Representations of Urban Spaces and Their Transformations in Soviet Cinema of the 1920S and 1960S
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Durham E-Theses Representations of Urban Spaces and Their Transformations in Soviet Cinema of the 1920s and 1960s HURINA, ANNA How to cite: HURINA, ANNA (2015) Representations of Urban Spaces and Their Transformations in Soviet Cinema of the 1920s and 1960s, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11340/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Representations of Urban Spaces and Their Transformations in Soviet Cinema of the 1920s and 1960s Anna Hurina Submitted for a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Durham Russian Department School of Modern Languages and Cultures 2015 DECLARATION This thesis is the sole work of the author, and has not been submitted previously by any other candidate for a degree at Durham University or at any other University. STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any format, including electronic and the Internet, without the author’s prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. SEMINARS, CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS & PUBLICATIONS ARISING FROM THIS STUDY 2012 Spaces of (Dis)location (University of Glasgow, May 24-25th) 2012 invited speaker at RUSSGRAD seminar (University of Cambridge, November, 29th) 2013 BASEES/ICCEES European Congress 2013: Europe: Crisis and Renewal (University of Cambridge, April 5 – 8th, 2013) 2013 Literary Form and Visual Culture (University of Durham, June, 24th) 2014 invited speaker at Postgraduate Work-in-Progress Papers seminar (University of Nottingham Russian and Slavonic Studies, March, 17th) Hurina, Anna (forthcoming 2015) Dialektyka tekhniky: vid Lenina do Lenina [Dialectics of Technology: from Lenin to Lenin] in Olga Briukhovetska (ed.) Visual Culture of Post-Stalinism (Kyiv: Krytyka). Hurina, Anna (2014) Review of Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931-1941, by Katerina Clark. Slavonica 20:(1) 60-1. Hurina, Anna (2015) (forthcoming) Review of Races to Modernity: Metropolitan Aspirations in Eastern Europe, 1890-1940, by Jan C. Behrends and Martin Kohlrausch. Slavonica 21:(2). ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without many insightful dialogues with my supervisor Dr. Alastair Renfrew. His openness, vision and metaphors have been truly inspirational. My byt [everyday life], however, was defined by the financial support provided by a Durham Doctoral Studentship and the hospitality of Ustinov College. I could not be more grateful for both. I would like to thank everyone in the Russian department for their invaluable contributions (conscious and unconscious) to making my thesis writing go as smoothly as possible: Dr. Viktoria Ivleva, Dr. Andy Byford, Marianna Taymanova and Prof. Mikhail Epstein. My warmest gratitude goes to Dr Alexandra Harrington who has been much more than a second supervisor! I would like to thank my thesis examiners Dr Dušan Radunović and Dr Jeremy Hicks whose feedback improved my work and inspired further explorations. I am very grateful to my parents who have always understood and supported me no matter what. Also my sincere thanks go to friends and colleagues who have helped me out throughout the process either by offering productive debate, last minute proofreading or a drink and a kind word: Max, Olenka, Polina, Ratima, Ania P., Tsykurka, Katia, Voznychka, Ben, Tina, Charidimos, Panagiota, Nee Nee, Adina, Sid, Wei, Daniyar, Lina, Wan-Yu, Hanae, Yumi, Rachel, Nui, Shermain, Judy, Armando and Josane, and Rosie. Finally, the completion of this work would never have happened without the support of my husband. For his boundless love and endless patience I am truly grateful! iii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the correlations between planned/constructed urban environments and the depiction of the city in films. The research focuses on the changing image of the socialist city in two broadly conceived modernist periods: the 1920s and the 1960s. Adhering to the methodologies of visual, film and urban studies after the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities, my thesis charts the interdependency of two fields – urbanism and cinema – in the production of Soviet urban space. The theoretical contributions of my study include: (1) revisiting the theory of dispositif and the subject it produces with regard to the Soviet context; (2) identifying the category of the socialist city symphony as a cinematic sub-genre in the 1920s; (3) re-affirming the productivity of the concept of the ‘thing’ in relation to the cinematography of the 1920s; (4) reconceptualizing utopian impulses and the inherent