Discover Russia : On screen (Cinema / TV)

Beginnings and First World War

It was in Saint Petersburg, on May 4, 1896, that the first cinema screening took place in Russia (six months after the first Parisian screening). In 1908, Alexander Drankov signed Stenka Razine, which can be considered as the first Russian film and which tells us about a national subject: the legendary exploits of the fiercest of the Cossacks who gives his name to the film. During the first years of cinema's existence, in Russia as elsewhere, the literary world was closed to the world of the 7th art, with two exceptions: Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky. From 1912 onwards, the film industry asked the national pens to write original screenplays or adaptations of classic literary works, thus breaking down the wall of hostility between the two arts. In 1913, Yacov Protazanov made his debut and directed The Keys to Happiness (1913). Protazanov later became the most famous pre-Revolutionary director. On the eve of the First World War, local production was still mediocre, but a real reflection on the 7th art was taking shape. Paradoxically, the First World War led to a strengthening of national production in Russia. From 1914 to 1917, there were many literary adaptations: Tolstoy's War and Peace adapted by Vladimir Gardine and Yakov Protozanov, Dostoievsky's The Possessed and Pushkin's The Queen of Spades adapted by the same Protazanov. In the aftermath of the Revolution, the authorities had other priorities than the development of Russian cinema. Political censorship disappears (it will soon return) to become economic. Films made in the early hours of Soviet Russia weave crowns of praise for the Revolution or vilify the old regime. A huge movement is born in enthusiasm, driven by talented artists and obsessed by the idea of putting an equally new art form at the service of a new society. Two outstanding personalities of this period are worth mentioning: Mayakovsky, whose three screenplays were brought to the screen in 1918, and Édouard Tissé, Eisenstein's future cinematographer, who filmed the first anniversary of the Revolution and was responsible for the cinema in the first agit-train (propaganda trains that criss-crossed the country, carrying banners and revolutionary slogans, and organising speeches and shows at every stopover).

FEKS, strike and talking pictures

The year 1924 brought several works that helped to give Soviet cinema a worldwide reputation, as well as the image of a revolutionary cinema. The FEKS (Eccentric Actor's Factory, a collective of young artists who wanted to destroy bourgeois art) was created and the theory of kinoglaz or cine-eye, by Dziga Vertov (former editor of Tissé), gave birth to a new genre: "cinéma-vérité". Vertov shoots The Man with the Camera, but the first great film, truly revolutionary in its technical and narrative innovations, is Eisenstein's Strike. In 1926, Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin enjoyed international success, which was further increased by its ban in many countries, including France. The first half of the 1930s, corresponding to the first five-year plan (1929-1934), brought the end of silent cinema and the end of the avant-garde. Mayakovsky committed suicide, Eisenstein went to Mexico, and "socialist realism" officially framed the artistic impulses from 1934, the date of the first Writers' Congress, during which Gorky and others demonstrated the literary milieu's support for the party's policies. While this period of the instrumentalization of art was catastrophic for literature and the visual arts, it did not completely impoverish the cinema. Certain films, such as Tchapaev (by Sergei and Georgi Vassiliev, 1934) and The Merry Boys, maintained the international reputation of Soviet cinema. The Stalinist power found in cinema a propaganda tool, but the guardians of the doctrine also feared this space of freedom that is cinema. An incongruous genre was born at the very moment when Stalin was purging the country of its most seditious elements: the musical comedy. Heavy, interminable and misleading, it depicts the joys of country life and borrows from Hollywood its most firefighting tricks. Muzzled and persecuted, filmmakers have a ridiculous margin of manoeuvre, but not zero. The film industry is dynamic, and some films - which have nothing to shock the censors - are great works.

