A community to discuss, debate, and celebrate the history of cinema, emphasis on—but not exclusively—the groundbreaking, avant garde and experimental, with a healthy dose of irreverence instead of the usual navel-gazing that usually surrounds cineastic appreciation.
Community Rules
"All is fair in love and war" but keep it witty or, at minimum, intelligent. If you can't do either, keep walking. This community's administrators will not abide simpletons nor bullies.
"Franchise picture" fans and similar ilk, be forewarned: you are open game to be verbally flayed in this public square. Did you not see the name of this community?
There ~~may~~ will be occasionally adult subject matter (NSFW)—such is the nature of the beast. While it is not the scope of this community to purvey nor condone extreme or gratuitous sex or violence, neither subjects are necessarily condemned when in context with the subject matter at hand. It is also not the scope of this community to discuss only adult themes; how else could one discuss Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939) or Donen/Kelly's Singing In The Rain (1952)?
It is suggested you do not subscribe if you are highly sensitive to either subjects.
It is strongly suggested that authors of submitted posts mark NSFW content as such. Err on the side of doubt.
Logrolling
Geez, what a can of worms you've opened, comrade!
The Snow Queen (1957)
A Beginner's Guide to Soviet Animated Cinema
I swear I'm done!
Hey, gang! I just remembered!
Mosfilm (Мосфильм) has a YouTube channel, a huge library of films online free for the cultural enrichment of the proletariat…and for the imperialists and oligarchs alike!
Want easy some starting points?
Contrary to what everybody and their babushka says, I recommend staying away from Battleship Potemkin (1925) as a starting point—a seminal film in many aspects but unless you are studying film history, it may not hold your attention almost 100 years later. After you've eased into Soviet cinema a bit, definitely see it! You can then play a drinking game with any future films you may see: Spot the Battleship Potemkin reference!
You mean like Tarkovsky? Pudovkin? The Master, Eisenstein? Why don't you enlighten us, @[email protected]? I can't do all the heavy lifting around here! 😄
Haha, fair.
I'm familiar with Tarkovsky, but not the others. Battleship Potemkin rings a bell. I watched zerograd the other day. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had more context into the everyday Soviet life that it was commentating on.
I've also heard about Man with a movie camera. Might check that out at some point.
I saw Man with a Movie Camera when TCM showed it a few months ago. Very interesting considering how he would lug a large wind-up camera around and film everything that he found interesting then use creative ways to edit it all together. To me, it didn't look like a propaganda film at all, altho perhaps to those who lived in the USSR during that time may have seen more in it than modern Western people do today.
