Updated 18 October 2006
English 212, Section 3: World Cinema
Week 8: 16 October 2006
Professor: Don Larsson
6:00-6:20 Quiz 4
6:00-6:40 Russian Cinema, Andrey Zvyaginstev and The Return
6:40-8:30 View The Return
8:30-8:40 Break
8:40-9:30 Discuss The Return
Russian/Soviet Cinema
Soviet and Eastern European Film
1917:
§ Russian Revolution, Czar Nicholas II overthrown in March
§ Provisional Government overthrown in October by coup led by V.I. Lenin, leader of Bolsheviks, institutes first declared Communist goverment
1919: Film industry is nationalized, state film school is founded
1920: Lev Kuleshov founds film workshop, begins experiments in
editing (montage)
1924: Lenin dies, Josef Stalin begins rise to total power
1925: Russian films distributed to Western audiences, attract critical
praise, beginning of Soviet montage era
1920s: Russian films rivaled in prestige only by U.S. and Germany
Montage: based on notion of shot as prime element of film
§ Individual shots are combined to create emotional and intellectual responses in audience
§ Emphasis on social and historical forces, promote aims of workers, revolution and Soviet Union; less emphasis on characters as individual personalities
§ Many individual shots, taken from a variety of angles
§ Editing is for effect, not smooth continuity
§ Location shooting, use of non-professional actors
Major Directors in Soviet Montage:
Sergei Eisenstein--Strike, Potemkin, October
Lev
Kuleshov--The Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of
the Bolsheviks
V.I. Pudovkin--Mother, The End of St. Petersburg
Zhiga Vertov--Man with a Movie Camera
1927: First Five-Year Plan for Soviet economy
montage directors criticized for “formalism”
Josef Stalin and Socialist Realism
§ Official artistic policy of USSR, 1934-1991
o Zhdanov--Cultural Minister
o Shumyatsky--head of Film Bureau
§ Emphasized role of individuals within working class and Communist Party
§ Rejected "formalist" experiments of montage directors
§ Favored simple plots and storylines that stressed successes of Communist state
§ Often stressed authoritarian, individual heroes
§ Alexandrov--Peter the Great, but even Eisenstein--Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible (interesting in their own right but complete different from Eisenstein’s silent “montage” films)
After World War II and Death of Stalin
Pattern of "freeze" and "thaw" in arts
§ 1948--Soviet Union controls over most of eastern Europe
§ 1953--Stalin dies
§ 1954--Nikita Kruschev denounces Stalin in closed Party session
§ 1956--Invasion of Hungary
§ 1958-1963--New period of "thaw"
§ 1964--Kruschev deposed, replaced by Brezhnev
§ 1968--Invasion of Czechoslovakia, crushing of "Prague Spring"
§ early 1980s--Solidarity movement in Poland, other Warsaw Pact countries begin to move from total Soviet control
§ 1989--Gorbachev declares "glasnost" (“openness”) and “perestroika” (“reorganization”) policies, Berlin Wall dismantled
§ 1991--Soviet Union dissolved, replaced by Russian Federation
Eastern European Filmmakers under Communism
Some exceptions to the rule
Directors achieve recognition outside Communist Europe
Not always anti-Communist, but often incur disfavor because
of failure to follow "party line" in content and/or style
Directors
flourish at particular times of "liberalization," then face
censorship
Some emigrate to US or other countries and establish careers
After
Communism, directors have to work within capitalist structure,
face problems of studio censorship, having to please market,
compete with American and other films, etc.
