Light and Dark: Stagnation Period Comedies (approx. 1964-85)

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Light and Dark Stagnation Period Comedies
(approx. 1964-85)
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Comedies as a response to lifes dullness

• Life under Brezhnev no economic growth, no
  positive social changes, especially after 1968
• free thinking (the dissidents) suppressed
• Many cultural figures driven abroad
  Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, Rostropovich, Baryshnikov
• The reign of bureaucracy
• Bleak life Lining up for food getting clothes
  and other stuff
• Jokes and comedies as antidotes to the monotony
  and hopelessness

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The differences of the Soviet cultural system
from the West

• Detached from the market place money provided by
  the state
• No reason to work efficiently
• Interaction between the needs of the party and
  the creative freedom of the individual - testing
  the limits of the permitted.
• Familial" relations between the different camps
  (Dom Kino).
• Inefficiencies in the system of control (e.g.,
  approval of script, but no control over the
  production)
• Control over distribution. Filmmakers didnt get
  royalties.

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The separate strands of film production

• Opportunists (commercial and political) who
  worked for the system (Bondarchuk War and Peace
  (1968) Menshov - Moscow Does Not Believe in
  Tears, (1979, Best foreign film, 1980)
• Messianic elitism- Andrei Tarkovsky,
  Paradzhanov
• Populists who steered a middle course (Eldar
  Ryazanov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Larisa Shepitko),
  giving good middle-brow films
• Entertainment classics (Leonid Gaidais
  comedies), The White Sun of the Desert (Vladimir
  Motyl, 1970)
• Cartoons (the multfilms, ???????????) for
  children (Cheburashka)

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The White Sun of the Desert (1970), by Vladimir
Motyl
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The White Sun of the Desert

• Ironic comedy become a cult movie quoted in
  everyday conversation
• Takes place in the desert on coast of the Caspian
  sea at the end of the Civil War (1920)
• Framing in letters to hero Sukhovs fiancée in
  Russia
• Cultural differences between Russians and
  Muslims girls in Abdullah the bandits harem

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The White Sun of the Desert

• Celebrates myth of Russian values in hero
  Sukhov carefree attitude to life, vodka,
  gallantry to women, trust betrayed, winning in
  the end
• Shades of Chapaev Sukhov with the machine-gun
• Western-style drama shoot-out on boat
• Comedy of characters
• Pathos young innocent soldier, Pasha the honest
  customs officer killed
• Music popular song Your Excellency

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Leonid Gaidai (1923-93)

• Scriptwriter and director
• Slapstick comedies with elements of music comedy
• Best comic actors
• Popular punch lines
• Smuggled irony and social criticism
• Success (up to 76 million tickets sold per film)

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The great comic trio (Vitsin, Nikulin, and
Morgunov)
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Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)

• Patriarchal values, money and power vs youth,
  love, liberated woman
• Protagonists young students
• Villain a party member who hires petty criminals
• Song about polar bears
• Features twist - a bourgeois dance in positive
  light

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Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)
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Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)
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Ivan Vasilievich Switches Profession (1973)

• Time machine, Ivan the Terrible, back to the
  future theme
• Colour vs black and white dream vs reality
  (ironic comment on the epoch?)

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The Diamond Arm (1968)

• Semion, a good family man, gets a chance to go on
  a cruise and travel abroad
• Meets a nice guy who is a gang member
• Smugglers take Semion for that guy and put
  diamonds in the cast on his broken arm
• Back at home, Semion collaborates with the police
  as a sitting duck while the gangsters try to get
  the diamonds at all cost
• Misunderstandings and confusion happy ending

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The Diamond Arm (1968)
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More comediesand cartoons of the Stagnation era

• Everyday life and philosophical exploration of
  being

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Eldar Ryazanov (b.1927)

• Numerous hit comedies, including
• Irony of Fate, shown every New Years Eve
  since 1975
• Comedy of characters
• Irony
• Poetry and songs in films
• Social criticism
• Humanistic values

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Office Romance (1977)by E. Ryazanov

• A sad (despite the happy ending) and detailed
  comment on many aspects of life during the
  Stagnation (dull senseless work, hypocrisy, lies,
  overloaded women, ugly daily life, line-ups,
  monotony, hopelessness).

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Georgy Danelia (b.1930)

• Among his most popular films
• I Walk Through Moscow (1963)
• Afonia (1975)
• Mimino (1977)
• Autumn Marathon (1979)
• Kin-dza-dza (1986)

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Mimino (1977)

• Georgian, Armenian and Russian characters Soviet
  Union at its best
• A man in search for himself
• Mild irony, comedy of characters and situation
  verbal comedy
• Human values tested and asserted (friendship,
  love for ones birthplace and family, ones
  vocation, etc.)

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Autumn Marathon (1979)

• Sad comedy, tragicomedy
• Pathetic, indecisive (though endearing) character
  caught between two women
• Complex irony
• Subtle social criticism day by day, nothing
  changes
• The central problem unresolved a metaphor for
  the Stagnation
• Vodka as the only solution

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Questions

• What type of comedy is this?
• (slapstick/verbal absurd dark farcical
  situational/character screwball romantic)
• How would you characterize this comedy?
• What is Russian about it? Is it different from
  the comedies you know?
• Do you sense any irony?
• What is comic about it, where is the humour?
• What comic devices are used? (hyperbole
  misunderstanding qui pro quo culture clash
  etc.)