Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies University of Helsinki Finland What Is That Song? Aleksej Balabanov’s Brother and Rock as Film Music in Russian Cinema Ira Österberg ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be publicly discussed, by due permission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki in lecture room 5 of the University Main Building, on the 9th of May, 2018 at 12 o’clock. Helsinki 2018 To Otto, my brother ISBN 978-951-51-4124-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-4125-5 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2018 Abstract This dissertation examines the role of rock songs as film music in Russian cinema. The focus is on the film music conventions of the Soviet period and how one important film, Aleksej Balabanov’s Brother (Brat, 1997), helped reshape those conventions in the 1990s. The study has three research questions: 1) How is music used in Brother? 2) How were rock songs used in Russian cinema prior to Brother? 3) What are the similarities and the differences between the two uses? The study is divided into two sections. First is a historical examination of Russian and Soviet cinema. The musical strategies of more than twenty films made between the late 1920s and the early 1990s are analyzed in order to investigate the conventional uses of songs and rock songs in particular. The second section focuses on Brother and provides a structural and narratological analysis of its use of music. The methodology of the research is based on film music narratology combined with traditional Russian formalist and structural-semiotic views of art-texts as structures. Central concepts are Claudia Gorbman’s (1987) diegetic and non-diegetic music and Guido Heldt’s (2013) theoretization on film music, authorship and subjectivity. In analyzing how particular films use certain idioms, I use the concept of “musical strategy,” which means the distribution of musical styles and their functions within a particular film. The use of rock songs in films of the Soviet period goes through three stages. First, in the 1960s and 1970s, rock songs are used as individual exceptions to the main musical idiom. Rock is presented as a diegetic performance that is connected with youth, nowness, dance and humor. The second stage relates to the youth films of Dinara Asanova, in which rock songs are still presented as exceptions but they gradually become a more dominant part of the musical strategies. The third stage is the era of perestroika, when underground rock songs and their performers became the topic of several films. In this era rock songs are used as the main idiom of the music tracks, but the songs are still connected with realistic motivation. In addition to the connection with youth and nowness, there emerge connotations of intelligentsia and resistance. After the fall of the Soviet Union, rock practically disappeared from films’ music tracks until the release of the hit film Brother in 1997. The music track of Brother consists mainly of songs performed by one Russian rock group, Nautilus Pompilius. The main idiom is ambivalent in its relationship to the diegesis: there are several diegetic references, yet the songs can mainly be interpreted as non-diegetic. The songs also represent the voice of the author, despite the fact that the main character attempts to take control of the music track in several ways. This struggle between the author-narrator and the main character over the music can be read as a self-reflective commentary on the development of the use of rock in Russian cinema. Before Brother, rock songs in films needed realistic motivation and had rarely been used as non-diegetic scores. In Brother these two roles of rock song as film music are brought under scrutiny, yet they are still looking for their proper place. The overall path of rock songs in Russian films can be seen as the evolution of a device, in Jurij Tyn’janov’s (1977 [1927]) terms, in which the element (rock) changes its function and other elements move in to fulfill its previous functions. Brother’s music track acts as a link in the evolutionary chain of Russian film music’s development toward post-classical compilation and composite scores. Acknowledgments This study originally began as a continuation to my Master’s thesis in Russian language and literature at the University of Helsinki in 2008. It was completed, however, as a PhD dissertation in musicology at the same university in 2018. During the ten years and the many contextual changes it took to shape and finalize this research project there has nevertheless been one constant element throughout almost the whole process: the multidisciplinary research community at the Finnish Center for Russian and East European Studies, the Aleksanteri Institute. Without the support, kindness and inspiration offered by all the scholars and other staff members working there, I would never have been able to complete this study. In particular I want to express my gratitude to the director of the Aleksanteri Institute, Markku Kivinen, and docent Elina Kahla: thank you for believing in me. I am also deeply grateful to researcher and Doctoral Programme coordinator Hanna Ruutu for giving me her time, effort and wisdom over and over again. My supervisor, professor Pirkko Moisala was brave enough to take part in the project at a very late stage: thank you for giving me a chance to finally reel it in. The pre-examiners of this study were senior lecturer Guido Heldt (University of Bristol) and associate professor Masha Salazkina (University of Concordia). They took time to read and review my work with the kind of constructive and caring ethos one often only dreams about in the academic world. I also want to thank docent Erkki Pekkilä and professor Hannu Salmi for providing important and insightful comments at a crucial point in the process. And for making academic study great again, I thank all those fellow PhD students in Russian philology, musicology, and other disciplines all over the world I have had the pleasure to share comments and experiences with over the years. This goes especially to the members of the Finnish Doctoral Programme for Russian and East European Studies: Dragana Cvetanović, Anna Halonen, Mila Oiva, Markus Kainu, Freek van der Vet, and all the other brilliant minds of our “posse.” For financial and material support, I thank the Aleksanteri Institute, the Finnish Doctoral Programme for Russian and East European Studies (which no longer exists), the Department of Slavonics and Baltology (which also no longer exists) at the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Emil Aaltonen Foundation, and the Culture Cluster of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies: “Choices of Russian Modernization.” Finally, I thank my family. My parents Hilkka and Markus, I hope I have made you proud. My son Kauko, thank you for bringing love, sense and order into my world. And the greatest thanks of all goes to my husband Teemu: it has been great to share this journey of rock, movies and Russian formalism with someone who understands their beauty as well as you do. Helsinki, January 28, 2018. Table of Contents Abstract.........................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................5 1 Introduction................................................................................................................9 1.1 Previous Research on Russian Film Music......................................................12 1.2 Russian Cinema in the 1990s, Aleksej Balabanov and Brother.......................20 1.3 On Methodology and Concepts: Structural Analysis of Music on Film..........28 1.4 Structure and Aims of the Study......................................................................48 2 Rock Songs in Russian Cinema Before 1997..........................................................53 2.1 The Place of Song in Russian Cinema of the Soviet Period............................61 2.2 Rock as the Exception in the 1960s and 1970s................................................78 2.3 The Youth Films of Dinara Asanova................................................................89 2.4 Rock as the Main Idiom during Perestroika.....................................................99 3 Rock Songs as Film Music in Brother...................................................................114 3.1 Overview of the Music...................................................................................115 3.1.1 The Pre-existence of Nautilus Pompilius...............................................117 3.1.2 The Main Idiom and the Exceptions.......................................................123 3.1.3 General Characteristics of a Compilation Score....................................131 3.2 The Music and the Diegesis...........................................................................143 3.2.1 Music as Other than Music: Source Shots and Beyond.........................145 3.2.2 Music, Fantasy, and Reality....................................................................154 3.3 Music and Subjectivity...................................................................................162 3.3.1 Music and Lyrics as the Authorial Voice................................................164 3.3.2 Music and the Main Character...............................................................175 3.4 Struggle over the Music: A Pattern Emerges.................................................184