RUSS 14 The Age of Brainwashing: A History of Russian and Eastern European Film

An interpretive history of Russian, Soviet, Post-Soviet and Central European film. Topics include: tsarist Russia and the psychological school of the silent film (Evgeny Bauer); the Revolution and the Golden Age of Soviet montage (Sergey Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov); Stalinism and film as an instrument of mind control and propaganda; late Soviet symbolist cinema (Andrey Tarkovsky); and contemporary Russian Film Noir. The course also touches upon Eastern/Central European film, including the Czech New Wave (surrealist animator Jan Svankmeyer) and the "post-Yugoslavian wave" (Emir Kusturica and Dusan Makoveev). In addition to regular weekly screenings, all films will be made available online in an experimental format: divided into separate short clips that will be used in class for in-depth analysis and close cinematic readings. The final project (done in groups) will be creative: you will make a video-parody or video-stylization of one of the studied films. Open to all classes.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:ART; WCult:W

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