Recommend me some Soviet films!

[Diello]

I've already seen:

The Battleship Potemkin
October: Ten Days That Shook the World
Alexander Nevsky
Solaris
Come And See

Oh, and Aelita: Queen of Mars as well.

[Volcanicity]

Eisenstein's film Strike is pretty good it's on Youtube.

[Vampire Lobster]

Aelita, absolutely. 1924 silent film about some brave Red Army fellows getting involved with a socialist revolution in Mars. If overblown camp and men dressed in cardboard boxes happens to be your thing.

edit: oh you've seen it already :/ didn't see that one there. well other people you, go watch it!

[Arlekino]

The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed
Seventeen Moments of Spring'
You can find on youtube with English subtitles.

[Rakhmetov]

Oktober

I like the fact that Lenin disguised himself pretending he was nursing a toothache with a cloth around his face. That had a touch of genius. http://www.revleft.com/vb/oktober-entire-film-t144883/revleft/smilies2/laugh.gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzm7YvrZB9M (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzm7YvrZB9M)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyqFx29zc0M (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyqFx29zc0M)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz5CG69UrrU (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz5CG69UrrU)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUoPkZU1VYc (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUoPkZU1VYc)

[Diello]

edit: oh you've seen it already :/ didn't see that one there. well other people you, go watch it!

I added it late; for some reason it slipped my mind, despite all those very memorable art-deco headdresses.

"I was out of my mind when I shot at you. I'm so glad I missed!"

[KC]

If you're going to watch Eisenstein's Stachka! (Strike!) I would highly recommend getting the Alloy Orchestra version of it. It's absolutely incredible.

[redSHARP]

soviet animation propaganda is always fun to watch

[L.A.P.]

I always hear that films from the Soviet union sucked which kind of fueled the whole socialist state vs. capitalist state, look how much better the films are from the capitalist one. Is that true? Surely there has to be some good films that come form the Soviet Union.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Try watching some osterns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostern).

[shaderabbit85]

None of these films were super-political as far as I'm concerned, a little bit of class-struggle, a little bit of anti-war/futility of war. I may be full of shit, but IMHO the first two stack up (with regards to content, "special effects" are a little lacking) there with Platoon, Thin Red Line, Full Metal Jacket, etc. I'm not much of a film critic, but here it goes....

B Grade, Almost A Grade:
The Red and the White
Come and See

B Grade:
Two Comrades Were Serving

C Grade:
Ivan's Childhood
The Commissar

[Arlekino]

I got few Soviet DVD which including The Comisar, and others left wing films, but I am not that good on Technical skills how to put on youtube and somebody has to translate in English subtitles. I would glad to upload online if somebody know how to translate, please private me about any advice.
Thanks

[Sam_b]

How are we defining Soviet here? From the state itself or the intention of films?

In my opinion most Tarkovsky films are remarkable, and I highly reccommend 1975's 'Mirror' as well as 79's 'Stalker' which is my favourite Russian film of all time. Mirror and Stalker make interesting discussion points about Tarkovsky's take on montage (which is the big thing in Potemkin for sure) and contrasting it with some of his famous 'long takes' used to build the sense of suspense and unknown. The camera work is shockingly good if you're into films for their artistic nature as the man himself was.

[Salyut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE

Some Soviet animation for you.

[freepalestine]

soy cuba

[Diello]

How are we defining Soviet here? From the state itself or the intention of films?

I was thinking "from the state itself" when I made the posting, though really any film that could be reasonably defined as "Soviet" would interest me.

[Sam_b]

There's some fascinating reading on the Soviet film industry and the processes which came out of it: I can try and find a few sources for you or if you were interested I have a few films analysing some of the features here including Potemkin if I remember correctly.

If you get into this area it's worthwhile seeing the evolution from the silent era onwards: Russia was one of the leading countries in my opinion which pioneered techniques of the silent era, onto the visualisations of Socialist Realism on screen, and to films which pushed the boundaries while trying to overcome censorship offices and portray a portarait of what they regarded as society at the time (as mentioned before, Tarkovsky's Mirror is great for this).

You may also want to see Mikhalkov's 'Burnt by the Sun' from 1994, which incidentally took the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards that year. Of course it's politically motivated, and deals with years of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and bureaucracy, but I think it's interesting none the less.

