Cinema Russo

Department
of Russian/Department of Film Studies

School of Languages, Linguistics and Film
Queen Mary, University of London

FLM6017/RUS6017 Contemporary Russian Film

Pre-‐requisite: None (although students choose either FLM6017 or RUS6017, not both)
Assessment: One 500-‐word essay plan (25 per cent); one 3500-‐word essay (75 per cent).
Credit Value: 15 credits
Level: 6
Semester: 5 Lecture and Seminar Thursday 9 -‐ 11 am
Organiser: Jeremy Hicks
Contact details: Room: Arts One 2.43 Monday 1-‐2pm; Thursdays 11.30-‐12.30 (or
email to arrange appointment) Tel.: 020 7882 8306; j.g.hicks@qmul.ac.uk
All students must ensure that they obtain a copy of the School handbook and follow
the School's guidelines and regulations in all matters regarding this module. Students
must note that failure to do so may result in de-‐registration from the module, which
may have a significant impact on their overall degree classification
Course Description
Through the analysis of films produced since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and
creation of Russia, this course aims to equip students to be able to comment on
contemporary Russian films as they are released. Teaching and assessment focuses on
identifying key industrial, thematic and genre trends and issues in contemporary Russian
cinema, with a focus on the intersection of the national and transnational. Those
without Russian will be able to participate fully in this course, although a reading
knowledge can be useful for working on less well-‐known films. The secondary reading is
in English, and all key films are subtitled.

LEARNING OUTCOMES OF THE MODULE

Students will learn to

• identify key industrial, thematic and genre trends and issues in contemporary
Russian cinema

• demonstrate understanding of the theorizations of the national and
transnational

• demonstrate and apply a knowledge of theorizations of the national and
transnational in contemporary cinema

• apply and adapt a variety of film studies theoretical constructs to contemporary
Russian cinema

• evaluate the relation of newly released films, that have not yet received
scholarly scrutiny, to broader trends in contemporary Russian and world cinema

• locate and synthesize new critical sources relating to the reception of given,
chosen films

• analyze and evaluate the relation between a given Russian film and wider social,
political and cultural trends

ASSIGNMENT DEADLINES
To be submitted on QMplus

Assessment
Assessment is based on an essay plan (25%) and a coursework essay (75%). The essay
plan should be approximately 500 words in length and will constitute 25% of the final
mark, and the coursework essay should be of approximately 3500 words in length
(including footnotes but excluding bibliography) and will constitute 75% of the final
mark.

Essay plan: Sunday 13 November 23.55 (Last day of Reading Week)

Critical Essay: Sunday 8 January 23.55 (Last day of Winter Holiday)

MARKING CRITERIA
See SLLF Handbook for Undergraduates

MODULE SCHEDULE
Each week there is one film, required viewing, and 2-‐3 pieces of required reading
available through QMplus.
Each required viewing film is available to download as MP4s from dropbox a week
before the class
The QMPlus page also refers to further reading and viewing on each topic. This enables
you to explore the weekly topics deeper, and is particularly important f you are thinking
of preparing an essay on that area.

Week 1. Introduction. What is national cinema? What was Russian cinema in the Soviet
Union? What has Russian cinema become since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991?

Further Reading
National Cinema
Christie, Ian. ‘Where is National Cinema Today (and do we still need it?),’ Film History,
2
25: 1-‐2, 2013,19-‐30
Crofts, Stephen. ‘Reconceptualizing National Cinema/s,’ in Valentina Vitali and Paul
Willemen (eds), Theorizing National Cinema, London: BFI, 2006, 43-‐57.
Elsaesser, Thomas. European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 2005, .
Higson, Andrew. ‘The Concept of National Cinema,’ Screen, 1989 30: 4 Page: 36

Russian National Cinema
Condee, Nancy. The Imperial Trace: Recent Russian Cinema, Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 2009, 1-‐48.
Larsen, Susan ‘Russian Cinema in Search of an Audience: The New Russian Cinema of
Reconciliation,’ in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since
Gorbachev, ed. Adele Barker. Duke University Press, 1999, 192-‐216.
Selivanov, Sergei, Dondurei, Daniil, Mikhalkov, Nikita. ‘Russian Cinema — National
Cinema? Three Views,’ in Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-‐Soviet Cinema. Ed.
Birgit Beumers. London: I.B. Tauris, 1999, 50-‐53
Tolz, Vera. ‘The Search for a National Identity in the Russia of Yeltsin and Putin,’ in
Yitzhak Brudny, Jonathan Frankel and Stefani Hoffman (eds), Restructuring Post-‐
Communist Russia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 160-‐78.

