SOVIET TABLEAU: CINEMA AND HISTORY UNDER LATE SOCIALISM (1953-1985) by Olga Kim Bachelor of Arts, Seoul National University, 2006 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2013 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 COMMITTEE PAGE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Olga Kim It was defended on May 3, 2019 and approved by David Birnbaum, Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures Randall Halle, Klaus W. Jonas Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures Marcia Landy, Distinguished Professor, English Neepa Majumdar, Associate Professor, English Daniel Morgan, Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago Vladimir Padunov, Associate Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures Dissertation Director: Nancy Condee, Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures ii Copyright © by Olga Kim 2019 iii Abstract SOVIET TABLEAU: CINEMA AND HISTORY UNDER LATE SOCIALISM (1953-1985) Olga Kim, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2019 During the Late Socialism (1953-1985), the geographic peripheries of the Soviet film industry demonstrated an upsurge in both the number of the produced films and in the boldness of the cinematic experimentations. This dissertation focuses on the peculiar cinematic trend that emerged in this context of the artistic reinvigoration of the Soviet periphery. In particular, I analyze films of Iurii Illienko, Leonid Osyka, Evgenii Shiffers, Tengiz Abuladze, and Sergei Parajanov. I propose that the films of these filmmakers exemplify a distinct cinematic trend and label this trend tableau cinema for two reasons: first, to avoid overgeneralization and homogenization of the commonly used term “poetic” cinema; second, to emphasize the predominance of a static painterly quality and integrate my analysis into a broader tradition of visual arts (Chapter 1). The central stylistic feature shared by the tableau films is their avoidance of linear perspective and kinship with non-perspectival painterly traditions, such as Persian miniatures or Orthodox icons. I argue that this stylistic feature is related to tableau cinema’s transformation of spectatorship (Chapter 2) and rejection of (Soviet) modernity’s insistence on historical progression, which are underpinned by linear perspective and reinforced by conventional use of cinema (Chapter 3). This dissertation demonstrates that tableau cinema created, by cinematic means, alternative histories to the evidently fragile project of Soviet modernity. In doing so, the filmmakers on the peripheries revive the genealogy of the “primitive” in Russian and Soviet cultural history. Unlike the future-oriented invocation of the “primitive” in the post-revolutionary cinemas, in tableau iv cinema the invocation of the “primitive” is oriented toward the rethinking of the past and the redefining of the cinematic medium itself. In this sense, the dissertation proposes to consider tableau cinema as a case of Socialist Modernism (Chapter 4). By investigating the history and aesthetics of the tableau cinema, this dissertation contributes to the largely understudied field of Soviet ethno-national cinemas and makes a theoretical contribution to rethinking the long-standing opposition between the (Greenbergian) modernism and (Lukácsian) realism in the twentieth-century art. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................................... xiii 1.0 INTRODUCTION: FROM POETIC TO TABLEAU CINEMA ........................................ 1 1.1 POETIC CINEMA ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 TABLEAU CINEMA .................................................................................................... 22 2.0 SPECTATORSHIP IN TABLEAU CINEMA .................................................................... 29 2.1 PERSPECTIVE AND SPECTATORSHIP ................................................................ 30 2.2 TABLEAU CINEMA AND NONLINEAR PERSPECTIVE .................................... 34 2.3 “SINCERITY” AND THE SPECTATOR’S CONVICTION .................................. 53 3.0 TABLEAU CINEMA’S ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES.................................................... 66 3.1 AN UNDECLARED TABLEAU MANIFESTO: IURII ILLIENKO’S A WELL FOR THE THIRSTY .................................................................................................................... 66 3.2 A GRAVESTONE TO THE PRE-MODERN WORLD: LEONID OSYKA’S THE STONE CROSS ................................................................................................................... 87 3.3 THE REVOLUTIONARY “GOSPEL”: EVGENII SHIFFERS’S PERVOROS- SIANE ................................................................................................................................ 102 3.4 ARTISANS AS ARTISTS: TENGIZ ABULADZE’S THE NECKLACE FOR MY BELOVED ......................................................................................................................... 125 3.5 THE LAST OF THE TABLEAU: SERGEI PARAJANOV’S THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS ......................................................................................................... 142 4.0 CONCLUSION(S): TABLEAU CINEMA AND ITS CONTEXTS ................................ 158 vi 4.1 HISTORY AS LABYRINTH: CRISIS OF HISTORICAL TELEOLOGY AND TURN TO SPACE ............................................................................................................ 161 4.2 THE GENEALOGY OF THE “PRIMITIVE,” ETHNO-NATIONAL CINEMAS, AND SOCILIST MODERNISM ..................................................................................... 169 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 178 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 37 Figure 2 ........................................................................................................................................ 38 Figure 3 ........................................................................................................................................ 38 Figure 4 ........................................................................................................................................ 38 Figure 5 ........................................................................................................................................ 38 Figure 6 ........................................................................................................................................ 40 Figure 7 ........................................................................................................................................ 40 Figure 8 ........................................................................................................................................ 40 Figure 9 ........................................................................................................................................ 41 Figure 10 ...................................................................................................................................... 41 Figure 11 ...................................................................................................................................... 43 Figure 12 ...................................................................................................................................... 44 Figure 13 ...................................................................................................................................... 44 Figure 14 ...................................................................................................................................... 45 Figure 15 ...................................................................................................................................... 45 Figure 16 ...................................................................................................................................... 46 Figure 17 ...................................................................................................................................... 46 Figure 18 ...................................................................................................................................... 47 Figure 19 ...................................................................................................................................... 47 Figure 20 ...................................................................................................................................... 48 Figure 21 ...................................................................................................................................... 48 viii Figure 22 ...................................................................................................................................... 48 Figure 23 ...................................................................................................................................... 49 Figure 24 .....................................................................................................................................