History of World Cinema: Soviet Cinema

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Russian cinema saw its first film, shot by the Lumière brothers in 1986, which told of the coronation of “Tsar Nicholas II”. In 1908, the first Russian narrative film was produced, which was the starting point for hundreds of others that followed and put Russia in competition with other countries.

However, it was after the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 that the film industry grew exponentially. The government saw cinema as a great opportunity to advertise and use it as an educational tool. Lenin's famous phrase, "Of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us," sums up the importance of the industry for the government and lasted throughout the communist period.

One of the most important figures in Soviet cinema was Sergei chile phone number data Eisenstein, one of the pioneers of “montage theory”. This style divided the process into five levels and, in the eyes of the public, the end result was clearly a manipulated reality. The aim was to make the artistic aspect of the film explicit, and this model became one of the main points of the movement and influenced productions all over the world.

In the 1930s, with the end of silent film, Stalin used the use of sound and speech to enhance and intensify government propaganda. The Road of Life , the first film with sound produced during the Stalinist regime, was a box office success throughout the USSR and in 26 other countries.

At this time, biographical films also began to appear, which were very successful and inaugurated a new style, such as Lenin in October (1937), by Mikhail Romm and Lenin in 1918 (1939).

soviet cinema lenin
“Lenin in October”
During World War II, Soviet cinema took even greater advantage of the opportunity to reinforce government propaganda and attack Nazism. Documentaries flourished during this period both inside and outside the USSR, and Moscow Strikes Back (1942) was the first to win an Oscar.

With Stalin's death in 1953, censorship became more lenient and directors began to make more creative productions, including comedy becoming part of the big productions. The film The Gundashes Are Flying (1957), by Mikhail Kalatozov, won the Cannes Film Festival that year, and the comedy Kin-dza-dza! achieved international fame as a “cult” film a few years later all over the world.

The end of the Soviet Union also meant the end of major investments in film. In recent years, Russia has been trying to revive its industry, investing in a distribution system to counter American cinema. In 2003, The Return, directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev, won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.