Soviet Films of the 1970s and Early 1980s

Conformity and Non-Conformity Amidst Stagnation Decay

Marina Rojavin, Tim Harte, Marina Rojavin, Tim Harte

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000378276
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Film e video

This book explores a new character archetype that permeated Soviet film during what became known as the era of Stagnation, a stark period of loneliness, disappointment, and individual despair. This new type of character was neither negative nor positive, but nevertheless systematically undermined Soviet norms of behaviour, hairstyle, dress, lifestyle, and perspective, in stark contrast to Socialist Realism's traditional, positive hero who fought for Soviet values and who vanquished the enemies of socialism. The book discusses a wide range of films from the period, showing how the new antiheroic archetype of Stagnation resonated through a multitude of characters, mostly male, and vividly reflected the realities of Soviet life. The book thereby provides great insight into the lives, outlook, and psychology of citizens in the late Soviet period.

Part I

Violating norms in Soviet ­serio-comic genres of the Stagnation era

1 Character doubles as a symptom in late Soviet cinema

Alexander Prokhorov and Elena Prokhorova

Throughout 1977, the Soviet filmmaker Leonid Gaidai worked on his film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s play The Inspector General. In what was a conspicuous break with convention, Gaidai used the same actor to play Ivan Khlestakov and the Inspector General himself. Vigilant censors immediately noted that Gaidai’s reading of Russian history, in which the real Inspector General is no better than a rogue, raised some serious questions (in Inkognito 3). Although the censors decided not to clarify these questions, we will try to do so in what follows here. This chapter examines doubling as a subversive device that late Soviet filmmakers used in a variety of ways to reevaluate the social norms of late Soviet culture. We argue here that the duo of hero and antihero, who both vied for the central role in the diegesis of many a Brezhnev-era film, reveals the complexity and heterogeneity of the late socialist society, through which Soviet filmmakers explored the performative nature of social identity. In analyzing doubling, we draw on Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia as the site in the diegetic world of film that represents and contests “all the other real emplacements that can be found within culture” (17). In particular, we focus on the late Soviet blurring of the divide between the hero and the antihero and thus between social norms and their inverse, a blurring that profoundly upset the status quo.

Stalinist and Thaw cinema made sure that the diegesis was always unified and monologic in its ideology. The social norm was clear to viewers, and any deviations from the norm were expunged from the narrative by the film’s end. Next to this socialist-realist uniformity existed modernist literary narratives, which allowed for the existence of multiple worlds, often with a heavy dose of the uncanny in the everyday. Those worlds, however, were separated by impenetrable borders, most famously in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. In contrast, in the late Soviet films we consider here, the worlds exist in close proximity, their borders are porous, and the films’ endings leave space for an alternative outcome. The hero–antihero tandems, moreover, would prove especially prominent in the serio-comic genres of fantasy and comedy, given that lighter genres were not as bound by the ideological straitjacket of the positive hero. These films can be divided into two groups: fantasy films from the late 1960s and early 1970s (King Stag [Korol’ olen’, Pavel Arsenov 1969] and Shadow [Ten’, Nadezhda Kosheverova 1971]) and films set in part or fully in the Soviet present (Ivan Vasil’evich: Back to the Future [Ivan Vasil’evich meniaet professiiu, Leonid Gaidai 1973], Gentlemen of Fortune [Dzhentl’meny udachi, Aleksandr Seryi 1971], and Quid Pro Quo [Ty – mne, ia – tebe, Aleksandr Seryi 1976]). All of these films employ the pairing of hero and antihero to reevaluate the shifting societal norms by which life in the late Soviet Union functioned.

The uses of doubling in the films under discussion here differ somewhat from the place of this device in 19th-century Russian literature. Unlike in romantic and gothic literature, where doubling expresses the anxiety about the stability of a unified self, late Soviet doubling would be closer to Victorian ideological and literary concerns. In novels such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the duality of character points both to psychological complexity and to the contrast between the respectable facade and hidden immorality and vice. The themes of hypocrisy and duplicity certainly hit close to home for a Soviet culture that had recently emerged out of Stalinist terror carefully veiled by utopian rhetoric.¹ The device of doppelgangers would lay bare the social norm lurking just beyond the officially sanctioned version of it. Because of their fantasy settings, fairy tale films were able to comment on such features of Soviet life as conformity, fear, and hypocrisy using Aesopian language. Films set in the present, in contrast, would directly engage with and reveal unacknowledged practices of Soviet life, such as the ubiquity of criminal argot as a common idiom, xenophobia, the second economy, and wide-spread consumerism. The visual and aural pleasures of such films would rely heavily on the temporary suspension of officially sanctioned rules and borders.

Doubling could be found on Soviet screens long before the nation’s socialist society began to stagnate. In Stalinist cinema, the most important ideological duo of “doubles” would be Lenin and Stalin. Evgenii Margolit argues that in this pairing Stalin was the true leader, to whom Lenin passed the button of power: there was the epic, wise, and calm Stalin and the fidgety, garrulous, short, and somewhat comic Lenin.² Simultaneously, the device of doubling as a means for comic confusion arose in post–World War II Soviet cinema. Consider, for instance, Grigorii Aleksandrov’s use of doubling in his 1947 romantic comedy Spring (Vesna). In this film, doubling is combined with the socialist-realist reeducation plot: the female scientist Irina Nikitina meets her identical double—the film star Vera Shatrova—who helps Nikitina soften her “unwomanly” stern behavior to become a true traditional partner in a heteronormative romance. Thaw cinema, meanwhile, first uses the device in fairy tale films for children, most notably Aleksander Rou’s 1963 adaptation of the Vitalii Gubarev literary tale Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (Korolevstvo krivykh zerkal 1951). In this tale and its filmic counterpart, a mischievous tomboy Olia meets her reflection, Ailo, in a magic mirror, when Olia’s upset grandmother tells her that she wishes Olia could see herself through somebody else’s eyes for a moment. Olia and her double travel beyond the looking glass into the world of false reflections, where the ugly seem handsome, the young seem old, and the stupid seem smart. In the spirit of socialist realism, the girl gets reeducated during her journey to the carnivalistic kingdom, after which Olia and her double-reflection—Ailo—merge into a reforged and newly re-unified protagonist.³

