Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: Movies
From: zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 5 Oct 92 01:41:36 EDT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal
Keywords: Hollywood understatement vs. Russian bathos
Summary: Let's nuke Mosfilm

In article <1992Oct4.171238.24128@ultb.isc.rit.edu>
mns6569@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:

>I've just seen Konchalovsky's movie "The inner circle". 
>Thought I might add my 2 cents to the Russian/American movies discussion.
>This one was very "russian'-like to me. It was slow, dark, very 'russian'
>in theme, even enployed a good number of russian actors. 
>Unlike most Soviet movies, however, it was NOT boring, NOT shot by an inept
>cameraman with 1 camera, and somehow the director managed to almost make 
>the soviet contingent of actors ACT.
>Now, in my humble opinion, soviet actors can do a lot of things. Sign
>petitions, sign autographs, etc, but most of them can not ACT! They deliver
>their lines like Levitan used to on the May Day parade. You start seeing it
>after about 2-3 years of watching non-soviet movies. Then you see one, and
>you get shocked. The actors are full of self-importance, or else, 
>Stanislavsky's methods just tell them: "Do not talk like normal people do".
>Watch any soviet movie. The line "I'm going to the bathroom" is delivered
>with almost Shakesperian "Poor Yorik" overtones. 
>That, plus very low quality of camera work, plus lack of interesting subjects
>or total inability of directors to keep the film going in a cirtain direction
>(like latest Riazanov's offerings) are the reasons I don't like Soviet movies.
>As I said in the beginning, I command Konchalovsky for managing to create
>pseudo-russian lighting and camera work, and at the same time still keep
>the standard high. And even more so, for his ability to make russians ACT, ie
>deliver their lines in half-way normal voices. I'd be curious to see this
>movie dubbed in Russian and listen to dubbers Levitan-like voices delivering
>the same lines.
>Also, I think this movie demonstrates the difference between russian and
>american actors. See the movie and deside which once you like better.
>Mike.S

Though the point about the preponderance of histrionics in Russian cinema
is well taken, I submit that the pernicious influence of Stanislavsky's
methods has been felt in the American film industry at least as much as in
the Russian one.  (You might look through the Spy magazine of 1990-1 to
find an article concerning this phenomenon, with Marlon Brando and Dustin
Hoffmann in particular singled out as some of the worst offenders.)  Some
recent Russian films notable for their low-key acting include the so far
unreleased in the U.S. "Zamri, umri, voskresni" ("Bouge pas, meurs et
ressuscite" in France) by Vitali Kanevski, and the excellent Russo-French
co-production "Luna-park" by Pavel Longuine, the director of "Taxi blues",
who explicitly disavows any acquaintance with the aforementioned acting
doctrine in his recent interview with a fawning French journalist ("Les
Inrockuptibles" #39, 1992).  Both films have been well received by the
French critics, and seem to enjoy a modicum of popularity, the latter often
playing side-by-side with such masterpieces of Hollywood understatement as
"L'Arme fatale III", currently #1 in Paris.

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Nous donnons la mort, nous saurons la subir."

Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet