Engendering Genre: the Contemporary Russian Buddy Film
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Engendering Genre: The Contemporary Russian Buddy Film By Dawn A. Seckler Colby College, BA 1998 University of Pittsburgh, MA 2001 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of University of Pittsburgh in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH College of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Dawn A. Seckler It was defended on November 23, 2009 and approved by Professor Vladimir Padunov, Chair of Committee, University of Pittsburgh Professor Nancy Condee, University of Pittsburgh Professor Lucy Fischer, University of Pittsburgh Professor David MacFadyen, University of California, Los Angeles ii ENGENDERING GENRE: THE CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN BUDDY FILM Dawn A. Seckler, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 My dissertation situates itself at the intersection of several fields: Soviet cultural studies, film genre theory, and masculinity studies. It investigates the articulation of genre categories in Soviet and post-Soviet cinema industries, with a specific focus on the cultural context within which the buddy film emerges in late Soviet culture.This genre is unique within contemporary Russian cinema for providing a visual and narrative structure within which the masculine crisis—a topic widely written about by Russian sociologists and gender scholars—becomes visible. This masculine crisis is more often than not masked by compensatory, hyper-macho images in other genres (e.g., war films, gangster films, historical epics). The buddy film, by contrast, exhibits a type of masculinity rarely glimpsed on screen; these characters are the disillusioned, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised men of late- and post-Soviet society. My argument is grounded in a thorough examination of male-centered Russian buddy films from 1970 until the present day—specifically, I look at such films as A. Smirnov’s Belorusskii vokzal (1970), P. Lungin’s Taksi-bliuz (1990), V. Abdrashitov’s Vremia tantsora (1997), A. Rogozhkin’s Kukushka (2002), V. Todorovskii’s Liubovnik (2002), and A. Muradov’s Pravda o shchelpakh (2003). I also dedicate the final chapter to a consideration of several notable exceptions to the standard male buddy film: V. iii Todorovskii’s Strana glukhikh (1998), S. Bodrov Jr.’s Sestry (2001), F. Popov’s Kavkazkaia ruletka (2002), and M. Liubakova’s Zhestokost' (2007) in which two women substitute for the typical male pair. I draw on the work of Althusserian film genre theorist Rick Altman, who seeks out the source of genre components in social practice. Altman insists on acknowledging the historicism and subjectivity in the study of genre. Relying on such considerations of genre, my dissertation treats the buddy film from several perspectives: it looks at the genre’s antecedents from the Stalinist and Thaw periods, it tracks changes in the genre as cultural and ideological imperatives shift over the past seventy years, and it considers how gender representations adapt to these cultural and ideological transformations. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION: THE UNDERACHIEVING MAN ………………………..………. 1 2.0 CHAPTER 1: WHAT DOES ZHANR MEAN IN RUSSIAN? ………………………… 16 2.1 REPRESSIVE STATE CONTROL AND THE RISE OF CIENEMATIC GENRES .. 26 2.2 POLITICAL FREEDOM, ECONOMIC TROUBLE, AND THE GENRE FILM … 44 3.0 CHAPTER 2: A HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RUSSIAN BUDDY FILM … 47 3.1 FROM MENTORS TO BUDDIES …………………………………………………. 52 3.2 THAW-ERA BUDDIES: YOUNG, DIVERSE, AND MOBILE…………………… 68 3.3 THE AMERICANS ARE COMING!! ……………………………………………… 79 3.4 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………… 91 4.0 CHAPTER 3: ANTAGONISTIC FRIENDSHIPS: COMPETING IDEOLOGIES, COMPETING MASCULINITIES ………………………………………………………............................ 93 4.1 GENRE: DIVERSITY WITHIN COMMON STRUCTURES ……………………... 101 4.1.1 THE WHAT AND THE HOW: A FOCUS ON SEMANTICS AND SYNTACTICS………………………………………………………. 103 4.1.2 THE WHY: THE PRAGMATIC FUNCTION OF THE RUSSIAN BUDDY FILM ………………………………………………………………… 116 4.2 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………… 149 5.0 CHAPTER 4: VETERAN MEN AND THE END OF MACHISMO……………………... 153 5.1 CONTEXT …………………………………………………………………………... 157 5.2 DEBATES IN MEDIA STUDIES…………………………………………………... 165 5.3 VETERANS AND SHCHELPS: CHARACTERS OF THE SAME GENRE?.......... 168 5.4 LOSING ACCESS TO MASCULINITY: THE FUTILITY OF FIGHTING, DANCING, AND MAKING LOVE………………………………………….…... 187 5.5 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………. 197 6.0 CHAPTER 5: BOSOM BUDDIES: THE FEMALE BUDDY FILM…………………… 200 6.1 THE WOMAN’S FILM VS. THE FEMALE BUDDY FILM……………………. 203 6.2 GENRE: GENDER BASED? GENDER BIASED?................................................ 212 iv 6.3 GENDER DISCRIMINATION: THE RUSSIAN FILM INDUSTRY AND RUSSO-SOVIET CULTURE……………………………………………………………… 216 6.4 GENDERING GENRE: PUTTING WOMEN INTO A MAN’S WORLD………. 