Doubling in fantasy films

The end of the Thaw and the return of political repression to Soviet culture triggered a new type of fairy tale film. Instead of the socialist-realist plot and clear address to children as their prime audience, these films turned into parables about a society in crisis and addressed adults, rather than children, as their main target. Several such films, for instance, Kosheverova’s Shadow and Arsenov’s King Stag, use doubling as the key device to comment on the troubled diegetic world of the film: well-intentioned but gullible rulers of the fairy tale kingdom fall prey to the evil schemes of their dark doubles. In Kosheverova’s Shadow, the protagonist, Scholar, dreams up the world of the fairy tale and falls in love with the princess in this dreamt-up world, but forgets that his Shadow can usurp power in the kingdom. Before he can marry the princess and become king, he falls for the lies that his Shadow feeds him. Moreover, the princess proves unworthy of his love and, in fact, betrays him as well.

Kosheverova’s version of Evgenii Shvarts’s Shadow creates a performative world, with the author actively participating in the diegesis, arguing with and testing his own characters and the moral integrity of the world he is creating in front of viewers. The function of the dark double underscores this test. In Shadow, Scholar, who is also the author and the crown prince, remains very calm in the face of the wild and absurd accusations by his Shadow, even as he is led to be decapitated (Oleg Dal’ plays both Scholar and his Shadow). The naïve Scholar expects the princess and the community, who know the truth, to step in and protect the innocent. In the prelude to the main events, however, we get to know representatives of the town’s artistic and political elite. The town’s lead singer, Yuliia Dzhuli (Liudmila Gurchenko), calls them “the real people of the town.” They are all eager to befriend the Scholar, who, they assume, belongs to their circle. When Shadow usurps power and tries to destroy Scholar, they are equally eager to denounce Scholar to preserve their own well-being. Some of the elite feel guilty for betraying Scholar, but the “real people of the town” do not dare to confront the villain. Notably, the motive of doubling is not limited to Scholar and Shadow. The town’s people have dual and even triple identities. For example, the journalist (Andrei Mironov) and the inn-keeper (Vladimir Etush) both work at the town’s pawnshop and are known as the town’s cannibals. Thus, their eagerness to support the pretender and help him destroy Scholar is quite logical, as Scholar’s death will provide sustenance for them. Over a bottle of red wine, they discuss the benefits of a person losing his Shadow because it is then easier to consume him. In this magic kingdom, the notion of “real people” also means real cannibals.

The key moment of the tale is Scholar’s execution, which takes place off-screen, but we witness his double, Shadow, lose his head at the moment of Scholar’s decapitation. And even at this moment both the princess and the courtiers are in denial, thus proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the kingdom is rotten. Before the execution takes place, the court singer performs the song “Don’t Lose Your Head,” which foreshadows the upcoming dramatic event. The song and its performance are sentimental and hypocritical, inappropriate for the tragic event they anticipate. Ironically, Aleksandr Galich, who wrote the lyrics, himself disappeared from the film’s credits.⁴ The girl who loves Scholar, Annunciata (Marina Neyolova), eventually saves him.⁵ Scholar becomes so disappointed in the community and the princess that he simply decides to leave the hopeless kingdom. The kingdom thus remains without a king, and the tale remains without the traditional happy ending.

Hence, fairy tale films, in which doubling plays a major role, became a testing ground for experimenting with identity construction. Instead of the familiar essentialist notion of a character having an immutable personality, these films portray identity as a performative process. Depending on which clothing and makeup an actor wears, he—or she—can perform a radically different persona. Indeed, a performer enacting multiple roles destabilizes the sense of static identity. At first, Shadow separates from Scholar as a phantom and the entire sequence invokes the famous scene from Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) in which Cesare creeps through the streets of the town and enters the bedroom of the young woman Jane. Shadow’s angular movement produces a striking stylistic effect (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 The Shadow (Oleg Dal’) dances through the streets. In Nadezhda Kosheverova’s Shadow. Courtesy of Lenfilm.

It is just a mere Shadow. Later in the film, however, Shadow appears as a corporeal double, a New Guy at the court who successfully insinuates himself into the good graces of the town’s elite and eventually becomes the princess’s fiancé and a pretender to the throne. In several scenes, Shadow and Scholar are even co-present, performing the ethical antitheses of one another (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 The Scholar and his Shadow (both played by Oleg Dal’) presented together. In Nadezhda Kosheverova’s Shadow. Courtesy of Lenfilm.

In King Stag, Pavel Arsenov uses doubling in a more experimental way by loosening the narrative, interspersing the film’s dialogue with song and dance numbers and privileging mise-en-scène, elaborate sets, costumes, and makeup over Soviet-style didactic fairy tale narratives for children (Figure 1.3).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Contributors
• Introduction
• PART I Violating norms in Soviet ­serio-comic genres of the Stagnation era
• PART II Unsettling intergenerational harmony, professional integrity, and moral superiority
• PART III Dualism, conformism, and impotence
• PART IV Auteur films: Through the lens of time, space, and allegory
• Index