Городской образ жизни в советском художественном кино: к вопросу о методе исследования

Abstract

The article discusses the methodological problems one faces while working with the feature films in research on Soviet daily urban life. In the cultural anthropology of Soviet society, three methodological concerns should be highlighted. First, feature films are rarely thought of as providing reliable data and play marginal role in anthropological research. Second, the study of Soviet cultural politics in general and feature films in particular, requires bringing diverse disciplines in humanities in a synthesis. Third, the apparent lack of specific methodological guidelines for such analysis can be explained by the ongoing controversies in the theory of cinema and competing approaches to film studies. We found that although in the anthropology of Soviet society feature films are seen as an effective instrument of culture politics, there are but a few cases of studies focusing on feature films. At the same time the expressive potential of cinema and the viewer’s perceptions make films an important source for studying daily city life. On the one hand, the visual imagery of such films contains elements of urban life that are familiar to the viewer and thus provide a context that is understandable and intuitively legible. On the other hand, through the use of various dramatic and cinematographic techniques, certain norms of urban life are established in regard to daily practices, for instance, showcasing desirable images of urban dwellers. Therefore, analysis of feature films can shed light both on the reality of urban life and on its norms constructed in accordance with the goals of culture politics. In order to distinguish these two types of representations of urban living, it is necessary to take into account the conventions of the cinematic language evolved in different periods of Soviet history; the key points of culture policy; the actual social and economic opportunities enjoyed by Soviet urban dwellers. Therefore, findings in the field of film studies, culture studies and history of Soviet society provide the necessary context for the analysis of Soviet cinema as an anthropological source. Semiotics and deconstruction are among the main approaches to the study of elements of the cinematic language and mechanisms underlying the construction of ideological messages that these elements convey. In this study, we relied on protocol schemes developed by Helmut Korte as a methodological tool for film analysis.