Features--many different styles and approaches
Some apolitical, some openly critical of Party policy and history
Styles range from neorealist to dreamlike and introspective
Some openly nationalist
SOME EXAMPLES: 1950s-1990s
Poland
Andrej Wajda
Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds
Man of Marble, Man of Iron
Elsewhere: Danton (France), A Love in Germany (Germany)
Roman Polanski
Two Men and a Wardrobe, Knife in the Water
Britain: Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac
US: Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown
International: Tess, Frantic, Death and the Maiden
Jerzy Skolimowski
Barrier, Hands Up
England: Deep End, Moonlighting, The Shout, The Lightship
Returned to Poland for 30 Door Key
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Blind Chance, No End, the Dekalog
France: The Double Life of Veronique, Red, White, Blue
Agnieszka Holland
Provincial Actors, A Woman Alone
Europe: Europa, Europa; Olivier Olivier; The Secret Garden
Total Eclipse
Czechoslovakia
Jiri Trnka (animator)
Vera Chytilova
Daisies
Milos Forman
Loves of a Blonde, The Fireman's Ball
U.S.: Ragtime, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt
Jiri Menzel
Closely Watched Trains
Ivan Passer
Intimate Lighting
U.S.: Born to Win, The Silver Bears, Cutter's Way
Hungary
Miklos Jansco
The
Round-Up, The Red and the White, Confrontation,
Red Psalm
Marta Meszaros
Diary for My Children (part of autobiographical trilogy)
Istvan Szabo
Mephisto, Col. Redl, Meeting Venus, Sunshine
Soviet Union
1957: The Cranes Are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov)
Grigori Kozinstev: Don Quixote, Hamlet, King Lear
Segei Paradzhanov (Armenia)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, The Color of Pomegranates
The Legend of Suram Fortress
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei
Rublev, Solaris, The Mirror, Stalker, Nostalgia,
The Sacrifice
Paradzhanov and Tarkovsky have bcome inspirations to later, post-Soviet filmmakers. Paradzhanov, from the Ukraine, drew upon his own region’s history, folktales and legends for films that are free in style, filled with sound and color. This kind of nationalist focus got him arrested and he served hard time in the Soviet “gulag” prison camps, but he was released as the Soviet system was collapsing and lived long enough to make The Legend of Suram Fortress, his final feature. Tarkovsky, who spent his own last years living in exile in Sweden, favored long, slow takes that allowed the audience to take in the entire atmosphere of a scene, encouraging a contemplative, or even “spiritual,” mood, even in science fiction films such as Solaris (remade as an American film with George Clooney) and Stalker.
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Worked in theater, commercials, videos
The Return was first feature film, won Silver Lion Award in Venice,
nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscar
The Return/Vozvrashcheniye (Russia, 2003)
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev; Script: Vladimir Moiseyenko and Aleksender Novotosky; Cinematography: Mikhail Krichman; Editing: Vladimir Mogilevsky; Music: Andrei Dergachyov
Cast: Konstantin Lavronenko (the father); Vladimir Garin (Andrei, the older brother); Ivan Dobronrovov (Ivan/Vanya, the younger brother); Natalya Vdovina (the mother)
Questions to consider for The Return:
1. Why does the father return? Are there any hints in his behavior or other things associated with him?
2. What is the point of the trip that he insists on making with the two boys? Does the father have some ulterior motive in mind?
3. How do the characters of Andrei (the older boy) and Ivan/Vanya (the younger brother) change in the course of the film? Why do they change? Is there any larger significance to these changes?
4. What is the effect of the film’s pace, its silences, its use of music and static shots or moving camera? How do these stylistic choices affect our reactions?
5. What concepts, what emotions does the film leave you with at the end?
Discussion Summary:
The Return poses an unusual set of issues for film viewers. On the one hand, it is much more straightforward as a narrative than a film like Persona, it is less complicated than All about My Mother, and it does not have the playing around with narration, sound and camera work that mark Band of Outsiders. The film presents a seemingly simple plot: two boys, Andrei and Ivan, have been brought up by their mother for the last 12 years. Suddenly, their father returns and takes them on a trip, supposedly to go fishing but apparently with some other aim in mind as well. The boys both learn from their father and resist him as well (Ivan, the younger one, especially), but then a terrible accident occurs and the father dies.
On the other hand, the film is full of gaps and silences that leave unanswered questions: Why has the father returned after all these years? Why has he been away? What are the “things” that he claims he has to do on the trip? When the father and boys reach an island, the father unearths a chest containing a strongbox which he hides on their small rowboat. What is in the box? The film ends with the rowboat sinking with the dead father’s body in it. What happens after that?