dialectical movement of the Soviet understanding of technology. This dissertation mirrors the theory of the ‘linear city’ proposed by Nikolai Miliutin in 1930: a scheme for the parallel disposition of industrial and living spaces, which are divided by a green zone along the lines of transport infrastructure. The three parts that form this thesis are accordingly structured around the following conceptual entities: dispositif (philosophical and film theory concepts; its application towards the railway, city and the cinema); living spaces of the socialist city (architectural and screen byt [way of life]); working spaces of the socialist city and the dialectics of technology on the cinema screen. The main findings of my work are: the explication of the affinities between the New Soviet Subject and the production strategies of urbanism and cinema; establishing the stylistic, ideological and rhetorical similarities between the modernisms of the 1920s and 1960s; and analyzing the panoply of utopian impulses embodied in urban and film material which are easily missed if the Soviet experience is only viewed as the cultural production of totalitarianism. iv OUTLINE Declaration and Statement of Copyright ii Seminars, conference presentations and publication arising from this study ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Outline v List of figures Introduction 3 PART I WHAT IS DISPOSITIF? 16 Chapter 1: In search of Dispositif 16 1.1 The philosophical notion of dispositif (Michel Foucault, Gilles 16 Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben) 1.2 Dispositif in film theory (Jean-Louis Baudry) 21 Chapter 2: Dispositifs of the railway and city in Soviet cinema of the 38 1920-1930s 2.1 Railway dispositif 38 2.2 City dispositif 52 2.2.1 Symphonies of a socialist city 52 2.2.2 Screen as construction site 105 PART II LIVING SPACES OF THE SOCIALIST CITY 114 Chapter 3: Byt [way of life] of the 1920-1930s 114 3.1 Forming the new byt in the Soviet architecture of the 1920s 114 3.1.1 Byt in the ‘social condensers of the epoch’: house-communes 119 3.1.2 Thinking Utopia 129 3.1.3 Case study 1: House-commune by Nikolai Kuzmin 133 3.1.4 Case study 2: ‘Transitional’ house-commune on Gogolevsky 138 boulevard by Moisei Ginzburg 3.2 Representations of byt in the cinema of the 1920-1930s 146 Chapter 4: Designing Modernity [sovremennost’] in the Thaw era 187 4.1 From kommunalka to khrushchevka: Khrushchev’s mass housing 187 campaign 4.2 Constructing Modernity [sovremennost’] in the cinema of the Thaw 204 PART III WORKING SPACES OF THE SOCIALIST CITY 218 Chapter 5: Technology and Labour 218 5.1 Dialectics of technology: from Marx to Marxism-Leninism through 218 Benjamin 5.2 Representations of technology and labour in the cinema of the 1920s 232 and 1930s Chapter 6: Back to Lenin’s Testament: working with trauma in Post- 247 Stalinist cinema Afterword 260 Filmography 265 Bibliography 267 v LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 0 Plan of the ‘linear city’ by Nikolai Miliutin: Industrial and 12 Residential zones separated by Green area Fig. 1 Differences in the uses of visual materials: photographic images of 43 Western railways from the original book (on the left) and added visualized statistics of the Soviet railway (on the right) Fig. 2 The mapping of Turksib – visualized dispositif? 48 Fig. 3 Rien que les heures constructivist title 56 Fig. 4 Fragmented and commercialized Paris 57 Fig. 5 Paris-Beijing: totalizing and immobilizing view from above and 58 touristic gaze Fig. 6 Anti-actualities stance of Rien que les heures 59 Fig. 7 Political declaration of Rien que les heures 59 Fig. 8 ‘Painters of every nationality depict the city’ 60 Fig. 9 The provenance of the steak 61 Fig. 10 Possible Vertovian influences: shots of the homeless and leisure 62 activity. But Cavalcanti’s ‘cine-eye’ is not showing how to dive correctly Fig. 11 Film’s epilogue shot reminiscent of the title shot and visualizing 63 the key themes Fig. 12 Examples of Vigo’s satirical juxtapositions 65 Fig. 13 Kaufman’s ‘life caught off-guard’ filming of Promenade des 66 Anglais Fig. 14 Two opening shots of À propos de Nice 66 Fig. 15 Tracking shots of the newspaper vendor’s vehicle 67 Fig. 16 Tourists as puppets and the displaced hotels of Nice 68 Fig. 17 Vigo’s hopeful hints towards a revolutionary solution 69 Fig. 18 New public institutions in the previously private buildings of the 72 nobility: (a) All-Russian Proletkult in Morozov’s house (on the left); Administrative Section of Moscow Council in duke Shcherbatov’s house (on the right); (b) Moscow Council of Trade Unions now occupies the Hall of the Nobility (on the left); Moscow Council took up the Governor’s house (on the left) Fig.