Female Identity in Russian Cinema 1989-2006 an Analysis of Pyotr Todorovsky’S Intergirl, Valery Todorovsky’S the Country of the Deaf and Yuriy Moroz’S the Spot
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Master’s Thesis in Russian and Eurasian Studies (Marked) Women in Transition – Female Identity in Russian Cinema 1989-2006 An analysis of Pyotr Todorovsky’s Intergirl, Valery Todorovsky’s The Country of the Deaf and Yuriy Moroz’s The Spot Den Haag, 30 August 2019 Franciska Gradzikiewicz S1667742 Master of Arts in Russian and Eurasian Studies Leiden University Wordcount: 21,776 words 1 Supervisor: Dr. O. F. Boele Second Reader: Dr. J. H. C. Kern Acknowledgments I would like to express my enormous gratitude to Otto Boele for his encouragement, guidance and understanding. This thesis would have not been written and re-written without his critical feedback and direction. Most of all, I thank him for allowing me the scholarly freedom to conduct my analysis. I am also very grateful to all my classmates from Russian and Eurasian Studies for inspiring me with their passion and hard work. This dissertation would not have been completed without the continuous support and love of my family. I especially thank my father who had infected me with an enormous curiosity for Russian culture and who continues to be one of my toughest critiques. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my boyfriend, Sanne who patiently supported and kept me sane throughout the process of completing my thesis. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 5 Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 7 Historical Context.............................................................................. 7 Women’s Identity and Consciousness ............................................. 8 Theoretical Approach ....................................................................... 9 Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema ......................................... 10 Marked Women on (Russian) Screen ............................................ 11 Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 15 Summarising the means of Analysis .............................................. 16 Research Procedure ........................................................................ 17 Film Analysis........................................................................................................................... 18 I. Intergirl.................................................................................................................... 18 Synopsys ........................................................................................... 18 Context and Reception .................................................................... 18 Limiting Factors .............................................................................. 19 Agency .............................................................................................. 24 Identity ............................................................................................. 26 Journey ............................................................................................. 27 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 30 II. The Country of the Deaf ......................................................................................... 32 Synopsys ........................................................................................... 32 Context and Reception .................................................................... 33 Agency .............................................................................................. 34 Identity ............................................................................................. 38 Journey ............................................................................................ 40 3 Comradery ...................................................................................... 41 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 42 III. The Spot ................................................................................................................... 43 Synopsys ........................................................................................... 43 Context and Reception .................................................................... 44 Limiting Factors .............................................................................. 46 Agency .............................................................................................. 48 Identity ............................................................................................ 50 Journey ............................................................................................ 52 Comradery ...................................................................................... 53 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 54 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 56 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 58 Filmography ............................................................................................................................ 61 4 Introduction This thesis investigates the topics of female consciousness and identity through the case studies of three Russian films: Intergirl (1989), The Country of the Deaf (1998), The Spot (2006). Firstly, relevant theories and secondary literature will be presented regarding topics such as: gender discourse in Russia, female consciousness and identity, the cinematic role of the Gaze as well as the metaphor of the Prostitute. In the Methodology section, the reader will be introduced to the approach of social semiotics analysis of film. The main body of the thesis consists of three chapters focused on the close-reading of the case studies. Finally, this thesis will provide a conclusion detailing my own observations in relation to previous research. Since the advent of feminist film theory, it has been mostly preoccupied with the objectification of women on the Anglo-American silver screen.1 In the past decade however, there have been a number of attempts to look beyond the more traditional representations of women and search for examples that capture females from an alternative, more inclusive and engaging angle. Researching gender and women in particular enables us not only to correct faulty assumptions about the universality of men’s experiences but also to establish new perspectives on the nature of socio-political changes in various regions.2 With this in mind, a number of researchers began to explore non-Western cinema in order to understand how regional trends, beliefs and cultures might influence directors’ approaches to women’s portrayal. Inspired by this new wave of scholarship this essay sets out to examine the ways female identity and self-consciousness have been captured in contemporary Russian cinema. By focusing on three distinct visual products from three distinct periods of the late-Soviet and early post-Soviet era I hope to outline how various directors depicted women’s identity. In order to establish this, the thesis relies on existing sociological and cultural research as well as the close reading of Intergirl (Интердевочка, 1989) by Pyotr Todorovsky, The Country of the Deaf (Страна Глухих, 1998) by Valeriy Todorovsky and The Spot (Точка, 2006) by Yuriy Moroz. 1 Bolton, Lucy. Film and Female Consciousness: Irigaray, Cinema and Thinking Women (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) 1. 2 Engel, Barbara Alpern. "Engendering Russia's History: Women in Post- Emancipation Russia and the Soviet Union." Slavic Review 51.2, Summer (1992) 321. 5 Although there have been a few attempts to analyse these films, I believe some conclusions were not extensive enough. Namely, Emily Schuckmann’s research from 2008 and 2018 have worked with the same case studies. Schuckmann’s studies mainly focus on the representation of the Prostitute as a social metaphor to the crumbling political system. This thesis on the other hand goes beyond Schuckmann’s approach and aims to better understand how the character of the Prostitute is used to explore female identity and consciousness. Instead of predominantly focusing on the Prostitute as a symbol to the Russian state this study aims to add to Schuckmann’s observations by researching how the character may or may not embody female identity and consciousness. To analyse this angle, I have chosen to conduct a social semiotic analysis on the selected films. The reason behind my choice of methodology lies in the fact that it allows me to establish how the viewer is positioned by films and most importantly, how the viewer recognizes the way certain social allegiances and values are promoted over others. In film analysis, social semiotics evaluates techniques and elements in film to reason about which sociocultural fields are addressed by the director.3 Rick Iedema claims that social semiotics provides researchers with a method to discover what could otherwise remain a suspicion or a vague, intuitive response.4 In practice, a visual analysis will be conducted focusing on shots, frames, scenes, generic stage, sequence and the work