219 6.5 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………….. 233 7.0 CONCLUSION: HOW TO TALK ABOUT WHAT’S NOT THERE………………….. 236 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………………………… 243 FILMOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………….. 265 v LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Sasha and Arkasha from Two Warriors…………………………………………… 64 FIGURE 2: Tasia sits between Sasha and Arkasha in Two Warriors………………………….…64 FIGURE 3: The trio from My Younger Brother………………………………………………... 74 FIGURE 4: The trio from My Younger Brother ……………………………………………….. 74 FIGURE 5: The trio emerges from the water in Goodbye, Boys! Each strikes a unique pose….75 FIGURE 6: The pals pick up smoking in Goodbye, Boys! …………………………………….. 75 FIGURE 7: The guys meet at Moscow’s GUM in I Walk Around Moscow…………………….. 75 FIGURE 8: Shopping and flirting in I Walk Around Moscow………………………………….. 75 FIGURE 9: Three old friends reunite in Lenin’s Guard ………………………………………... 75 FIGURE10: The guys walk through Moscow in Lenin’s Guard ……………………………….. 75 FIGURE 11: A page from Soviet Screen featuring two buddy films: Sylvester Stallone in Tango and Cash and Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs……………………89 FIGURE 12: Shylkov and Lesha from Taxi Blues………………………………………………105 FIGURE 13: Lesha pleading with Shlykov in Taxi Blues………………………………………106 FIGURE 14: Lesha and Shlykov from Taxi Blues………………………………………………106 FIGURE 15: Dmitrii and Ivan from The Lover…………………………………………………107 FIGURE 16: Ivan and Dmitrii from The Lover…………………………………………...…….107 FIGURE 17: English-language poster for The Lover…………………………………………...107 FIGURE 18: Veiko and Ivan from The Cuckoo………..………….……………………………108 FIGURE 19: Veiko and Ivan in the sauna from The Cuckoo ………………………….....….…108 FIGURE 20: Ivan and Veiko prepare to head in their own directions in The Cuckoo………….108 FIGURE 21: Shlykov looking monumental in Taxi Blues……………………………………...123 FIGURE 22: Bed and Sofa………………………………………………………………………127 vi FIGURE 23: Shlykov’s exercise links man and machine in Taxi Blues……………………...... 131 FIGURE 24: Shlykov lifting weights in Taxi Blues………………………………………....… 131 FIGURE 25: Aleksandr Deineka, Runners, 1933……………………………………………….131 FIGURE 26: Ivan with knife in The Cuckoo……………………………………………………140 FIGURE 27: Ivan defeated in The Cuckoo…………………………………………………..… 140 FIGURE 28: The Lover ………………………………………………………………………... 146 FIGURE 29: The Lover …………………………………………………………………….….. 146 FIGURE 30: The Lover …………………………………………………………………….….. 146 FIGURE 31: The Lover …………………………………………………………………….….. 146 FIGURE 32: Veterans reunited in Belorussian Station…………………………………………178 FIGURE 33: The friends reunited in Truth of the Shchelps………………………………….…179 FIGURE 34: Vania approaches in Belorussian Station…………………………………………180 FIGURE 35: Zema approaches in Truth of the Shchelps………………………………………..181 FIGURE 36: Raisa washes the men in Belorussian Station…………………………………….189 FIGURE 37: Drying off after the bath in Belorussian Station………………………………….190 FIGURE 38: Raisa tucks in Lesha, Belorussian Station……………………………..…………190 FIGURE 39: Ivan and Viktor snuggled up like little boys Belorussian Station ……………….190 FIGURE 40: Katia dominating Valerii in Time of the Dancer …………………………………193 FIGURE 41: Andrei in Time of the Dancer………………………………………………………194 FIGURE 42: Kazbek cigarettes, Time of the Dancer…………………………………………....194 FIGURE 43: Sveta of Sisters……………………...………..………………………………………211 FIGURE 44: Anna of Caucasian Roulette……………..………..………………………………..211 FIGURE 45: Anna of Caucasian Roulette …………..………………………………………….211 FIGURE 46: Sveta and Dina from Sisters……………………………………………………....213 FIGURE 47: Rita and Iaia from Land of the Deaf………………………..……………………..213 FIGURE 48: Maria and Anna from Caucasian Roulette………………………………………213 vii FIGURE 49: Sveta and dressed-up Dina in Sisters…………………………………………….214 FIGURE 50: Land of the Deaf……………………………………………………………….…215 FIGURE 51: Land of the Deaf………………………………………………………………….215 viii 1.0 INTRODUCTION: THE UNDERACHIEVING MAN Gender-based studies that focus on representations of masculinity in popular genre cinema often present the idealized male hero as a metonymy of a patriarch. For example, Susan Jeffords’s monograph on the dominant look of Hollywood’s male heroes during the 1980s— Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era—argues that “the films U.S. moviegoing audiences chose to see in large numbers during this period were largely and consistently concerned with portrayals of white male action heroes” (12). Jeffords identifies a parallel between, on the one hand, the role Ronald Reagan plays as “president, as national spokesperson, as military commander-in-chief, as father-figure, as hero, [and] as emblem of a ‘national fantasy’” and, on the other hand, the “action-adventure Hollywood films that portrayed many of the same narratives of heroism, success, achievement,