[Diello]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE

Some Soviet animation for you.

That was quite interesting. A unique style of animation (at least to my limited experience with non-American animated media).

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

How are we defining Soviet here? From the state itself or the intention of films?

In my opinion most Tarkovsky films are remarkable, and I highly reccommend 1975's 'Mirror' as well as 79's 'Stalker' which is my favourite Russian film of all time. Mirror and Stalker make interesting discussion points about Tarkovsky's take on montage (which is the big thing in Potemkin for sure) and contrasting it with some of his famous 'long takes' used to build the sense of suspense and unknown. The camera work is shockingly good if you're into films for their artistic nature as the man himself was.
This.

Mirror was more profound to me than any textbook or factual piece on the Soviet Union. It is a fantastic social commentary.

As for Stalker, it just blew me away, it is one of the most wonderful films I've ever seen, and is probably one of my favourite sci-fi films of all time.

[Kléber]

If anyone is really into Soviet films and/or wants to track down something hard-to-get, send me a private message.

The best Soviet movies like Potemkin were made in the 1920's, when there was still artistic and political freedom, before the triumph of the bureaucracy and the imposition of strict censorship in line with the official style of "Socialist Realism."

The best Socialist Realist movie is Faraon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTVIxsbpQk), which was a Polish, not Soviet production. It's loosely based on the story of Tutankhamun as understood back then.

One of the first "anti-Stalinist" movies released in the USSR, which still followed the artistic guidelines of Socialist Realism, is Clear Skies (no subtitles sorry) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmoU9_MmCA), which is alright. It's about a heroic pilot who is repressed under Stalin and then has to struggle to clear his name.

The best piece of Soviet animation is The Conflict (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wImBk5PO9GQ).

[Os Cangaceiros]

Perhaps you'd also be interested in Viy (1967) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062453/), the first Russian horror film.

[Kléber]

If anyone is really into Soviet films and/or wants to track down something hard-to-get, send me a private message.

The best Soviet movies like Potemkin were made in the 1920's, when there was still artistic and political freedom, before the bureaucracy triumphed and imposed its strict, traditionalist artistic guidelines and censorship called "Socialist Realism."

The best Socialist Realist movie is Faraon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTVIxsbpQk), which was a Polish, not Soviet production. It's loosely based on the story of Tutankhamun as understood back then.

One of the first "anti-Stalinist" movies released in the USSR, which still followed the artistic guidelines of Socialist Realism, is Clear Skies (no subtitles sorry) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmoU9_MmCA), which is alright. It's about a heroic pilot who gets repressed after the war and then has to struggle to clear his name.

The best piece of Soviet animation is The Conflict (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wImBk5PO9GQ).

[milk]

1950s and 60s Soviet cinema is my bag. The Thaw period, or Khrushchevskaya ottepel. One of the best periods for films from the USSR.

It's dated of course, and unintentionally kitsch, blatant propaganda, but there is Soy Kuba (I am Cuba (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058604/)) by Mikhail Kalatozov. The scene where the Communist students petrol bomb the drive-in cinema looks great, Batista's image going up in flames on the big screen.

Kalatozov is a master of making cheese look simply breath-taking.

Check this out from Letyat Zhruravli (The Cranes are Flying):

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[milk]

Even though they're split into several parts, a fair few films from the Thaw period are available to watch on YouTube, albeit, some of them without English subtitles.

Here's a list, with video.

Catch them before they get removed!

Firstly, the one I posted up before:

The Cranes are Flying (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050634/) (1957)

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Ballad of a Solider (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052600/) (1959)

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Clear Skies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053712/) (1960)

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The above two are from Grigory Chukhrai, and as Kleber noted earlier, Chistoe Nebo was among the first of the anti-Stalinist films to emerge, attacking the cult of perosnality, although sticking to the artistic forms of Socialist Realism. Also worth getting hold of is his Russian Civil War film The Forty-First (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049783/) too.


And, also:


I Step Through Moscow (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057694/) (1964)

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Welcome, or No Trepassing (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058022/) (1964)

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This was made by Elem Klimov, known more so for his war film Idi i Smotri (Come and See (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091251/)).

