Russian and Soviet Film: From Revolution to Today

An introduction to the cinematic tradition of Russia and the former Soviet Union. This course will offer close, contextualized, and comparative analysis of major films from the 1920s to the present. We will examine the films in terms of their formal structures and their reception, and in light of the epochal social, political and cultural changes that took place in the region's last, turbulent century. Filmmakers to be studied include Eisenstein, Vertov, Tarkovsky, Shepitko, Parajanov, and others. All films will be offered with subtitles and no prior knowledge of East European cinema is required.