Soviet era films

D

DLD

Major Contributor
Some are classic; some less so.

The title of "Abduction in the Caucuses" or "Kidnapping, Caucasian style" is a play on words from Leo Tolstoy's novel "Prisoner of the Caucases". This comedy was a top Soviet film of 1967 with over 76 million tickets sold.

The film is available via its rights holder Mosfilm and has English subtitles (click on CC, then chose the desired language)


Here's film's English language Wikipedia page (with a full plot, such as it was).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping,_Caucasian_Style

The Soviet style film making is an acquired - or discarded - taste. Humor is better understood by the era. Nonetheless, some of you may enjoy it.

If someone has a question about certain references, I'll be glad to answer them (if I know them myself).
 
DLD said:
The film is available via its rights holder Mosfilm and has English subtitles (click on CC, then chose the desired language)
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Unfortunately not in the USA, I get a blocked by Mosfilm message.

Edited: Nevermind it works when you actually view it on YouTube!
 
I'll check it out. What do you think of "I Am Cuba"? I interviewed Scorsese about his involvement in the restoration and even before I saw the restored version,
I was always endlessly impressed by the creativity in how it was filmed and directed.
 
puredrifting said:
I'll check it out. What do you think of "I Am Cuba"? I interviewed Scorsese about his involvement in the restoration and even before I saw the restored version, I was always endlessly impressed by the creativity in how it was filmed and directed.
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The precursor to "Soy Cuba" (it was shot in Spanish for whatever reasons - OK, it was in Cuba - despite the script being by a prominent Soviet poet Yevgeniy Yevtushenko) was a previous Kalatozov-Urusevski collaboration called the "Cranes are flying". It was shot during the Khrushchev Thaw (late 50's/early60's) where film makers were given considerably more leeway than under Stalin. The "Cranes" won Palm D'Or in Cannes and made the Soviets a lot of money overseas. That gave Kalatozov pretty much a cart blanche. So, he and Urusevski decided to go all out with their long takes off the handheld and cable cams. Many found the cinematography incredible. Andrei Tarkovsky, on the other hand, blasted it as "photography without any other purpose".

Of course, after it came out in the USSR, Suslov was in charge of ideology/media and he shelved the film because Kalatozov made the pre-Castro Cuba "look too good".

Here's a sample from the "departure to the battlefield" scene from the "Cranes". (Mosfilm has the full version as well)


(have to watch it on YouTube, as is the case with all Mosfilm properties)
 
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If one looks at the opening scenes of "Soy Cuba", one sees Suslov's point.


PS. I don't think Mosfilm has it on their page. Someone uploaded it somewhere else in a not-so-good quality.
 
Staying with comedies, the "Gentlemen of Fortune" was a top Soviet hit of 1972 with over 65 million tickets sold.


There are no "direct" OEM subtitles. One'd have to click on CC first. That gives the Russian language subtitles, which then can be translated into English with a selector. That does a decent job, even with a fake prison jargon. (in the USSR, foul language was not allowed).

The only read hiccup they have with nicknames. Docent (Dozent in German, with the Soviets copying the word) may be an "associate professor" in English but would be far too long a calling card for a "made man". Kosoy (Slant Eyes) is translated as Oblique sometimes.

Other than that. One should easily understand the setting and the plot. Some jokes will obviously be lost.

Side note - of the film's actors, two made it into the US. The most famous of them Savely Kramarov (1934-1995) was a huge star in the USSR but then became a refusenick. He was allowed to leave after Reagan's interference in 1981 and had several roles in Hollywood, including a KGB officer role in "Moscow on the Hudson". The blond Oleg Vidov (1943-2017) defected to the US in 1985 from Yugoslavia and, toward the end of his life ran a drug treatment center in Malibu with his American wife.

English Wikipedia page -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen_of_Fortune

Russian page via Google Translate - https://translate.google.com/transl...BD%D1% 8B_%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%2 5B8
 

"The Courier" (aka, "The Gopher Boy") was a 1986 pre-perestroika comedy-drama in the mode of a "Graduate", adjusted for the era and the geopolitical landscape. It touches on so many themes that the first time I saw it about a decade ago, I missed on half of them. Mosfilm presents it in wide screen and HD.

Film's IMDB page https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091364/ - (8 stars out of 10!)

