After World War II the Soviet Union’s film industry experienced greater stagnation than that of any other nation except Germany. The Socialist Realism doctrine imposed during Stalin’s dictatorship caused film production to fall from 19 features in 1945 to 5 in 1952. Although Stalin died the following year, the situation did not improve until the late 1950s, when such films as Mikhail Kalatozov’s Letyat zhuravli (1957; The Cranes Are Flying) and Grigory Chukhrai’s Ballada o soldate (1959; Ballad of a Soldier) emerged to take prizes at international film festivals. Some impressive literary adaptations were produced during the 1960s (Grigory Kozintsev’s Hamlet, 1964; Sergey Bondarchuk’s Voyna i mir [War and Peace], 1965–67), but the most important phenomenon of the decade was the graduation of a whole new generation of Soviet directors from the Vsesoyuzny Gosudarstvenny Institut Kinematografii (VGIK; “All-Union State Institute of Cinematography”), many of them from the non-Russian republics—the Ukraine (Yury Ilyenko, Larissa Shepitko), Georgia (Tengiz Abuladze, Georgy Danelia, Georgy Shengelaya and Eldar Shengelaya, Otar Yoseliani), Moldavia (Emil Lotyanu), Armenia (Sergey Paradzhanov), Lithuania (Vitautas Zhalekevichius), Kyrgyzstan (Bolotbek Shamshiev, Tolomush Okeyev), Uzbekistan (Elyor Ishmukhamedov, Ali Khamraev), Turkmenistan (Bulat Mansurov), and Kazakhstan (Abdulla Karsakbayev). By far the most brilliant of the new directors were Sergey Paradzhanov and Andrey Tarkovsky, who both were later persecuted for the unconventionality of their work. Paradzhanov’s greatest film was Tini zabutykh predkiv (1964; Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), a hallucinatory retelling of a Ukrainian folk legend of ravishing formal beauty. Tarkovsky created a body of work whose seriousness and symbolic resonance had a major impact on world cinema (Andrey Rublev, 1966; Solaris, 1971; Zerkalo [Mirror], 1974; Stalker, 1979; Nostalghia [Nostalgia], 1983), even though it was frequently tampered with by Soviet censors.
During the 1970s the policy of Socialist Realism (euphemized as “pedagogic realism”) was again put into practice, so only two types of films could safely be made—literary adaptations and bytovye, or films of everyday life, such as Vladimir Menshov’s Moskva slezam ne verit (1980; Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears). The Soviet cinema then experienced a far-reaching liberalization under the regime of Party Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policy of glasnost (“openness”) took control of the industry away from bureaucratic censors and placed it in the hands of the filmmakers themselves. The Soviet cinema began to be revitalized as formerly suppressed films, such as Elem Klimov’s Agoniya (1975), were distributed for the first time, and films that dealt confrontationally with Stalinism, such as Abuladze’s Pokayaniye (1987; Repentance), were made without government interference.
A publicity still from Moscow Does Not Believe in TearsA publicity still from Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.Copyright © 1981 International Film Exchange Ltd.
Of the eastern European nations that fell under Soviet control after World War II, all except East Germany and Albania produced distinguished cinemas. Following the pattern set by the Soviets, these countries nationalized their film industries and established state film schools. They experienced a similar period of repressive government-imposed restrictions between 1945 and 1953, with a “thaw” during the late 1950s under Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. In Poland the loosening of ideological criteria gave rise to the so-called Polish school led by Jerzy Kawalerowicz (Matka Joanna od aniołŅw [Mother Joan of the Angels], 1961), Andrzej Munk (Eroica, 1957), and, preeminently, Andrzej Wajda (Pokolenie [A Generation], 1954; Kanał [Canal], 1956; Popiół i diament [Ashes and Diamonds], 1958). Wajda’s reputation grew throughout the 1960s and ’70s, when he was joined by a second generation of Polish filmmakers that included Roman Polanski (Nóż w wodzie [Knife in the Water], 1962), Jerzy Skolimowski (Bariera [Barrier], 1966), and Krzysztof Zanussi (Iluminacja [Illumination], 1972). The Polish cinema expressed its support of the Solidarity trade union in the late 1970s through films by Wajda and such younger directors as Krysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, and Feliks Falk.
The example of the Polish school encouraged the development of the Czech New Wave (1962–68), which became similarly entangled in politics. The Czechoslovak films that reached international audiences during this period were widely acclaimed for their freshness and formal experimentation, but they faced official disapproval at home, and many were suppressed for being politically subversive. Among the directors who were most critical of Pres. Antonín Novotný’s hard-line regime were Věra Chytilová (Sedmikrasky [Daisies], 1966), Jaromil Jireš (Zert [The Joke], 1968), Ján Kadár (Obchod na Korze [The Shop on Main Street], 1965), Miloš Forman (Hoří, má panenko [The Firemen’s Ball], 1967), Jirí Menzel (Ostře sledované vlaky [Closely Watched Trains], 1966), and Jan Němec (O Slavnosti a hostech [The Party and the Guests], 1966). When Alexander Dubček became president in January 1968, the Czechoslovak cinema eagerly participated in his brief attempt to give socialism “a human face.” After the Soviet invasion of August 1968, many New Wave films were banned, the Czechoslovak film industry was reorganized, and several prominent figures, including Forman and Němec, were forced into exile.
Vaclav Neckar and Jitka Bendova in Closely Watched TrainsVaclav Neckar and Jitka Bendova in Closely Watched Trains.Sigma III/Filmove Studio Barrandov
In Hungary the abortive revolution of 1956 forestalled a postwar revival in film until the late 1960s, when the complex work of Miklós Jancsó (Szegénylegények [The Round-Up], 1965; Csillagosok, katonák [The Red and the White], 1967; Még kér a nép [Red Psalm], 1972) began to be internationally recognized. The rigorous training given students at the Budapest Film Academy ensured that the younger generation of Hungarian filmmakers would rise to prominence, as happened in the case of István Szabó (1981; Mephisto), István Gaál (Magasiskola [Falcons], 1970), Márta Mészáros (Örökbefogadás [Adoption], 1975), and Pál Gábor (1978; Angi Vera), many of whose films—as do Jancsó’s—involve ideological interpretations of the national past.