There are plenty more, but I hope you enjoy the above, find them of interest.

[Podeba]

Some of the best movies ever made are from the Maksim trilogy. They show the evolution of a young working-class lad into a professional revolutionary and later a commissar in the Government of the Soviet Republic. The righteousness of the revolutionary struggle and the discipline and moral purity of its participants are highlighted.

The Youth of Maksim - In 1910, a revolutionary underground group spreads leaflets featuring anti-tsarist slogans. Maksim, a young, happy-go-lucky worker and his comrades help the teacher Natasha, who is engaged in illegal activities in the factory, hide from the police. Maksim's friend Andrei and another worker lose their lives. Their funeral turns into a huge demonstration which is suppressed by the police. Numerous people are arrested, among them Maksim, who subsequently becomes Social Democratic activist.
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Return of Maksim - In July 1914, the Bolsheviks and Mensehviks compete for representation of the working-class in the Duma. Maksim, who just returned from exile, calls the workers to strike as a protest against the firing of six of their colleagues. The traitor Platon Dymba assaults Maksim, wounding him severely. When the strike unfolds the workers demonstrate by the thousands, the news of the outbreak of World War I suddenly arrives. Maksim gets drafted.
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The Vyborg Side - Following the Russian Revolution, Maksim is appointed state commissar in charge of the national bank. With great efforts, he learns the complexies of the banking trade and begins to fight off sabotaging underlings. Dymba, now a violent enemy of the Republic, tries to rob a wine store but is arrested with Maksim's help. Maksim also exposes a conspiracy of a group of tsarist officers who prepare an attempt against Lenin. He then join the Red Army in its fight against the German occupation.
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[Long Dong Silver]

White Sun Of The Desert for sure. It's become somewhat of a cult classic over in russia. I'd also recommend At Home Among Strangers and any of the Red Westerns. Also, Kozara is an epic film detailing the Yugoslav resistances daring battle at Kozara in Bosnia. Not a soviet film per se, but still fitting with the whole theme of it

[Podeba]

Other brilliant movies from Russia include:

Man With a Rifle - About the first days of the Soviet Republic. It is focused on the soldier Ivan Shadrin, a former peasant, who gets actively involved in the revolutionary struggle.
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Shchors - About the legendary military commander from Ukraine. Sort like a Ukrainian Chapaev.

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We are From Kronstadt - About the heroic sailors' defense of the Revolution from Yudenich's aggression in 1919
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Optimistic Tragedy - Revolves around the virtuous Kronstadt sailors. About a young woman-commissar at one of the fronts during the Civil War. About strength of mind, courage and will.
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Quiet Flows the Don - Adapted from Sholokhov's epic about the Revolution
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Pavel Korchagin - Based on Ostrovsky's novel, about the socialist hero Korchagin.
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Hostile Whirlwinds - Film about the life of the great revolutionary warrior F. Dzerzhinsky during the years of the Civil War
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Young Guard - Based on the famous novel about the struggle of Russian youngsters against the fascist hordes.
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[Podeba]

Continued:

Thirteen - About the struggle of the Russian people against the bloodthirsty Basmachi gangs' rampage of 1918-22.
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Childhood of Gorky - Part of the trilogy about the life of Maksim Gorky, one of the greatest writers ever.
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Groza nad Beloy - About an episode of the Civil War, focusing on the forces of the brilliant military leader M. Frunze.
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Stories About Lenin - One of over a dozen films about the life of the immortal V.I. Lenin. Split into two parts, covering the summer of 1917 and 1923-24.
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Communist - Vassily Gubanov is a young communist who arrives at a construction site after the Civil War. he leads the struggle against speculators, etc. He falls in love with a married woman.
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[Podeba]

Finally, there is an excellent TV miniseries from the 1980s focusing on the activities of the Soviet border guards against enemies of the people. It spans the period from 1917 into well after the post-war period. Historical subjects covered by the series include the Revolution, Civil War, the Great Patriotic War, and post-war struggles against fascist bandits in western Ukraine and Baltic region.

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[milk]

There is also Andrei Konchalovksy’s 1965 film adaptation of Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel The First Teacher, set in the Central Asian SSR, Kyrgyzstan.

