«...They rehabilitated a private subject in film...»

The items of Gosfilmofond questionnaire are answered by Vadim ABDRASHITOV, Ivan DYKHOVICHNIY, Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV, Igor MASLENNIKOV, Pyotr TODOROVSKIY, Vladimir KHOTINENKO, Evgeniy TSYMBAL, Georgiy DANELIYA, Gennadiy POLOKA, Yuri ARABOV, Alexei German, jr., Mikhail ULIYANOV, Alexei GERMAN, Alexei BATALOV, Sergei YURSKIY, Ilia KHRZHANOVSKIY, Vladimir NAUMOV, Marlen KHUTSIEV

 

This year the Thaw cinema became the main theme of Archive cinema festival program. Fifty years ago the ХХ Party Congress in February,1956, marked calendarary the first point of the Thaw chronology as a historic and social phenomenon. As for the aesthetical and cultural borders of the Thaw, they are more difficult to be defined exactly. Nevertheless the Thaw cinema gives multireasonable arguments to prove different opinions wherether it was 1956 or another year when the Thaw started.

 

«...There is an immense echo of the Thaw...»

From verbatim of a round table talk at Gosfilmofond

 

According to our magazine tradition we publish the festival questionnaire and a selection from the verbatim of round table discussion during the festival days. In supplement one can find few archives documents of the Thaw time.

 

 

«We have no wide screen sorrow…» From the history of Chelovek rodilsa/ A human is born picture (Preface by Alexander Troshin)

 

It is possible to write an analytic article about film process of any period operating only the film titles. For in spite of an author’s will or thanks it, any title reveals not only the taste of the author but a dominate psychology of a period and aesthetical message of time too. Today this film is more seldom mentioned than such ones of the same year as The Rumayntsev file, Spring at the Zarechnaya street, The Forty one, A Carnival night etc. For example, nobody remember A human born picture neither answering the questions about the XX Congress and Thaw either reporting on round table. However this picture is symptomatic for its time in many aspects besides the title. The discussion at Mosfilm studio took place a year before the fateful Congress.

 

Pyotr BAGROV. Near us: The film from the context

 

«This one is much more useful than a lot of films having been produced». A discussion on Adolf Bergunker’s picture Near us at Lenfilm studio Art council meeting, 1957

 

«The film… is close to present life conditions». A discussion of Near us in Leningrad House of cinema, 1957

 

Near us is such kind of films that isn’t a masterpiece but has a lot of points interesting to film historian potentially as representation of the Thaw style proper. The author reconstructs in details the context of this film shooting and marks out the points in which this everyday picture of their time differs from such ones of previous period. Also he comments two verbatims the article are followed.

 

 

Leonid CHEREVATENKO. Unfettered Dovzhenko

 

«Where are your tone of disappointment from?» Alexander Dovzhenko in the Ukrainian GPU and NKVD files

 

For fifty years past after Dovzhenko’s death a lot of archive materials and memoirs about the director were published as in Ukraine and as in Russia. Something one can find in our issues. However, the unpublished is much more numerous. In Russian State Archives of Literary and Art there is a folio of Dovzhenko and his wife Julia Solntseva. According to her testament, one can research it only after 2009. Meanwhile other resources open their mysteries. In particular The State Archive of The Ukrainian Security Service provided the publication of some special documents about Dovzhenko in «Kino-Kolo» magazine. We are truly grateful to our colleagues from «Kino-Kolo» and well-known Ukrainian film historian Leonid Cherevatenko who were so kind to permit republishing the texts.

 

 

Natalia RYABCHIKOVA. «This alien to us term». For genesis of word filma

 

From the early beginning the phenomena of cinema generated a lot of new words to define itself. For a while in Russian there were two terms of a movie: film and filma — masculine and feminine nouns. It seems the only difference between words but the problem it links is quite wider as author argues.

 

 

Vladimir MISLAVSKIY. Photo artist Alfred Fedetskiy. Materials on biography of the first Russian cinematographer

 

The art of photography is often proclaimed as pre-cinema stage of visual art. Alfred Fedetskiy was among the people whose productions particularly create the early cinema. At least in Russian Imperia. His skilful photo works were proclaimed as an art pieces by Poytr Chaikovskiy and Ivan Aivazovskiy. In the article the life and art activity of Fedetskiy are followed step by step in the context of equipment development during Victorian epoch of world cinema, which Russian film art of that time is inalienable part.

 

 

A chronological bibliography of articles and notions about Alfred Fedetskiy

 

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Oleg SIROTIN. Home land and relatives of Ivan Mozzhukhin

 

Penza city is known as birth-place of Russian silent cinema prime star Ivan Mozzhukhin. But it is not exactly correct. This and many others lacunas are filled up with Sirotin’s work. Having researched local sources and Penza region archives, the author traces the biography of the actor and his family: parents and three brothers. Valuable information contents in the correspondence between brother Alexander and Ivan. In the article one can also find a lot of interesting facts such as etymology of the Mozzhukhin surname.

 

 

Alexander DANILIN. «Diamond Hand», «Dappled hen» and Russian dream

 

Unnarrowed reflections of a psychologist about a one of the best Soviet comedies of 60es Diamond Hand as the example of Russian mentality formed with Russian folklore and tales. Among all that he also tries to elucidate if there is such a phenomenon as Russian dream and now it corresponds to films favored by mass audience in Russia.

 

 

Valeriy GOLOVSKOY. Mikhail Kalatozov’s year and a half in Hollywood

 

It is not a secret that Mikhail Kalatozov was a vice-minister of cinematography and was official council of Film Committee unit Souzintorgkino in USA. One year and a half was a period of intensive work mostly aimed to distribute Soviet films on American screens. But less people know that all the time Kalatozov was watched by FBI. The Bureau checked if there was the second goal of his being in America — if he was a Soviet spy. For the first time Russian film researcher has had access to FBI archives so he offers his version of events basing on FBI secret files.

 

 

Elena BOGATYRYOVA. A brand new in new German cinema

 

Analyzing those German films made in the end of 90–2000es which were mostly shown on Russian screen during last years the author tries to distinguish some new tendencies in national cinema as a part of European cultural landscape.

 

 

Jakov BUTOVSKIY. Odna on a crossroads of common problems of Russian film study

 

The author opponents to the article by Neya Zorkaya about Kozintsev and Trauberg’s film which was published in KZ № 74. Pointing the slips he has found in that text, he displays typical mistakes film studiers usually make in their works and argues how it is possible to avoid methodology mistakes.

 

 

Evgeniy MARGOLIT. A basement for working. About books by Vladimir Mislavskiy and Lubomir Goseiko

 

Two editions recently published in Ukraine are reviewed by film historian Evgeniy Margolit. Both books are personal versions of Ukrainian film history: Mislavskiy limited his fundamental work «Cinema in Ukraine. Facts, Films, Names» with its first three decades and Goseiko ranged the whole 1896–1995 period. In nowadays Ukrainian film study this editorial, and first of all film studying, event is very important, the reviewer proves.