Khrushchev, Tarkovsky and liberalization

With the death of Stalin in 1953 and the arrival of Khrushchev in power, the atmosphere relaxed. Kalatozov, who had long been suppressed, released Quand passent les cigognes (1957) which paved the way for the French New Wave. It is at this period that major filmmakers make their debut, the most famous of them being Andreï Tarkovski. Tarkovski directed his first film, Ivan's Childhood, which was hailed in 1962 as a turning point in the history of Russian cinema. An essential filmmaker who went into exile in France, in 1966 he directed Andreï Roublev, which retraces the life and spiritual struggles of the famous icon painter. With Solaris, in 1972, a Soviet counterpoint to Kubrick's Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky was not really concerned with science fiction, but rather with a reflection on self-knowledge. Stalker (1979) is one of the director's most powerful films. During a long philosophical walk, Stalker is the one who tries to rekindle man's divine spark and believes he can make him happy in spite of himself. Soviet cinema only produces works for discerning film buffs. In the 1970s, comedies and dramas were full of comedies and dramas set in the everyday life of the Soviets and focused on their feelings. From the very first hours of perestroika, the cinema is crossed by a wind of liberalization and knows a widening of its spectrum. In 1990, Pavel Lounguine made his mark with Taxi Blues, about the meeting of a taciturn taxi driver with a future rock star, an alcoholic and turbulent woman. Another important figure in Russian cinema is Sokurov, whose rigorous formalism and aesthetic research confuse or enchant. His work The Russian Ark (2002), made in a single take, retraces the history and questioning of Russia. The 1990s also brought foreign films that invaded the posters, and high-budget local productions tried to imitate them. This is the case of the three films in the Brat ("Brother") series, which are phenomenally successful.

Nowadays

In recent years, young auteur cinema has been undergoing a revival, and is beginning to extend far beyond Russia's borders. The successes of Return (2003), by Zviaguintsev, a poetic work about waiting for a father and learning to grow up, which won the Golden Lion in Venice, and Babussia (2004) by Lidiya Bobrova, which tells the story of a grandmother's journey across Russia to meet her family, are evidence of this; or more recently, Alexis Guerman Junior's Soldier of Paper (2008) in which the story of the preparation of cosmonauts sent into space by the USSR hides a criticism of Soviet power. The latter was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Direction at the Venice Mostra in 2008. If Russian spectators are more interested than before in national productions, it is notably thanks to blockbusters such as Stalingrad (2013) which has already brought in 1.7 billion roubles (37 million euros) or the comedy Gorko! (2013), a sort of Welcome to the Ch'tis , which takes place at a provincial wedding. The surprise of the year 2013 is undoubtedly The Geographer Drank his Globe by Alexander Veledinsky, telling the story of a young biologist who accepts a job as a geographer in a Perm secondary school because he needs money. In 2014, Zviaguintsev will release his fourth film, Leviathan, which won again at Cannes, this time with the prize for best screenplay. Thanks to the film Paradise (2016), the story of a Russian woman in a Nazi camp during the war, Andrei Kontchalovsky won the Silver Lion for his work as a director in Venice.

On the small screen

If Russia can boast of having a very rich cinema, it can also cheer the programmes on its small screen. In recent years, a good number of series have been shown on television. In 2000, the series The Frontier: Taiga Novel was released, set in the Russian Far East, on the Chinese border. Set in the 1970s, this series tells the love story between a nurse and a young lieutenant. The only problem is that the young lady cannot leave her strict husband. This series makes its mark with its main actress, Rinata Litvinova and the soundtrack by Lioubè (Soviet rock band). In 2002, Russia offers us the series La Brigade and Taïga: Cours de Survie. The first, set in Moscow, tells the story of four young people discovering the world of delinquency and crime, while the second, the big sister of the American series Lost, tells us about a plane crash in the Taiga. Le Dégel, a series released in 2016, takes us back to Russia's dream period, the 1960s, when a cinematographer suspected by the KGB, after the suicide of one of his screenwriter friends, had to misuse his talent by participating in the shooting of a "kolkhozian comedy" in order to make a more personal film. Other films include The Method (2015) and The Sleeping (2017). This series of espionage is a scandal throughout Russia, because too uninhibited, too not politically correct, like the American series. The famous American series Chernobyl, which relates the explosion of the nuclear power station, is also controversial in Russia. Judged to be untruthful regarding the deplorable role of the Soviet authorities at the time, Russia decided in 2019, to prepare its own series on the subject, which will claim that a CIA spy was present at the scene of Chernobyl. To be continued..