A goofy and Bolshevised Red Army soldier, demobilised after the Communist victory in the Russian Civil War, and with his habit of enthusiastically repeating revolutionary maxims, spends a lot of the time getting laughed at and dismssed by Kyrgyz villagers who view what he says as being irrelevant to their lives.

A few years before he made Pervyy uchitel (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059585/), Konchalvosky, while uncredited in helping with the writing, once played a bit part in his friend Andrei Tarkovsky’s war film Ivan’s Childhood (he very briefly played a geeky bespectacled soldier trying to win the affections of an army nurse, with her also being pursued by a lecherous captain).

Anyway, here's The First Teacher (no English subtitles unfortunately):

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[milk]

Ah, here we go, Ivanovo detstvo, or Ivan's Childhood (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056111/) (1962).

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[milk]

About three years ago, I uploaded that wonderful scene mentioned earlier, in Ivan's Childhood, to YouTube. Featuring the lovely Valentina Malyavina, (the nurse, Masha), Valentin Zubkov (the lecherous Captain Kholin), and the nerdy, uncredited Konchalovsky. He appears about six minutes into it.

Fantastic stuff.

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[milk]

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1936/valentinamalyavina.jpg


http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/238/fotogramadelainfanciade.png

[Podeba]

The best Soviet movies like Potemkin were made in the 1920's, when there was still artistic and political freedom,
The best Soviet movies were made in the 1930s, the decade when sound movies began in Russia, up to the beginning of the 1960s. The basic technology of sound alone helps 1930s Russian cinema exceed the movies of the 1920s.

For example, while Pudovkin's 1926 silent version of Gorky's "Mother" was a great film for its time, it would simply be untenable to argue that it was a better film than Mark Donskoy's 1955 version of the same novel.

Potemkin, although a historically important film, is still vastly over-praised by western bourgeois film critics. It is formalist, avant-garde mishmash. Eisenstein, realizing that formalist trends do not meet the needs of a socialist society, later went on to make a socialist realist masterpiece in Alexander Nevsky. Russian filmmakers in accordance with the desires of the people decided that films must connect to the audience on a personal level shown with a natural, realist style.

before the triumph of the bureaucracy and the imposition of strict censorship in line with the official style of "Socialist Realism."Absolute rubbish.

[milk]

Not rubbish at all. It was prior to the rise of Stalinism, and then limited attempts at reforming the political system (or de-Stalinisation) in the mid 1950's, which saw some of the best films ever produced in the USSR. It is films from that brief period of partial reform and cultural freedom (from the mid-1950s till the mid-1960s), that I have embedded in the above posts. Some shining examples of that short period.

And those films aren't elitist either, I've included Tarkovksy's most accessible film (his proper debut, although he took it over from someone else). A fair few of the really good ones were set during the Great Patriotic War (war being a genre that the Soviet filmmakers made waves), and are shown above. Films like The Cranes are Flying not only used avant-garde film techniques, rediscovered, but also new innovations from the West. They were hugely popular with Soviet audiences, ordinary people, and which made a great impact upon them, as it was a period in which they could actually see films and relate to individual people on screen, characters that actually reflected their lives and experiences, instead of the stilted heroics demanded by Stalinism.

[milk]

Veronika's (Tatiana Samoilova) suicide run, about 3:55 into the below clip, is a good example of Kalatozov's work.

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[Podeba]

Not rubbish at all. It was prior to the rise of Stalinism, and then limited attempts at reforming the political system (or de-Stalinisation) in the mid 1950's, which saw some of the best films ever produced in the USSR.
I don't really see how in ca. 1955-65 Soviet cinema deviates significantly from the socialist realist standards established in the 1930s with films like Chapaev and the aforementioned Maksim trilogy. If anything, big changes occurred in Soviet cinema in the 1970s when movies showed a more pronounced influence from American cinema, particularly with the whole Soviet western genre. The films I embedded above span the 1930s-70s, and I see in them a remarkable continuity.

Concerning the influence of "Stalinism" in Soviet cinema, except for the handful of movies focusing on Stalin's cult in the early 1950s such as "Fall of Berlin" and "Unforgettable 1919", there really is not strong evidence of political manipulation of the films. Russian film directors wrote and produced their own material.



