The Cinema of the Soviet Thaw: Space, Materiality, Movement [Hardcover]

Following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union experienced a dramatic resurgence in cinematic production. The period of the Soviet Thaw became known for its relative political and cultural liberalization; its films, formally innovative and socially engaged, were swept to the center of international cinematic discourse. InThe Cinema of the Soviet Thaw, Lida Oukaderova provides an in-depth analysis of several Soviet films made between 1958 and 1967 to argue for the centrality of spaceas both filmic trope and social concernto Thaw-era cinema. Opening with a discussion of the USSR's little-examined late-fifties embrace of panoramic cinema, the book pursues close readings of films by Mikhail Kalatozov, Georgii Danelia, Larisa Shepitko and Kira Muratova, among others. It demonstrates that these directors' works were motivated by an urge to interrogate and reanimate spatial experience, and through this project to probe critical issues of ideology, social progress, and subjectivity within postStalinist culture.

This is a sophisticated and often fascinating look at five key films of the 1960s. . . . Lida Oukaderova brings a wealth of diverse theoretical perspectives to each of the chapters, from Metz to Irigaray, Benjamin to Lefebvre. But just as impressive are convincingly drawn links between these Soviet films and some of the most important West European works of the time.

Lida Oukaderova is Assistant Professor of Film Studies in the Department of Art History at Rice University.

The Cinema of the Soviet Thawis an exciting contribution to the study of Soviet film, moving the field beyond institutional and historical questions. Likewise, those concerned with the aesthetic, ideological, and other facets of postwar cinemas, should greet it enthusiastically.

Recommended.

This book is doubly welcome. First, because it adds substantially to the slender and dispersed literature dealing with film as a spl3¨