documentary about paranoia, fear, ambition and cover up, director Semeon Aranovich explores the roots of Russian anti-Semitism during the bloody and destructive reign of Stalin's final years, set around the murder of the brilliant actor, Solomon Mikhoels and the case of a leading group of the doctors charged with attempting to poison Stalin. Aranovich draws on archival footage and interviews with survivors and their descendants to relate this brutal, terrifying and fascinating tale. Russian with English subtitles. ~VHS: S15824. $79.95. ISBN: 1-56580-005-2 UPC: 7-36899-15824-8 Semeon Aranovich Russia 1991 143 mins.
Interpretation of Dreams Twentieth-century Russia is the less than willing subject of this close psychoanalytic interpretation, inspired by Freud's book of the same name. Archival and newsreel footage, together with commentary employing the psychoanalytic method, offer great insights which clarify such cataclysmic events as the rise of Stalin and the Cold War. This acclaimed film has been called "truly magical and extraordinary..." and "an astonishing marriage of Freudian thinking and history." Russian with English subtitles. ~VHS: S21132. $29.95. ISBN: 1-56580-037-0 UPC: 7-36899-21132-5 Andrei Zagdansky Russia 1994 50 mins.
I have to make a page "Parajanov" [ rat.vtheatre.net/film ? ]
The New Russian Cinema
Christina Stojanova 1998 + 2005 [ kinema.uwaterloo.ca ] : "The serene middle ground between the auteur and the popular cinema is unquestionably a comfortable (and lucrative) alternative to the artistic challenges of the "high" art and the political and social controversies of the "low" genres."
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