Women in Soviet Film: The Thaw and Post-Thaw Periods (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series)

This book illuminates and explores the representation of women in Soviet cinema from the late 1950s, through the 1960s, and into the 1970s, a period when Soviet culture shifted away, to varying degrees, from the well-established conventions of socialist realism. Covering films about working class women, rural and urban women, and women from the intelligentsia, it probes various cinematic genres and approaches to film aesthetics, while it also highlights how Soviet cinema depicted the ambiguity of emerging gender roles, pressing social issues, and evolving relationships between men and women. It thereby casts a penetrating light on society and culture in this crucial period of the Soviet Union’s development. Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of contents -- Figures -- Notes on contributors -- Introduction -- References -- Part I Actresses, onscreen personas, and their evolution through the years -- 1 Tatiana Samoilova and the search for a new Soviet woman -- Notes -- References -- Filmography -- 2 Liudmila Gurchenko: Stardom in the late Soviet era -- The actress -- The diva -- Notes -- References -- 3 Nina Ruslanova: Traversing the spaces of late socialism -- From orphanage to stage and screen, 1945-1967 -- Complicating tradition, 1967-1972 -- Constructing, inhabiting, embodying space, 1974-1981 -- Notes -- References -- Part II Genre as device in mainstream cinema -- 4 Femininity, patriarchality, and anti-Stalinism in Vladimir Chebotarev's Wild Honey -- Memory as delirium -- From life to book -- Varvara Kniazhich: from novel to film -- The representation of Stalinism -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- 5 Melodrama's womanly face: Femininity redefined in the Soviet cinema of the late 1960s-early 1970s -- Diverse images of womanhood -- The disappearance of the family from melodrama -- Melodrama and the city -- Melody and melodrama -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- References -- 6 A laughing matter: El'dar Riazanov and the subversion of Soviet gender in Russian comedy -- The girl without an address -- Give me the complaint book -- The irony of fate, or enjoy your bath! -- Office romance -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Part III New Soviet wave cinema and auteurism -- 7 Marlen Khutsiev's July Rain, cultural liberation, and a new Soviet woman -- Early Khutsiev heroines of the thaw -- July Rain's Lena -- Notes -- References -- Filmography -- 8 "What can be done about it? I'm a woman, not a pet": The non-heroic heroines in Romm's Nine Days ... -- The films and their directors Liolia (Nine Days) -- Katia (You and Me) -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Filmography -- 9 Gender, sex, and the fantasy of the non-expressive in Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates -- Notes -- References -- Index This book explores the portrayal of women in Soviet films of the 1950s to 1970s, during which time a large number of films featured complex female characters who went beyond the stereotypical women of Soviet realism.