Perestroika

1987 - 1991

Perestroika

• After Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko die in a quick succession, a new generation leader Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power in 1985.

• Replaces old-style party bureaucrats, starts the policy of democratization and glasnost (openness and freedom of speech).

• Declares Perestroika (restructuring) in 1987, launches economic reforms (elements of market economy) and liberal freedoms.

Perestroika in cinema

• Relaxation of controls, appointment of a film director Elem Klimov as 1st sec of Filmmakers Union in May 1986.

• Practical end of party control.

• The influence of glasnost: raising questions of the past and the present: reassessment of history.

• Release of controversial films: Klimov’s Agony (about Rasputin; completed 1975), Aleksandr Askoldov’s Commissar (completed 1967).

Repentance, 1984by Tengiz Abuladze

• Released in 1987; Cannes 1987 FIPRESCI prize, Grand Prize of the Jury and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.

• In Georgian, set in Georgia, but presents a generalized portrait of a dictator (Stalin+Beria +Hitler+Mussolini)

• Most famous quote: “What’s the use of a street if it doesn’t lead to a church?”

Come and See, 1985 by Elem Klimov

• WW II’s untold tragedy: the destruction of Belarus.

• Title quote from Apocalypse (Bible).

• Unheroic story of a witness and survivor.

• Unprecedented, horrifyingly realistic cruelty on screen.

Economics vs art

• Raising of unreal expectations.

• Financial self-reliance (khozrasshchet)

• Intellectuals dominated, believed in free market – but the market was elsewhere.

• 1988 Law on cooperatives. Profits, money-laundering. Co-productions with western organizations.

New reality of late 1980s

• Problem of distribution – no more Goskino.

• Impracticality of intellectuals. Flow of money from distribution to producer broken.

• Invasion of foreign films (frequently pirated) – with voice-over dubbing.

• Impact of (a) video and (b) TV (Mexican and Brazilian soap operas).

• Perestroika generates a tidal wave of trash.

“Chernukha” (Showing the seamy side of life

• The collapse of family;• Immorality, unmotivated cruelty among average

Soviet citizens;• The death of former ideals;• Cramped living conditions;• Senseless hysterics;• “Adult” scenes.• Violence and obscenity of language

(Horton and Brashinsky qtd in Little Vera by F.Beardow, 6-7).

Little Vera, 1988by Vasili Pichul

Little Vera

• “What’s sensational about [the film] is that there’s nothing sensational in it” (qtd Beardow, 3).

• Most shocking film of the 1980s

• First erotic scene (1 min 20 sec) on the Soviet screen (viewers’ reaction)

• Starring: Natalia Negoda, Andrei Sokolov (no-name actors instantly turned stars)

• The young director’s (b.1961) home city (Zhdanov - Mariupol), his own life experience. The script by his wife Maria Khmelik.

• 50,000,000 viewers in first year: most debated.

Little Vera

• “The film is an attempt to come close to the abyss of our life today” (Pichul)

• Life away from the “glamour” of Moscow

• Challenging Soviet mythology: glorious, conscientious “proletariat,” happy young “builders of communism,” (model) family as a “unit of Soviet society”.

Viewer Reactions

• Shock at explicit sex scene (“There is no sex in the USSR”)

• Attempted rape, suicide

• Scourge of vodka

• Language (“mat”): cursing, swearing, different conversations at once, screaming to be heard

• Ironic repetition by young of Soviet clichés: “great Soviet

feeling” (love), “fraternal Mongolia”

Little Vera• The generation gap, clash of values

• Another “lost generation” (forced to be idle, cynical and hopeless)

• Vicious circle of life (the young destined to repeat the parents’ path)

• No privacy, no way to solve conflicts

• The meaning of the name: Vera=“faith”

The Family

• Lives in grimy industrial city in Eastern Ukraine

• Father Kolya truck driver

• Mother Rita works as dispatcher

• Son Victor is a doctor in Moscow, separated from wife and son

• Vera has applied to trade school, prefers to be a telephone operator

Main Events• Vera abandons boyfriend Andrei, who becomes a sailor

• V. has an affair with Sergei; they agree to marry

• Sergei comes to live with the family

• Kolia slashes Sergei in drunken fight

• Sergei in hospital, accused of attacking Kolia

• Andrei shows up, tries to rape Vera

• V. takes pills and gin, attempts suicide

• Kolia has a heart attack and dies

Film structure

• Documentary-like opening long panning shot of an industrial landscape (repeated at end)

• String of “scandals”: dance; family receives Sergei; the picnic on the beach; Kolia’s birthday party; attempted suicide; no happy end

• Balcony as the place of family discussions

• Passing of trains as refrain

Camera and editing

• Grainy film stock suggests the effect of polluted air and

hopelessness

• Extensive use of hand-held camera for indoor scenes

• Close-ups: emphasis on the characters

• Telling realistic details: industrial junk

• Ambient lighting (several scenes shot in almost complete darkness)