Week 2. The Auteurist Paradigm

Required Viewing
Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1996)

Required Reading
Bordwell, David. ‘Authorship and Narration in Arts Cinemas,’ in Virginia Wright Wexman
(ed.), Film and Authorship, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2003, 42-‐49.
Staiger, Janet. ‘Authorship Approaches,’ in David A. Gestner and Janet Stainer (eds),
Authorship and Film, New York and London: Routledge, 2003, 27-‐57.
Szaniawski, Jeremi, The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov: Figures of Paradox, 2013, 126-‐38.

Further Reading
Iampolskii, Mikhail. ‘Truncated Families and Absolute Intimacy,’ in Beumers, Birgit;
Condee, Nancy (eds), The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov, London and New York: IB
Tauris, 2011, 109-‐21.
Faraday, George. Revolt of the Filmmakers: The Struggle for Artistic Autonomy and the
Fall of the Soviet Film Industry. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 2000, 159-‐
93.
Jaffe, Ira. Slow Movies: Countering the Cinema of Action, New York and Chichester;
Wallflower, 2014, 59-‐66.
Widdis, Emma. ‘“One Foot in the Air?” Landscape in the Soviet and Russian Road
Movie,’ in Graeme Harper & Jonathan Rayner (eds.). Cinema and Landscape, Bristol:
Intellect Books, 2010, 75-‐97.
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Further Viewing
Aleksandr Sokurov, Father and Son, 2004.

Week 3. Chechnya and the Yeltsin Years
Required Viewing
Prisoner of the Mountains (Sergei Bodrov, 1996)

Required Reading
Evangelista, Matthew, Gender, Nationalism, and War: Conflict on the Movie Screen,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 169-‐202.
Hutchings, Stephen, ‘Kavkazskii plennik/The Prisoner of the Mountains: Sergei Bodrov,
Russia, 1996,’ in Beumers, Birgit (ed. and introd.); Bodrov, Sergei, Sr. (preface) The
Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union. London, England: Wallflower; 2006.
pp. 223-‐31.

Further Reading
Evangelista, Matthew, Gender, Nationalism, and War: Conflict on the Movie Screen,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 139-‐68.
Gillespie, David. ‘Confronting Imperialism: The Ambivalence of War in Post-‐Soviet Film,’
in Stephen L. Webber, Jennifer G. Mathers (eds), Military and Society in Post-‐ Soviet
Russia, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2006, 80-‐93.
Grant, Bruce. ‘The Good Russian Prisoner: Naturalizing Violence in the Caucasus
Mountains,’ Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Feb., 2005), pp. 39-‐67.

Further Viewing
Checkpoint (Aleksandr Rogozhkin, 1998)
War (Aleksei Balabanov, 2002)

Week 4. Crime, Genre and the Roots of Putinism
Required Viewing
Brother (Aleksei Balabanov, 1997)

Required Reading
Hashamova, Yana, ‘Aleksei Balabanov's Russian Hero: Fantasies of Wounded National
Pride,’ The Slavic and East European Journal, 1 July 2007, Vol.51(2), 295-‐311.
Oxford University Press, 2009, 217-‐36.

Further Reading
Larsen, Susan, National Identity, Cultural Authority, and the Post-‐Soviet Blockbuster:
Nikita Mikhalkov and Aleksei Balabanov,’ Slavic Review, 10/2003, 62:3, 491-‐511.
4
Beumers, Birgit, ‘Brat/Brother: Aleksei Balabanov, Russia, 1997,’ in Beumers, Birgit (ed.
and introd.); Bodrov, Sergei, Sr. (preface) The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet
Union. London, England: Wallflower; 2006, 233-‐41.
Beumers, Birgit, ‘Myth-‐Making and Myth-‐Taking: Lost Ideals and the War in
Contemporary Russian Cinema,’ Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des
Slavistes, 2000 Mar-‐June; 42 (1-‐2): 171-‐89.
Sarkisova, Oksana. ‘Long Farewells: The Anatomy of the Soviet Past in Contemporary
Russian Cinema,’ in Oksana Sarkisova and Péter Apor. Past for the Eyes : East
European Representations of Communism in Cinema and Museums after 1989,
Budapest : Central European University Press, 2008, p. 143-‐180.