The relatively slow pace of the film and these gaps and questions show the influence of Tarkovsky’s work, and the director, Andrey Zvygintsev, is also interested in setting scenes and creating moods that are more suggestive than explanatory. Some hints and cues in the film suggest that there might be several ways to “read” it:
1. As a “coming of age” narrative
Although The
Return has elements of a thriller that involve the mysterious reappearance
of a father and buried treasure (?), the most important features of the film
are in the relationship between the father and the boys. The boys are
initially happy to have this man now in their lives and willingly go on their
fishing trip with him, but they are also plagued by doubts—especially the young
Ivan, who at first offers childish speculations that this man might not be
their father and that he might be planning to kill them. Andrei, the older
bother, points out that their mother vouched for him, and he seems more ready
to bond. The father himself is tough and demanding, even resorting to slapping
Andrei on a couple of occasions. Again and again, he practices “tough love,”
requiring the boys to do things for themselves—from pitching a tent to ordering
food at a restaurant. Andrei, though, draws closer to the father while young
Ivan seems to draw further away. On one level, then, this is a “coming of age”
story about two teenage boys, the older one on the verge of manhood, the
younger one still uncertain, scared about many things and much closer to his
mother. The father, then, plays a necessary role, teaching the boys about ways
to act like an “adult” or a “man.” Perhaps Ivan’s resentment stems from the
fact that the older Andrei not only takes the father’s “lessons” more readily, but
being older and stronger, he is also more ready to do so. Ivan, whom we first
see on a seashore tower, afraid to jump in the water but also afraid to climb
down, keeps saying, “I can’t” when confronted with one task or another. Toward
the end of the film, though, when Ivan asks Andrei how they will carry their
father’s body back to the boat, the older brother replies, “With our little
hands,” the same phrase the father used in answer to Andrei’s question about
they were supposed to pitch a tent.
The father himself, though, remains a puzzle. His motives are never explained and he offers only the slimmest hints of his past activities—for example, he dislikes fish because he had to eat it all the time. Does that mean that he was given only fish in a prison camp somewhere, or does it refer to something else? He genuinely seems to want to educate the boys. Even though he often threatens them, his major form of “punishment” is to call their bluff—leaving Ivan by himself to fish from a bridge (for example) when the boy demands to be let out of the car. Still, he does resort to hitting Andrei on at least two occasions, once when Andrei yells back at him when they are trying to get out of the mud, and later when the two boys return to the camp late and Andrei tries to pass the blame to Ivan. In that case, Ivan does deserve the blame, but Andrei, as the older brother, had the responsibility. The father, though, also praises Andrei when he manages to steer the car out of the mud and on other occasions when he does something right. Despite his stern demeanor, he seems to let his guard down a bit more while they are on the island, and several times he looks at the boys with something like affection.
What is the father up to, though? We see him placing telephone calls but never learn who is on the other end of the line. We know that he has to make some kind of deadline in three days but never learn what it is. And we never learn what is in that strongbox. A few things are explained that dismiss sinister speculations. At one point, we see him pay for a mysterious bundle that has the vague shape of a small body--but it turns out to be an outboard motor for the boat trip.
In the end, the strongbox is an example of what Alfred Hitchcock called “the Macguffin,” a plot device (like stolen jewels or government secrets in a thriller) that motivates the plot. It is the reason that the characters do things, but it is really unimportant in itself. What would really change if we knew what was in the box? The real center of the film is what happens between father and sons.
2. As a political allegory
During the Gorbachev glasnost era and even before that, many films from Soviet Bloc countries could be seen as allegories—films that told one story on the surface but that also could be seen as satires or criticisms of life under the Communist Party in the USSR and its satellite countries. It would be tempting to “read” The Return in a similar way. In that sense, we could see the film as being about the Russian attitude toward a strong central government, an enduring feature of Russian culture, according to some historians. Whether under the Czars or under the Communist Party, Russia has had little experience with democracy in the Western sense, and even anti-Communist artists and writers have also rejected American and Western models. If we read the film in that sense, we could see Andrei and Ivan as two boys who have lacked the necessary strong male authoritarian role model that they need. Brought up by their mother, they lack appropriate models of manners, discipline, and even the ability to do certain tasks. The father gives them (especially Andrei) that model. The father’s role could be seen as parallel to the return to more centralized and authoritarian government recently under Vladimir Putin, after the uncertainty and near-chaos in Russia of the previous decade. But there isn’t much besides the father’s role to justify this kind of interpretation. For one thing, there’s not enough social context in the film. We only see a dozen or so other characters in the movie—Andrei’s young friends, the young hoods who try to rob the two boys, the waitress at the café and a few others. If the world around the father and brothers seems empty, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the greater whole of post-Soviet Russian society. And this interpretation really breaks down with the death of the father and the ambiguous ending.