English subtitles under the CC.
 

The 1969 "Crime and Punishment", an unlicensed version but it's been on YouTube for six years. Uploaded in 15 min clips, has English subtitles. Yes, it's Dostoevsky. It's supposed to make you depressed.
 
DLD said:
The 1969 "Crime and Punishment", an unlicensed version but it's been on YouTube for six years. Uploaded in 15 min clips, has English subtitles. Yes, it's Dostoevsky. It's supposed to make you depressed.
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Talking of Dostoevsky... Did you see the TV series “Gogol”? Apparently it’s supposed to be based on his books and life. The images I saw looked nothing like the books I’ve read though...
(Dostoevsky said something like “the Russian prose rests in the cape of Gogol”)
 
dmitrizigany said:
Talking of Dostoevsky... Did you see the TV series “Gogol”? Apparently it’s supposed to be based on his books and life. The images I saw looked nothing like the books I’ve read though...
(Dostoevsky said something like “the Russian prose rests in the cape of Gogol”)
Click to expand...

Turgenev was supposed to be the best Russian prose writer. No plot or story line to speak of but a great prose and well built characters. Overall, on shorter stories though, it's Chekhov by a mile. No, make it two miles. Anton had everything -- setting, characters, prose and plot.

As to Gogol, there was an original "Viy" made in 1969, has been available on YouTube by the various uploaders for well over a decade. The most recent Viy is available on YouTube for $2. The TV series adds some unused footage from the film (which was probably shot like that to begin with). It's on Amazon Prime, which I don't have.

PS. Gogol's work that some may recognize is the "Inspector General".


It was a part of the selection in the Russian Lit classes at a 7th grade level, IIRC. The "Dead Souls" was a grade or two higher and one sort of needed an economics degree to understand. I read parts of it recently and found to be worthy of a dissertation in both literature and economics.
 
DLD said:
The precursor to "Soy Cuba" (it was shot in Spanish for whatever reasons - OK, it was in Cuba - despite the script being by a prominent Soviet poet Yevgeniy Yevtushenko) was a previous Kalatozov-Urusevski collaboration called the "Cranes are flying". It was shot during the Khrushchev Thaw (late 50's/early60's) where film makers were given considerably more leeway than under Stalin. The "Cranes" won Palm D'Or in Cannes and made the Soviets a lot of money overseas. That gave Kalatozov pretty much a cart blanche. So, he and Urusevski decided to go all out with their long takes off the handheld and cable cams. Many found the cinematography incredible. Andrei Tarkovsky, on the other hand, blasted it as "photography without any other purpose".

Of course, after it came out in the USSR, Suslov was in charge of ideology/media and he shelved the film because Kalatozov made the pre-Castro Cuba "look too good".

Here's a sample from the "departure to the battlefield" scene from the "Cranes". (Mosfilm has the full version as well)


(have to watch it on YouTube, as is the case with all Mosfilm properties)
Click to expand...

Very nice filmmaking, I love the camera movement, the mise en scene is excellent.
They must have been using a physically huge camera and for the CU's of the guy marching arm in arm, I loved how the camera movment was smooth but mimicked the walking arm in arm movement.
 
DLD said:
Turgenev was supposed to be the best Russian prose writer. No plot or story line to speak of but a great prose and well built characters. Overall, on shorter stories though, it's Chekhov by a mile. No, make it two miles. Anton had everything -- setting, characters, prose and plot..
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tip! I love Gogol. My favourite of his is "The Nose"...
 
puredrifting said:
Very nice filmmaking, I love the camera movement, the mise en scene is excellent.
They must have been using a physically huge camera and for the CU's of the guy marching arm in arm, I loved how the camera movment was smooth but mimicked the walking arm in arm movement.
Click to expand...

For some reasons, I can't find the full movie online ... except for this odd piece, where there's a voiceover from the "unsanctioned" narrator, who reads from the original script. The Soviet screenplays did not follow the US "stage" format, so there was a lot of action style narrative.

There are some great opening shots, with the famous stairs scene starting at ~ 5 min mark.


PS. have to watch on YouTube. Russian subtitles on the screen.
 
"Moscow doesn't believe in tears" was a 1979 melodrama that won the 1980 Oscar as the Best Foreign film.

