Cinematic Weapons: Subversion and Resistance in Juris Podnieks' Newsreels and Short Documentaries

Maruta Z. Vitols Cinematic Weapons: Subversion and Resistance in Juris Podnieks’ Newsreels and Short Documentaries INTRODUCTION continuing the tradition of innovative and mov- ing films. Among them, Juris Podnieks (1950– In recent decades, and particularly since the 1992) and his films hold a privileged place in collapse of the Soviet Union, cinema scholars Latvian culture and history. His breakthrough have devoted a considerable amount of attention feature, Is It Easy to Be Young? (Vai viegli bюt to East European films and filmmakers.1 While jaunam?, 1986), heralded the advent of a new much work remains to be done, a solid body of era for Latvian and Soviet documentary film- critical and historical scholarship exists on such making, accompanying the implementation of national cinemas as those found in Poland and Gorbachev’s glasnost plan in the Soviet Union. Hungary. Furthermore, outstanding East Euro- While censorship was not abolished, Podnieks pean filmmakers, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski, took full advantage of the new policy of open- Andrzej Wajda and Dušan Makavejev, continue ness and employed Is It Easy to Be Young? as to receive well-deserved academic attention. a vehicle for exploring the state of youth culture As the works of these artists become more ac- under a non-democratic regime, thus offering a cessible to the West, a new awareness of the powerful critique of the ruling Communist Party. complexity and depth of East European cinema It is precisely the high level of frankness of this appears to be emerging. documentary that shocked spectators across the Yet, the rich film traditions of the Bal- Soviet Union and made Is It Easy to Be Young? tic States, among them the thriving Latvian an unparalleled sensation in Soviet cinema national cinema, remain foreign to Western history. The contemporary Russian journalist cinema scholars. One finds a void in academia Alexander Kiselev claimed at the time: ‘Since its in this subject area, although the rapidly grow- completion, the film has created a stir compa- ing economies and the increase in the politi- rable to the panic a terrorist act in the heart of cal currency of the Baltic States has sparked a Moscow could cause.’ (Kiselev 1994: 65.) Simi- new awareness of this geographic area. A fresh larly, film scholar Ian Christie describes how the interest in Latvian filmmakers as the voices of screening of Is It Easy to Be Young? signaled a their society is emerging, stemming from the massive cinematic and social shift in the Soviet country’s rich cinema history. Since the Lu- Union. He writes: mière brothers screened their films in Riga, the capital of Latvia, at the end of the 19th century, In 1986, Yuris Podnieks’ documentary Is It the country’s fascination with the medium has Easy to Be Young? provided a public plat- flourished. From the very beginning of Latvia’s form for mounting concern about the gen- independence in 1918, documentary films have eration that had borne the brunt of the Af- played a key role in nurturing and solidifying ghan war. [---] the demand for Podnieks’ national identity. film was overwhelming. And in one of the Latvian documentary filmmaking blos- key symbolic gestures of the glasnost peri- somed during the post-World War II period, od, the huge flagship cinema in Moscow’s surpassing the accomplishments of fiction Pushkin Square switched Boris Godunov film in the country. By the 1960s and 1970s, with Is It Easy to Be Young? ... giving filmmakers such as Hertz Frank (aka Hercs Podnieks’ urgent exploration of malaise Franks), Ivars Seleckis and Uldis Brauns were among Soviet youth a prestige forum. In producing documentaries that encouraged met- aphorical readings, earning this group of artists 1 A current debate in cinema studies involves the ques- popular recognition as members of the ‘Riga tion of whether one can employ the term ‘East European School of Poetic Documentary’. Many of the cinema’ without perpetuating a Cold War inspired binary opposition between ‘East’ and ‘West’, dictatorship and members of the Riga School continued to work democracy, in an area featuring different cultures and diverse histories. I adopt film scholar Anikó Imre’s position within through the 1980s and 1990s, slowly gaining this discussion. She maintains: ‘In order to consider the international recognition. cinematic developments of the region in their spatial and temporal continuity, it is necessary to keep the designation A new generation of documentary Eastern Europe’, even if one must do so ‘conditionally and filmmakers came of age during the 1980s, contingently’ (Imre 2005: xvii). 