Further Viewing
Brother 2 (Aleksei Balabanov, 2000)

Week 5. Horror and The Digital Challenge
Required Viewing
Night Watch (Timur Bekmambetov, 2005)

Required Reading
Dolgopolov, Greg. ‘Night Watch: Transmedia, Game and Nation,’ Digital Icons 8, 2012.
Norris, Stephen ‘In the Gloom: The Political Lives of Undead Bodies in Timur
Bekmambetov's Night Watch,’ Kinokultura 16, April 2007 (no pagination).
MacFadyen, David. ‘Timur Bekmambetov: Night Watch (2004),’ Kinokultura 6 (2004)
Strukov, Vlad. ‘Night Watch,’ in The Russian Cinema Reader, ed. Rimgaila Salys, Boston,
MA: Academic Studies Press, 2013, 302-‐11.

Further Reading
Bolter, J. David and Grusin, Richard A, Remediation: Understanding New Media,
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, (excerpts).
Dolgopolov, Greg. ‘High Stakes: The Vampire and the Double in Russian Cinema,’ in
Dana Och and Kirsten Strayer (eds), Transnational Horror Across Visual Media:
Fragmented Bodies, New York and London: Routledge, 2014, 44-‐66.
Garza, Thomas Jesús, ‘From Russia with Blood: Imagining the Vampire in Contemporary
Russian Popular Culture,’ in Brodman, Barbara (ed. and introd.); Doan, James E. (ed.
and introd.); The Universal Vampire: The Origins and Evolution of a Legend, Madison,
NJ; Fairleigh Dickinson UP; 2013, pp. 195-‐207
Khapaeva, Dina (2011). ‘From a Vampire’s Point of View’. Kinokultura, 32,
http://www.kinokultura.com/2011/32-‐khapaeva.shtml
Strukov, Vlad. ‘The Forces of Kinship: Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch Cinematic
Trilogy,’ in Goscilo and Hashamova (eds), Cinepaternity, pp. 191-‐216.
Jancovich, Mark (ed.), Horror: The Film Reader Film, London and New York: Routledge,
2002.

Further Viewing
5
Day Watch (Timur Bekmambetov, 2006)

Week 6. Film Plan Research Workshop. No screening this week.
In preparation for the workshop, which aims to help you find material relevant to
your film note, please do the following:
-‐ Identify the key themes you may wish to write about in your film note and produce
a list of keywords relating to these themes.
-‐ Produce a short filmography of related films.

Week 7. Reading Week
Students choose topics for the extended essay
During reading week please do the following:
-‐ Visit the BFI Mediatheque and collect the relevant reviews and critical literature
relating to your film note.

-‐ Using the material collated in week 6 & 7 produce a plan for your film note and
submit essay plan on QM+ by Sunday 13 November 23.55 (Last day of Reading
Week)

Week 8. The New Auteurism
Required Viewing
Koktebel (Aleksei Popogrebskii, 2003)

Required Reading
Emma Widdis, ‘“One Foot in the Air?” Landscape in the Soviet and Russian Road Movie,’
in Graeme Harper & Jonathan Rayner (eds.). Cinema and Landscape, Bristol: Intellect
Books, 2010, 75-‐97.
Vladimir Padunov, ‘Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebskii: Koktebel (2003),’
Kinokultura, 2 2003.
Yana Hashamova, ‘Resurrected Fathers and Resuscitated Sons: Homosocial Fantasies in
The Return and Koktebel,’ in Goscilo and Hashamova, Cinepaternity, 169-‐90.

Further Reading
Hasted, Nick, ‘North by Northeast [Interview with Aleksei Popogrebskii],’ Sight and
Sound, 2011 May; 21 (5): 32-‐35.
Strukov, Vlad. ‘How I Ended This Summer,’ in The Russian Cinema Reader: Vol. 2: The
Thaw to the Present, ed. Rimgaila Salys, Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2013, .

Further Viewing
How I Ended This Summer (Aleksei Popogrebskii, 2010)

Week 9. -‐ Rethinking The Soviet Era
Required Viewing
9th Company (Fedor Bondarchuk, 2005)
6

Required Reading
Gregory Carleton, ‘Ninth Company,’ in The Russian cinema reader, ed. Rimgaila Salys,
Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2013)
Norris, Stephen. Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory and Patriotism,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012, ch. 7, pp. 143-‐66
Guy Westwell, War Cinema: Hollywood on the Front Line, London and New York:
Wallflower, 2006, 57-‐82

Further Reading
Dawn Seckler, ‘Company 9,’ Kinokultura 12, April 2006.

