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.
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About the Author
Peter Kenez is Professor of History at University of California at Santa Cruz.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Essential Book on Soviet Cinema,
By
This review is from: Cinema and Soviet Society: From the Revolution to the Death of Stalin (Kino - the Russian Cinema) (Paperback)
Anyone who wants to understand the movies of the Soviet Union should start with this book. It is very thorough and written in a lively, bright style that is free of academic jargon.Kenez begins with the pre-Revolutionary film industry and shows how it broke down and was built back up by the Soviets. He pays equal attention to the "high art" films that were famous in the West for decades (those of Eisenstein and Pudovkin) and the entertainment films that attracted the average Soviet citizen (such as the musical comedies of the 1930s, like "Volga-Volga.") He shows how Soviet movies responded to the imposition of Socialist Realism, World War II, and the cultural freeze of the late Stalin era. The only problem with this book is that it is TOO SHORT. Upon reaching the end, the reader wants to see Kenez tackle the films of the Khrushchev Thaw and the Brezhnev era. However, one should be thankful for what one has, and in this volume, one has a truly indispensible book.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
This book is about film, made in a country that described itself as 'revolutionary', and it is about propaganda. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
movable projectors, lskusstvo kino, socialist realist film, sovetskogo kino, istorii kino, artistic documentaries, raw film, socialist realist art, film organizations, film factory, revolutionary films, peasant audiences, film propaganda, patriotic films, positive hero, prominent directors, realist films, artistic experimentation Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Soviet Union, World War, New York, Civil War, Red Army, Central Committee, Richard Taylor, Ivan the Terrible, United States, Bezhin Meadow, Cambridge University Press, Soviet Russia, The Battleship Potemkin, Comrade Stalin, Reaching the People, The Films of the Golden Age, Great Life, Admiral Nakhimov, Cinema Before October, Film Hunger, Jay Leyda, The Gay Canary, The Nadir, University of California Press, Alexander Nevsky New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
This book is about film, made in a country that described itself as 'revolutionary', and it is about propaganda. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
movable projectors, lskusstvo kino, socialist realist film, sovetskogo kino, istorii kino, artistic documentaries, raw film, socialist realist art, film organizations, film factory, revolutionary films, peasant audiences, film propaganda, patriotic films, positive hero, prominent directors, realist films, artistic experimentation Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Soviet Union, World War, New York, Civil War, Red Army, Central Committee, Richard Taylor, Ivan the Terrible, United States, Bezhin Meadow, Cambridge University Press, Soviet Russia, The Battleship Potemkin, Comrade Stalin, Reaching the People, The Films of the Golden Age, Great Life, Admiral Nakhimov, Cinema Before October, Film Hunger, Jay Leyda, The Gay Canary, The Nadir, University of California Press, Alexander Nevsky New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 58
books:
See all 58 books this book cites
4
books
cite this book:
- Ivan the Terrible (Pts. 1-3) by Sergei Eisenstein on 13 pages
- The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896-1939 (Soviet Cinema S.) by Ian Christie on 8 pages
- Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein on 8 pages
- Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film by Jay Leyda on 5 pages
- The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema by Anna Lawton on 4 pages
See all 58 books this book cites
- Traditions in World Cinema by Linda Badley on page 114
- The Cinema of Eisenstein by David Bordwell in Front Matter
- Savage Junctures: Sergei Eisenstein and the Shape of Thinking (KINO - The Russian Cinema) by Anne Nesbet in Front Matter
- Vsevolod Pudovkin: Classic Films of the Soviet Avant-Garde (Kino--the Russian Cinema) by Amy Sargeant in Front Matter
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