The name of this instance, lemmy.film reminds me of Lenfilm, the famous Soviet production company. Anyone want to share their favorite Soviet movies (not just from Lenfilm)?
Geez, what a can of worms you’ve opened, comrade!
- Immerse yourselves in a (Black) sea of Soviet celluloid!
The Snow Queen (1957)
- GLORIOUS! It’s said to be an inspiration to director Hayao Miyazaki
A Beginner’s Guide to Soviet Animated Cinema
- Interesting and informative, even though the quality of some clips is unfortunately low
I swear I’m done!
Hey, gang! I just remembered!
Mosfilm (Мосфильм) has a YouTube channel, a huge library of films online free for the cultural enrichment of the proletariat…and for the imperialists and oligarchs alike!
Want easy some starting points?
- Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1974)
- Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky (1938)
- Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
- Note: this particular YouTube link has the 1995 Alloy Orchestra soundtrack, supposedly created following notes made by Vertok. Unfortunately, besides the enormous bug in the top right corner, the quality of this copy isn’t great. Wikipedia’s copy is excellent but silent.
- Protozanov’s Aelita, Queen of Mars (1925), the first Soviet science-fiction movie!
Contrary to what everybody and their babushka says, I recommend staying away from Battleship Potemkin (1925) as a starting point—a seminal film in many aspects but unless you are studying film history, it may not hold your attention almost 100 years later. After you’ve eased into Soviet cinema a bit, definitely see it! You can then play a drinking game with any future films you may see: Spot the Battleship Potemkin reference!
You mean like Tarkovsky? Pudovkin? The Master, Eisenstein? Why don’t you enlighten us, @OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org? I can’t do all the heavy lifting around here! 😄
Haha, fair.
I’m familiar with Tarkovsky, but not the others. Battleship Potemkin rings a bell. I watched zerograd the other day. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had more context into the everyday Soviet life that it was commentating on.
I’ve also heard about Man with a movie camera. Might check that out at some point.
I saw Man with a Movie Camera when TCM showed it a few months ago. Very interesting considering how he would lug a large wind-up camera around and film everything that he found interesting then use creative ways to edit it all together. To me, it didn’t look like a propaganda film at all, altho perhaps to those who lived in the USSR during that time may have seen more in it than modern Western people do today.