Further viewing
Cargo 200 (Aleksei Balabanov, 2007)

Week 10. The Russian History Film
Required Viewing
1612 (Vladimir Khotinenko, 2007)

Required Reading
Norris, Stephen. Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory and Patriotism,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012, 251-‐68.
Rosenstone, Robert A. History on Film/Film on History, 2nd edn, Abingdon and New
York: Routledge, 2012, 32-‐49.
Vázquez Liñán, Miguel. ‘History as a Propaganda Tool in Putin’s Russia,’ Communist and
Post-‐Communist Studies, 43: 2, June 2010, Pages 167–178

Further Reading
Norris, Stephen. ‘Vladimir Khotinenko, 1612: A Chronicle of the Time of Troubles,’
Kinokultura, 22 2008.
Gillespie, David. Russian Cinema, Harlow: Pearson, 2003, ch. 4 ‘The Course and Curse of
History,’ 59-‐81.

Further viewing
Barber of Siberia (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1998)

Week 11. Art, Auteurism and Social Critique
Required Viewing
Andrei Zviagintsev, Leviathan (2014)

7
Required Reading
Graffy, Julian. ‘Andrei Zviagintsev, Leviathan 2014’ Kinokultura, 48 (2015)
Lefebvre, Martin. ‘Between Setting and Landscape in the Cinema,’ in it (ed.), Landscape
and Film, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, 19-‐60.

Further Reading
Anne Thompson, ‘Russian Director Andrey Zvyagintsev on Provocative Oscar Short-‐Lister
“Leviathan”’, Indywire, December 26, 2014
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/russia-‐submits-‐leviathan-‐after-‐
all-‐andrey-‐zvyagintsev-‐talks-‐20140929
Horensma, Pier, The Soviet Arctic, London and New York : Routledge, 1991.
Shnirelman, Victor. ‘Hyperborea: The Arctic Myth of Contemporary Russian Radical
Nationalists,’ Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2014; 8 (2): 121-‐138

Further viewing
Andrei Zviaginstev, The Return, 2004
Andrei Zviaginstev, Elena, 2011

12. Essay Plan Feedback Meetings
Students to meet course organiser one to one to discuss feedback on plan and approach
to the critical essay.

Further Reading
Beumers, Birgit. "Cinemarket, or the Russian Film Industry in 'Mission Possible'." Europe-‐
-‐Asia Studies 51.5 (1999): 871-‐896.
-‐-‐. "To Moscow! To Moscow? The Russian Hero and the Loss of the Center." Russia on
Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-‐Soviet Cinema. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: I.B. Tauris,
1999. 76-‐87.
-‐-‐. "Soviet and Russian Blockbusters: A Question of Genre?" Slavic Review 62.3 (Fall
2003): 441-‐454.
-‐-‐, ed. The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union. Preface by Sergei Bodrov. 24
Frames. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.
-‐-‐. "Through the 'Other'Lens?: Russians on the Global Screen." In Russia and its Other(s)
on Film: Screening Intercultural Dialogue . Ed. Stephen Hutchings. NY: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008. 166-‐183.
-‐-‐. A History of Russian Cinema, Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009.
Carleton, Gregory. History Done Right: War and the Dynamics of Triumphalism in
Contemporary Russian Culture. Slavic Review, 70(3), 2001 615-‐636.
Oxford University Press, 2009.
Condee, Nancy. ‘History in a Time of Premeditated Amnesia: The 25th Kinotavr Open
Russian Film Festival,’ KinoKultura: Issue 46 (2014)
Crofts, Stephen. ‘Reconceptualizing National Cinema/s,’ in Alan Williams (ed and intro.),
Film and Nationalism, New Brunswick, NJ and London: 2002, 25-‐51.
8
Dondurei, Daniil. "Russian Cinema-‐-‐National Cinema? Three Views: 'Cinema and Life'
October 1997)." Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-‐Soviet Cinema. Ed. Birgit
Beumers. London: I.B. Tauris, 1999. 43-‐46.
Faraday, George. Revolt of the Filmmakers: The Struggle for Artistic Autonomy and the
Fall of the Soviet Film Industry. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 2000.
Gillespie, David. Russian Cinema. New York: Longman, 2003.
Hjort, M. and MacKenzie, S. (eds) (2000) Cinema and Nation. London: Routledge.
Hutchings, Stephen C; Rulyova, Natalia. Television and Culture in Putin's Russia: Remote
Control, London: Routledge, 2009
Lawton, Anna M. Imaging Russia 2000: Film and Facts, Washington DC: New Academia,
2004.
Moran, A. (ed.) (1996) Film Policy: International, National and Regional Perspectives.
London: Routledge.
Norris, Stepehen. Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory and
Patriotism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012.
Nowell-‐Smith, G. and S. Ricci (eds) (1998) Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture
and National Identity 1945-‐1995. London: BFI.
Oushakine, Sergei. The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War and Loss in Russia, Ithaca ;
London: Cornell University Press, 2009.
Rollberg, Peter. Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, Lanham, MA:
Sacrecrow Press, 2009
Sakwa, Richard. Russian Politics and Society, 4th ed., Fully rev. and updated edn, London
and New York: Routledge, 2008.
Post-‐Soviet Russian Media: Conflicting Signals, Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2006, 80-‐96.

