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TWO DECADES OF SOVIET BIOGRAPHICAL FILM:
FROM REVOLUTIONARY ROMANTICISM TO EPIC MONUMENTALISM
(1934-1953)
by Elena Vasilyeva
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES)
December 2009
Copyright 2009 Elena Vasilyeva
Object Description
| Title | Two decades of Soviet biographical film: from revolutionary romanticism to epic monumentalism |
| Author | Vasilyeva, Elena |
| Author email | vassyuta@yahoo.com; vassyuta12@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Slavic Languages & Literatures |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2009-09-09 |
| Date submitted | 2009 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2009-12-20 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Zholkovsky, Alexander |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Levitt, Marcus Kinder, Marsha Pratt, Sarah |
| Abstract | This dissertation examines the evolution of the Soviet biographical film between the years 1934 and 1953, its stable recurrent elements and the major narrative changes that began to develop in the late 1930s. The study demonstrates two distinct types of narratives operative in the biographical films made before or around 1941 and those made in the 1940s. Chapter One introduces the categories that frame the analysis of Soviet film genre, an endeavor complicated by the fact that the Soviet critics openly challenged the notion of "genre." To avoid the confusion between the historical Soviet understanding of the genre and the contemporary definition of genre in film a larger distinction into epic and melodramatic modes of story-telling is introduced. Chapter Two analyses Stalinist culture’s gravitation toward the epic sense of reality, particularly evident in Soviet historiography and in theoretical statements on the development of narrative in Soviet film. The chapter shows how the disappearance of internal conflict in the protagonist, the loose episodic narrative structure and a static, austere, monumental style were welcomed and rationalized by the critics, who pronounced these developments welcome hallmarks of the epic film aesthetic. Chapter Three presents the case of one specific major concern of the Soviet film critics in their pursuit of the perfect cinematic realism, that of "naturalistic" tendencies that came to include a number of aesthetic phenomena. Acceptable in the 1920s Soviet art, portrayals of violence, death and disease still appeared in the 1930s' biographical films but had been positioned inside strong melodramatic collisions, and their affective power was leveraged for purposes of character motivation and for negotiation of peace-time ethics. Chapter Four discusses the narrative units that sustain the Soviet biopic, at various levels, like the elements that make up the plot, determine characterization and recur in mis-en-scenes.; The analysis shows that some elements appear to metaphorically express the theses of Stalinist historiography, while others may recur for no objective reason other than the fact that a specific gesture becomes part of a “natural” perception of the past and is repeated from film to film unreflectively. |
| Keyword | Soviet cinema; biopic; socialist realism |
| Geographic subject (country) | Russia |
| Coverage date | 1934/1953 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m2794 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Vasilyeva, Elena |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Vasilyeva-3285 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume23/etd-Vasilyeva-3285-0.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | TWO DECADES OF SOVIET BIOGRAPHICAL FILM: FROM REVOLUTIONARY ROMANTICISM TO EPIC MONUMENTALISM (1934-1953) by Elena Vasilyeva A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) December 2009 Copyright 2009 Elena Vasilyeva |
