1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910806805603321

Autore

Belodubrovskaya Maria

Titolo

Not according to plan : filmmaking under Stalin / / Maria Belodubrovskaya

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca : , : Cornell University Press, , 2020

ISBN

9781501752025

1-5017-1380-9

Descrizione fisica

xi, 251 pages : $4illustrations ; 23 cm

Soggetti

Motion picture industry - Soviet Union - History

Motion pictures - Soviet Union - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Quantity vs. quality : Soviet film policy and the intolerance of imperfection -- Templan : "bastard" plans and creative counter-planning -- The masters : the director-centered mode of production and the tradition of quality -- Screenwriting : lack of professionalization and the literary scenario -- Censorship : industry self-censorship and extreme uncertainty -- Conclusion : the failure of mass cinema under Stalin and the institutional study of ideology.

Sommario/riassunto

In Not According to Plan, Maria Belodubrovskaya reveals the limits on the power of even the most repressive totalitarian regimes to create and control propaganda. Belodubrovskaya's revisionist account of Soviet filmmaking between 1930 and 1953 highlights the extent to which the Soviet film industry remained stubbornly artisanal in its methods, especially in contrast to the more industrial approach of the Hollywood studio system. Not According to Plan shows that even though Josef Stalin recognized cinema as a "mighty instrument of mass agitation and propaganda" and strove to harness the Soviet film industry to serve the state, directors such as Eisenstein, Alexandrov, and Pudovkin had far more creative control than did party-appointed executives and censors.The Stalinist party-state, despite explicit intent and grandiose plans to build a "Soviet Hollywood" that would release a thousand features per year, failed to construct even a modest mass propaganda cinema. Belodubrovskaya's wealth of evidence shows that



the regime's desire to disseminate propaganda on a vast scale was consistently at odds with its compulsion to control quality and with Stalin's intolerance of imperfection. Not According to Plan is a landmark in Soviet cultural history and the global history of cinema.