Films like The Cranes are Flying not only used avant-garde film techniques, rediscovered, but also new innovations from the West. They were hugely popular with Soviet audiences, ordinary people, and which made a great impact upon them, as it was a period in which they could actually see films and relate to individual people on screen, characters that actually reflected their lives and experiences,

I don't disagree with you. You have named some top-quality films.


instead of the stilted heroics demanded by Stalinism.
Cinema of the 1930s-1950s, which you arbitrarily call "Stalinism" was by no means monolithic. Russian cinema from this period included light-hearted and romantic comedies set in what was then present-day Russia such as Volga-Volga, By the Bluest of Seas, etc. There were also adaptations of literary classics (Gorky trilogy) and historical films about national heroes (Khmelnitsky and Minin & Pozharsky). Crudely stereotyping Soviet movies from this period as though they resembled propaganda like "Fall of Berlin" is unhelpful.

An outstanding Russian comedy is Barnet's By the Bluest of Seas (1936)

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[Podeba]

Not rubbish at all. It was prior to the rise of Stalinism, and then limited attempts at reforming the political system (or de-Stalinisation) in the mid 1950's, which saw some of the best films ever produced in the USSR. It is films from that brief period of partial reform and cultural freedom (from the mid-1950s till the mid-1960s), that I have embedded in the above posts. Some shining examples of that short period. Plus, many of Russia's top filmmakers worked in cinema for a very long time. S. Gerasimov (Young Guard, Quiet Flows the Don) made his first movie in the 1930s and continued until his death in the 1980s. S. Yutkevich started out in the 1920s and made his final film Lenin in Paris in 1981. Kozintsev, director of the famous film versions of Shakespeare's plays, made more avant-garde silent films in the 1920s. The style and content of their work did not make a complete turnaround just because of the de-Stalinization process. Rather, there was considerable continuity as they made more movies.

[milk]

Thanks for the considered responses, but the new generation of film-makers such as Kalatozov, Chukhrai, Klimov, Tarkovsky, Shepitko et al, were not carrying on a mere continuation of the artisic dictates of the Stalinist era, but at times also borrowed from the long-dormant innovations of the earlier avant-garde, as well as borrowing from the innovations from the West. That the Thaw gave them any freedom to pursue other forms, however limited, for that brief time, allowed them to break new ground while cutting their teeth.

[Diello]

It's dated of course, and unintentionally kitsch, blatant propaganda, but there is Soy Kuba

Can't be any worse than Red Dawn.

[Rakhmetov]

Someone on this thread mentioned Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba in English)

This scene has been called one of the best tracking shots of all cinema

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eOCajj3fY4

[Podeba]

I know of a dozen or so films about the life of the great V.I. Lenin

Stories About Lenin (1955)- First part of Yutkevich's trilogy on Lenin. The first part of the film is related to events in 1917, when Lenin was hiding in Finland. The second part takes place in 1923-24 during the last months of his life in the village of Gorky.

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Lenin in Poland (1966) - Second part of Yutkevich's trilogy. About Lenin's exile in Austrian Poland (1912-14).
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Lenin in Paris (1981) - About Lenin's exile in Paris (1908-12).
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A Mother's Heart (1965) - About the life of V.I. Lenin during his days in Simbirsk, Kazan, and Samara (1884-90). Focuses on his mother
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A Mother's Fidelity (1967) - Set in 1900-1917, emphasizes the devotion of Lenin's saintly mother.
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Nadezhda (1970)- Focuses on Lenin's wife Nadezhda.
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[milk]

Can't be any worse than Red Dawn.

Different film entirely!

[Diello]

I just saw Strike, and I have to say-- best capitalists EVER.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

I have downloaded "Siberia" but i havnt seend it yet. Its supposed to be about a small village in siberia (obviously) during the revolution, looks good i will give a rapport when i watched it.

[Arlekino]

Could I recommend wonderful film "Quiet Flows the Don" Made in 1957 (English subtitles). Seriously comrades is good story about Russian revolution.
:)

[apawllo]

I've seen a few cartoons; Shooting Range is probably my favorite of them. I'm going to check out some of these movies though.