59 that moment, a cinema’s programming studied one or two of Podnieks’ documentaries decision reflected ... a seismic swing in (usually Is It Easy to Be Young?) and solely the national psyche. The issues were com- within the context of glasnost cinema, specifical- ing out into the open, and cinemas full of ly, and Soviet cinema history in general. While emotional people were very different from these approaches offer valuable insight into scattered dissidents. (Christie 1995: 42.) how Podnieks’ most famous work(s) influenced Soviet audiences and filmmakers and reflected Clearly, Podnieks’ film caused a sensation, and contemporary public discourse in the Soviet he would continue to make documentaries that Union, they neglect to address Podnieks’ ear- openly criticized Communism, such as Home- lier films or how these documentaries may have land (Krustceзл, 1990) and End of the Empire been interpreted by a specifically Latvian audi- (Impьr²as gals, 1991), until his death in 1992. ence. Disregarding the ways Podnieks may have Yet, Podnieks’ fusion of politics and po- shaped his films to address Latvian spectators etry, creating what film scholars Andrew Horton in favor of solely considering his work within a and Michael Brashinsky call ‘expressionistic general Soviet context generates an incomplete cinema verité’ (Horton, Brashinsky 1992: 75), assessment of Podnieks’ oeuvre. For example, did not suddenly appear in his documentaries one would not consider an evaluation of Michael upon the introduction of glasnost. Instead, one Moore’s controversial documentary Fahrenheit may see the nationalistic viewpoints and sharp 9/11 (2004) comprehensive if researchers only criticism of Communism present in his mature examined how the film was received in Europe work (i.e., beginning with 1986’s Is It Easy to or the Middle East, while dismissing the ways Be Young?) already taking shape in his earlier Moore addressed his film to Americans. This films, albeit in a more subtle manner. Through study’s purpose is to complement the few exist- an examination of Podnieks’ earlier works (three ing critical analyses of Podnieks’ documentaries film magazines/newsreels and four short docu- by expanding the academic assessment of the mentaries), this study aims to reveal the possi- filmmaker’s work to include his earlier films, and bility of reading a subversive subtext in his filmic by urging that more scholarly attention be given texts, a subtext that some Latvian spectators to how Podnieks may have addressed specifically may recognize as containing both nationalistic Latvian audiences (i.e., examining Podnieks’ overtones and harsh critiques of Communism. importance in a Latvian context as opposed to Significantly, despite Podnieks importance a Soviet framework). It does not aspire to offer a in European and documentary cinema history, definitive evaluation of Podnieks’ complex work, relatively few scholars in Western academia or nor does it assert an authoritative ‘decoding’ within Latvia have examined his oeuvre. No one of Podnieks’ filmmaking intentions. Instead, it has yet written a book-length work analyzing submits a possible interpretation of these early Podnieks’ documentaries, and in Latvian, one works, and invites further exploration and dis- most often locates written material primarily in- cussion of the significance of Podnieks’ films in tended for a popular audience. Meanwhile, many documentary history. of the articles on Podnieks in English, French, German, Hungarian, Swedish, and Czech that TACTICAL APPROACHES: one finds are obituaries. However, an occasional PODNIEKS, interview, a short film review, or a note on Pod- DE CERTEAU, AND BENNETT nieks in a larger article focused on a broader top- ic, e.g. a film festival, appears in journals such as Film scholars Yuri Tsivian and Anita Uzulniece Positif, La revue du Cinéma, merz. medien + have both written extensively, in periodical pub- erziehung, Cineforum, Cineaste, Wide Angle, lications and in the book Soviet Latvia’s Cin- Sight and Sound, and Film Comment. Further- ema (Padomju Latv²as kinomЯksla, 1989), on more, those scholars who have analyzed some of how the filmmakers who made up the so-called Podnieks’ films, such as Ian Christie, Michael Riga School of Poetic Documentary relied on Brashinsky, and Andrew Horton, have only images to communicate their ideas, with the 60 audio track serving a secondary, supportive role soon as a subject with will and power (a (Civjans, Uzulniece 1989). Podnieks’ evoca- business, an army, a city, a scientific in- tion of the Riga School of Poetic Documentary stitution) can be isolated. It postulates through his preference for visually conveying a place that can be delimited as its own meaning is crucial for the understanding of the and serve as the base from which relations subversive subtext of his documentaries. Mem- with an exteriority composed of targets or bers of the Riga School recognized that they threats ... can be managed. (De Certeau needed to find a way to be able to both express 1984: 35–36.) themselves in their films and to have these films seen by the popular audience, the latter requir- Strategies thus demarcate the boundaries be- ing the approval of Soviet censors. Their solution tween those with authority and those without, to this conundrum came in their emphasis on and situate the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. the visual over the audio track.

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