Assessment

This module is assessed through the submission of an essay plan (500 words/25%) and
the subsequent writing of a long critical essay (3500 words/75%).
Your essay will focus on, and make detailed reference to, one contemporary Russian
film of your choice.

This may be a film viewed as part of the required viewing, it may be a film
recommended as further viewing or a film you have found independently.

Essay plan: Sunday 13 November 23.55 (Last day of Reading Week)

• Please start off with the title of the film in English (with the transliterated
Russian title if possible).
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• Please include a short plot synopsis of around 200 words. This should describe
the plot, the key events in the film in the order in which they happen, but not
analyse or interpret them. You may draw on or amend a pre-‐existing plot
synopsis, or write your own from scratch.
• Please set out the credits: you’ll need to include the names of the director,
producers, writers, cinematographers/DoP, editors, and also the key actors in
the cast. You may want to include brief details of music/sound and
location/studio in compiling your credits list. IMDB is a valuable resource for
this, as is Kinokultura.com
• Where possible, please include any available audience figures for your chosen
film, and any prize nominations or awards.
• Please set out an initial critical bibliography of four to six items that you intend
to consult in writing your essay. The critical bibliography may include books that
help you understand the theme or context of your chosen film, for example
books on the Arctic, Chechnya or the Putin presidencies which will be grouped in
the Library within the sections on contemporary Russian history and/or politics.
If your chosen film is a literary or theatrical adaptation, you will need to look in
the section on (Russian) literature.
• Please set out a short filmography of at least three other films that will help you
to understand the context and also what is unique about your chosen film. Give
the film titles and a sentence or two about each, setting out why they are useful
in the context of your proposed essay. These ‘contextual’ films may be linked to
your chosen film for example either by sharing a genre, sharing a theme, by
sharing a director or production company. If you want to comment in detail in
your essay on sound, cinematography, the use of stars etc., you may want to
watch films that deepen your understanding of these areas. These do not have
to be Russian films.
• Please set out at least three bullet points of key areas you think you will cover
when writing your critical essay. For example, you may want to highlight a
production issue (is the film a co-‐production? how is it financed? is it an auteur-‐
led project? is it driven by an emerging (regional) production company?). You
may want to address the central theme of your chosen film, and set it in the
context of key trends in Russian cinema over the past 25 years or so. You could
foreground any key issues of film form or aesthetics, genre or casting, that
interest you.
• Remember that this assignment can be in plan form, using bullet points where
appropriate, and please ensure that your plan adheres to the 500-‐word format.

Critical Essay: Sunday 8 January 23.55 (Last day of Winter Holiday)

• Please use your essay plan and the feedback you receive to help you to structure
your critical analysis of the chosen film.
10
• Make a case for why this film is particularly interesting for our understanding of
the scope of contemporary Russian cinema. Does it challenge traditional
definitions of ‘national’ cinema? What is its relationship to Hollywood, to trends
in European/World cinema, to questions of transnational or cosmopolitan
cinema? Does it foreground a particular region or city?
• Does it help to understand it as an ‘auteur’ piece? As a ‘genre film’? As the work
of a particular production company?
• Which trend(s) in contemporary Russian cinema does it fit into, or perhaps
attempt to resist?
• Which issues in contemporary (Russian) society or politics does it pick up or
evade? How? Why?
• How does it address questions of film form and aesthetics? Think about key
elements of its film form (e.g. mise-‐en-‐scène, editing, cinematography, sound,
lighting, use of stars, use of generic conventions, use of diverse visual material
and/or special effects, narrative structure etc.).
• How does it relate to other, similar, films, in Russia (or in other national
cinemas)? If appropriate, how does it relate to older traditions of filmmaking in
Russia: to Montage, influential filmmakers such as Tarkovsky, to the Soviet
period, to other cultural trends in Russia?
• How was the film received at the box office, at festivals, by critics, by academics,
in Russia and/or abroad?

You are welcome to propose a more precise title as long as it follows the guidelines set
out above.

Your critical essay must be properly referenced, and include a bibliography set out
appropriately. Your answer will be expected to draw on at least four to six appropriate
sources.
Please consult Timothy Corrigan’s book A Short Guide to Writing About Film (2010, 7th
ed. or earlier editions), New York: Pearson Longman for useful advice on writing essays
on film..
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