The Adventures of Classical Film Plotting in the Land of the Bolsheviks
03 February 2020, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm

A Russian Cinema Research Group Seminar
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Russian Cinema Research Group
Location
-
Masaryk RoomSSEES16 Taviton StreetLondonWC1H 0BW
Due to Industrial action at UCL in November, this has been rescheduled to the 3rd February
This talk discusses the narrative modes in Soviet cinema of the Stalin era. At the end of the 1930s, the Soviets abandoned classical plotting as too Western or Hollywood. What followed was a period of experimentation, when filmmakers tried various alternatives to classicism. Using examples such as Grigorii Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg's The Maksim Trilogy (1935–1938), I argue that the Soviet tradition developed a mode of storytelling distinct from both historical-materialist narration of the 1920s and socialist realism.
About the Speaker
Maria Belodubrovskaya
Associate Professor at University of Chicago
Maria Belodubrovskaya is Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Not According to Plan: Filmmaking under Stalin (Cornell University Press, 2017) and has published articles on Russian film aesthetics, history, and theory in Cinema Journal, Film History, Slavic Review, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, Projections: the Journal of Movies and Mind, and KinoKultura.