Study Questions for November 13^th

Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, Part III

Chapter 10 “Film Hunger, 1945-1953”

1. Why does the author consider the early years of the Cold War as “the gloomiest in Soviet history”? Why did Stalinist policies become so repressive?

2. Why did Soviet film production decline so precipitously after World War II? What was Stalin’s role in this decline?

3. What were “trophy films”? Why did the regime allow them to be shown? How did audiences respond to them?

4. In looking at the post-World War II period, why does Kenez question the “vigour and effectiveness of Soviet propaganda”? How did the early Bolsheviks’ attitude toward film as propaganda differ from the attitude of the Stalinists?

5. What were some of the criticisms government officials leveled against Soviet films? What kinds of movies were considered “politically correct”?

6. Why didn’t Stalin like Eisenstein’s film on Ivan the Terrible?

7. What was the “anti-cosmopolitan campaign”? Who were its targets? According to the author, why was its xenophobia ironic? How did it “project” the regime’s fears and concerns?

Chapter 11 “The Nadir, 1945-1953”

1. What were “artistic documentaries”? Were they either? What messages did they convey?

2. Why did Mikhail Chiaureli become the most prominent Soviet director of the postwar period? Was his success based solely on merit?

3. What were “publicistic films”? What messages did they convey?

4. How are American-Soviet encounters portrayed in publicistic films? Why do such portrayals seem especially odd?

5. Why did “film biographies” become a popular genre after World War II?

6. What are the characteristics of the heroes depicted in the film biographies?

7. What do the films of this period reveal about the quality of cultural life in the Soviet Union during the late Stalin years?

8. According to Kenez, why were the Soviet films of this era so terrible?

Conclusion

1. How did the role of Soviet film as propaganda evolve between 1917 and Stalin’s death in 1953? Why is it difficult to measure the success of Soviet film as propaganda?

2. In examining Soviet cinema, what was the relationship between art and politics? Could political films be artistic? How did the views of the first generation of Soviet leaders on this issue differ from those of the Stalinists?

3. Why was an American film about prostitution different than a Soviet film about prostitution? Or, in broader terms, why were Soviet films inherently different than American films?

4. Why did the “proletariat” raise problems for the Bolsheviks who hope to create a “proletarian culture”?

5. Why did the avant garde artists’ initially ally with the Bolsheviks? Why did this alliance turn sour?

6. How was Soviet cinema an “accomplice” in building the edifice of Stalinism?

Starr, Red & Hot, Chapter 10

1. Why were many Soviet citizens, and particularly jazz musicians, caught off guard when the regime’s cultural policies became so repressive in 1946? Why did this seemingly abrupt reversal take place?

2. Why does the author believe that the break-down in US-Soviet relations after World War II does not adequately explain the repressive cultural policies that Stalin uleashed?

3. Soviet officials claimed that the spread of jazz after World War II was a sinister plot that the U.S. government had hatched to break down Russian resistance to American imperial expansion. Why does the author believe this argument has no merit?

4. What domestic concerns might have led Stalin to institute such repressive cultural policies? Why did the Soviet leadership express such a fear and hatred of all things foreign?

5. What was the impact of the regime’s anti-foreign sentiments on daily life in the USSR?

6. Why did many Soviet citizens respond to the new repressive policies with “resigned support” (212)?

7. How did the attack on jazz and jazz musicians in the late 1940s differ from the anti-jazz campaign of the mid-1930s?

8. What measures did Soviet leaders take to crack down on jazz and other “politically incorrect” forms of popular culture? To what extent did their efforts succeed?

9. What does the author mean by the phrase “red-neck ideologue”?

10. What line of reasoning did the regime devise to justify its attacks on jazz and to undermine the arguments previously made to defend jazz?

11. Why was it hard for Soviet composers to develop an “authentic” style of popular music to replace jazz?

12. How did some musicians manage to get around the regime’s anti-jazz campaign?

13. How did Soviet jazz suffer from the anti-jazz campaign? What were the costs? Were there any (indirect) benefits for jazz that emerged from this repressive period?

Biskind, “Pods and Blobs”

1. Biskind argues that the sci-fi film Them! “effectively established the legitimacy of state power” and “defined and negated the extremes, the limits of behavior.” What does he mean by this? How does the film set out to convince people that they should “do what the government tells them”?

2. Why does Biskind believe that both Them! and The Thing depict nature’s assault on culture?

3. Biskind uses the terms “corporate-liberal” and “conservative” in his analysis of cold war sci-fi films. As he uses them, what do these terms mean?

4. Why does Biskind consider “Them!” a “corporate-liberal” film and “The Thing” a “conservative” or “populist” film? What evidence does he cite to support his argument? Do you buy his interpretations?

5. What “corporate-liberal” themes emerge in “Them!”? What “conservative” themes emerge in “The Thing?”

6. According to Biskind, how do corporate-liberals and conservatives differ with regard to their attitudes toward:

1) authority/state power

2) science and scientists

3) the military

4) the “common people”

5) the nature and agenda of the Communist enemy

7. Biskind declares that “Them! has as much to do with the sex war as it does the cold war.” Do you believe, as the author appears to, that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and other “corporate-liberals” were afraid of “sexual women?” Should they have been?

8. Does Biskind offer any evidence that contemporary audiences interpreted these films in the same way he does? Even if they did not, does his argument still stand because these audiences were subconsciously consuming the messages latent in these films?

9. Biskind implicitly condemns the “consensus” political culture of the cold war in which forces of the “center” tried to keep in check other forces they perceived to be on the extreme left and right. Given Americans’ recent encounters with Fascism (on the right) and Communism (on the left), is the behavior of the “centrists” understandable, or even prudent? Or was this simply a case of a self-interested status quo trying to protect its own power?