3. As a “religious” allegory
There is more evidence in the film to suggest that this story is actually some kind of religious allegory. For one thing, it fits a long tradition in Russian literature and culture that places family conflicts and issues in the context of the need for or lack of a spiritual presence of some kind, as in the later works of Leo Tolstoy and novels like Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or more recent writers like Alexander Solzhenitsen.
Even though there is no hint of organized religion as an institution (except for a small cross that Andrei wears) in the film itself, there are visual clues in the film early on. For example, when the boys first learn that their father has returned, they look in on him asleep. The camera angle, and even the sheet covering the man’s legs, are extraordinarily similar to a famous painting by the Renaissance Italian artist, Andrea Mantegna of the dead Christ with the Virgin Mary weeping next to his body:
The Dead Christ, Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506)
This shot also foreshadows the position of the father’s own dead body on the boat. But does that mean the father is actually a Christ figure? It’s hard to make that interpretation work.
Another visual hint occurs soon after, when Andrei and Ivan confirm the man’s identity as their father from an old photograph (also kept in a chest like the one the father digs up later). The photograph itself is in a book of engravings that illustrate the Book of Genesis in the Bible, and it is right next to the engraving below:
Artist: Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld
The scene is of the sacrifice of Isaac. In Genesis, Abraham, the first man to declare belief in the one God of the Jewish and Christian Bibles (and the Muslim Koran) is ordered by God to prepare his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Abraham obeys, but at the last minute, God sends an angel to stop Abraham and gives him a ram to be sacrificed instead. The whole event was a test of Abraham’s belief and obedience. We can even make a link back to the image of the dead Christ, since some traditional Christian interpreters have portrayed Jesus as the repetition and fulfillment of Abraham’s sacrifice, showing complete obedience to God but also offering himself as the ultimate sacrifice.
So, is The Return saying that the father is like Abraham (and/or Christ)? These images make that interpretation even more tempting, but in the end it’s hard to make such an allegory work and it leads us farther and father away from the relatively simple but emotionally complex relationship of father and sons.
Overall, there is a kind of “spiritual” element to the film that is enhanced by the empty landscapes, the long tracking shots, and the haunting musical score, but it does not add up to any kind of easy explanation—psychological, political or religious. Zvyaginstev leaves it up to the viewer to absorb the film on a level of feeling rather than of rational thought, as the interview with him below suggests. As the interviewer keeps pressing the director for an “explanation,” Zvygintsev finally gives in, but I think that he was smiling ironically when he spoke the last line below:
From an interview with Zvyagintsev on IndieWire:
http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040202return.html
Zvyagintsev: I'm afraid there is no clue. You either perceive it or not. There are things which are without answers, and there is nobody who can explain them. Either we feel them and sense them, or not. Sometimes we just give up and carry on. That's normal. I can't do much to help the members of the audience who don't understand certain things in the film. It would be like telling another person what that person is already seeing by himself.
Art is not some sort of guideline for understanding. It's a thing unto itself. The most important thing for me is the image, not the thought.
Zvyagintsev: It's like if you watch this movie from the standpoint of everyday life, it's a mistake, because it's much broader, and the mystery of the film won't reveal itself to you. [At my frustrated expression] One shouldn't speak out loud about sacral and important meanings because as soon as we start blabbering about them, all that is magic and sacral immediately evaporates. One should suggest what is of real importance. That's what I tried to do in my film.
iW: Nevertheless, if you had to give a brief description of your film --
Zvyagintsev: I would say that it's about the metaphysical incarnation of the soul's movement from the Mother to the Father.