There's not much from a cinematography angle here but it's a good slice-of-life look at the Soviet Union of the late 1950's and again the late 1970's, despite having some overly positive spin on several story lines.


Click on CC for the subtitles, then select "English" from the setting options.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Does_Not_Believe_in_Tears its English Wikipedia page that gives away its plot.

PS. The movie title refers to an old Russian saying that means something like, "Stop pouting, it won't do you no good".
 
So, since this is a new year - happy New Year, everyone - it's time to bring out the most popular romcom in the history of the USSR. "The Irony of fate or have a nice steam" was made in 1975 and premiered on January, 1st, 1976.

The events in the film involve the New Year as well, as they take place on December 31/January 1 and are (kind of) based on a real precedent - a drunk guest at a New Year party in Moscow was deposited on a train - some say it was accidental, some say it was a prank - and woke up the following morning somewhere near Kiev. Since the movie became hugely popular upon its release, it was repeatedly broadcast on the Soviet and then Russian TV for the last 45 years every New Years day. Those who have seen it all these times, remember every line. Film's actors hate it for the typecasting. Others hate it for other reasons. I linked it to a Soviet Immigrant Facebook group and got 22 likes (which is a relatively high number). I got also a few likes on my own page. And a few "I hate it" comments from a female friend.

Anyhow, this is the film (with official English subtitles) on Mosfilm's YouTube channel.


Its English Wikipedia page (it gives away the plot).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irony_of_Fate

PS. I first found it online on the New Year's eve 2007/2008, sent the links to my American friends who liked it a whole lot. Others thought that it lags in spots.
 

"Afonya" (diminutive from Afanasiy, a Russian version of Anthony) was the 1975 Soviet box office champ with over 62 million tickets sold. As usual, the plot is not quite as tight as a typical Hollywood made comedy but this is still a rather cute take on the Soviet life of the mid-1970's. The cast is excellent and the location (city of Yaroslavl', ~ 160 miles east of Moscow that Bernie Sanders enjoyed so much a decade and a half later) is a pretty typical medium size Soviet town, with all that it entails.

Aside the opening, the automatic English translation is pretty good too. Click on the CC. Watch it on YouTube.

Film's English Wikipedia page that gives away the story line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonya
 
DLD said:
So, since this is a new year - happy New Year, everyone - it's time to bring out the most popular romcom in the history of the USSR. "The Irony of fate or have a nice steam" was made in 1975 and premiered on January, 1st, 1976.

The events in the film involve the New Year as well, as they take place on December 31/January 1 and are (kind of) based on a real precedent - a drunk guest at a New Year party in Moscow was deposited on a train - some say it was accidental, some say it was a prank - and woke up the following morning somewhere near Kiev. Since the movie became hugely popular upon its release, it was repeatedly broadcast on the Soviet and then Russian TV for the last 45 years every New Years day. Those who have seen it all these times, remember every line. Film's actors hate it for the typecasting. Others hate it for other reasons. I linked it to a Soviet Immigrant Facebook group and got 22 likes (which is a relatively high number). I got also a few likes on my own page. And a few "I hate it" comments from a female friend.

Anyhow, this is the film (with official English subtitles) on Mosfilm's YouTube channel.


Its English Wikipedia page (it gives away the plot).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irony_of_Fate

PS. I first found it online on the New Year's eve 2007/2008, sent the links to my American friends who liked it a whole lot. Others thought that it lags in spots.
Click to expand...

The movie storyline was made even funnier as the main character was placed on a Moscow-Leningrad nonstop flight (about Boston-New York distance), upon arrival, he barely woke up and gave the taxi driver his address, which worked as all newly built apartment blocks were built to the same designs and looked very similar all around USSR, street names were similar (Lenin Ave.) and his key opened somebody else's apartment. He did not completely wake up until a young beautiful lady came home and both were really scared :-)
 
adolgin said:
... street names were similar (Lenin Ave.) and his key opened somebody else's apartment. He did not completely wake up until a young beautiful lady came home and both were really scared :-)
Click to expand...


Yes, that's the plot.

The street name was given as the generic Builders' (Улица Строителей, Дом 25, Квартира 12) because the politicians name would not have been allowed. The film director Eldar Ryazanov had a lot of clout by that time and was given considerable leeway in his depiction of the Soviet life.
 
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