Maria Belodubrovskaya
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501709944
- eISBN:
- 9781501713804
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501709944.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Not According to Plan is a history of Soviet filmmaking under Stalin (1930–1953). It addresses why the Stalin regime failed to construct a controlled propaganda cinema despite explicit intention to ...
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Not According to Plan is a history of Soviet filmmaking under Stalin (1930–1953). It addresses why the Stalin regime failed to construct a controlled propaganda cinema despite explicit intention to do so. Using new archival evidence, Belodubrovskaya shows that the Stalinist state was unsuccessful because its ideological ambitions undermined institutional reform and development. When choosing between the short-term goal of making film “masterpieces” and longer-term industrialization targeting mass production, Stalin and his policymakers consistently selected the former. The preference for quality films and Stalin’s intolerance of imperfection reinforced an artisanal, director-centered mode of production; exacerbated planning, screenwriting, and censorship dysfunction; created an entitled artistic workforce; and ultimately closed the door to a mass propaganda cinema. Not According to Plan challenges the notion that Stalin had authority over the arts and suggests that ideological control collapses in environments where artistry is rewarded.Less
Not According to Plan is a history of Soviet filmmaking under Stalin (1930–1953). It addresses why the Stalin regime failed to construct a controlled propaganda cinema despite explicit intention to do so. Using new archival evidence, Belodubrovskaya shows that the Stalinist state was unsuccessful because its ideological ambitions undermined institutional reform and development. When choosing between the short-term goal of making film “masterpieces” and longer-term industrialization targeting mass production, Stalin and his policymakers consistently selected the former. The preference for quality films and Stalin’s intolerance of imperfection reinforced an artisanal, director-centered mode of production; exacerbated planning, screenwriting, and censorship dysfunction; created an entitled artistic workforce; and ultimately closed the door to a mass propaganda cinema. Not According to Plan challenges the notion that Stalin had authority over the arts and suggests that ideological control collapses in environments where artistry is rewarded.
Hikari Hori
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501714542
- eISBN:
- 9781501709524
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501714542.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The early Showa Era (1926-45), which roughly coincides with the Nazi years (1920-45) and Mussolini’s ‘venti anni’ (1921-43), is generally assumed to be a dogmatically and fanatically nationalist ...
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The early Showa Era (1926-45), which roughly coincides with the Nazi years (1920-45) and Mussolini’s ‘venti anni’ (1921-43), is generally assumed to be a dogmatically and fanatically nationalist period, and due this putative monomania is often seen as a straightforward subject to study. To the contrary, this book reveals a very different picture of the Japanese popular media of this time period. The book examines the ways in which Japanese film and visual culture responded to the issues of the day, producing adaptations of Hollywood genre films; admiring pioneering film theories from Russia and Britain; and examining the techniques of German animation and Disney films. Importantly, the veneration of the emperor’s portrait photograph is a key to understand and contextualize the era’s media-scape. It is crucial to note that domestic film manifested the inherent promiscuity and transnationality of its medium. Japanese films did play a familiar role as propaganda, but because of their heterotopic aspects, the medium also negated, opposed, and undermined the ideologically and nationalistically defined demands of the wartime state. For other visual cultural media, too, careful examination reveals they were a site of contradictions of the dominant totalitarian discourse. (192 words)Less
The early Showa Era (1926-45), which roughly coincides with the Nazi years (1920-45) and Mussolini’s ‘venti anni’ (1921-43), is generally assumed to be a dogmatically and fanatically nationalist period, and due this putative monomania is often seen as a straightforward subject to study. To the contrary, this book reveals a very different picture of the Japanese popular media of this time period. The book examines the ways in which Japanese film and visual culture responded to the issues of the day, producing adaptations of Hollywood genre films; admiring pioneering film theories from Russia and Britain; and examining the techniques of German animation and Disney films. Importantly, the veneration of the emperor’s portrait photograph is a key to understand and contextualize the era’s media-scape. It is crucial to note that domestic film manifested the inherent promiscuity and transnationality of its medium. Japanese films did play a familiar role as propaganda, but because of their heterotopic aspects, the medium also negated, opposed, and undermined the ideologically and nationalistically defined demands of the wartime state. For other visual cultural media, too, careful examination reveals they were a site of contradictions of the dominant totalitarian discourse. (192 words)
