Admission requirements
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Description
Historical films and period films are extremely important in shaping popular perceptions of the past. Even if the genre tends to arouse suspicion among professional historians because of the “oversimplified” way in which it treats its subject matter, it cannot be denied that it is through film, rather than through solid scholarly writing that most people engage with history at all.
The implications of this preference for film over serious historiography were not lost on such pioneers of world cinema as D.W. Griffith (Birth of a Nation, 1915) and Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potiomkin, 1925), whose successful, but highly tendentious films can be regarded as paradigmatic for the historical film as such. Although we have come to value these films as innovative works of art, their underlying purport to present a coherent and all-encompassing view of “how it all happened” is more than obvious. It is precisely this suggestion of “totality” and immediacy which makes historical films such a gold mine for anyone interested in the cultural context in which these films were produced.
The first part of this course is devoted to genre theory and the historical film of the Soviet period. Is there an essential difference between historical films and historical novels? Is historical cinema really about the past or rather about legitimizing the present? What particular periods and subjects did Russian film makers address under Stalin, during the Thaw and the “long 1970s”? To answer these questions we will watch and discuss a number of films by Sergei Eisenstein, Grigorii Chukhrai, Mikhail Kalotozov, Mikhail Romm and Elem Klimov.
In the second part of the course we turn to post-Soviet films that deal with the Soviet past and the last years of the tsarist regime. In other words, how do Russian film makers confront Russia’s twentieth-century after the Soviet Union was dissolved? It is often assumed that Russians long back for the stability and the military power of the Soviet empire, but is nostalgia really the prevailing sentiment in Russian cinema after 1991? Can we not discern significant fluctuations in the nostalgic/ anti-nostalgic treatment of the Soviet past? Finally and more fundamentally, how does the ideological configuration of today’s Russia play out in films that deal with particularly sensitive topics such as the Civil War and WWII? We will explore post-Soviet historical cinema by watching some recent films by Aleksei Balabanov, Karen Shakhnazarov, Andrei Kravchuk and Nikita Mikhalkov.
Course Objectives
To acquire specialized knowledge of the genre of the Russian historical film, specifically of its development since the late-Soviet period;
To gain a deeper understanding of the theoretical problems involved in engaging with history through film (as opposed to other relevant media such as historical novels and scholarly research);
To become better film viewers.
Timetable
Mode of instruction
In general, we watch and discuss one film per week. The discussion will also address the critical literature in the (electronic) reader. The more accesible films will be watched at home, experimental (“art-house”) films will be watched in class.
Assessment method
Paper and presentation
Blackboard
Yes: Blackboard.
Reading list
To be announced
Contact information
Dr. O.F. Boele
Tel. 071-527 2085
Remarks
Language
Knowledge of the Russian language is not required. Reading material is in English, all the films have English or Dutch subtitles.