Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Remediation of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Traditions. The Case of “Leviathan” and “The Golovlyov Family”

Beata Waligorska-Olejniczak

doi:10.46539/gmd.v3i3.178

Abstract

Andrei Zvyagintsev often emphasises the opinion that Russian culture originates from classic Russian literature, i.e. the works of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Platonov etc. Treating the director’s approach (expressed in many interviews) as a kind of justification the proposed paper focuses on the interpretation of Leviathan from the comparative point of view, adapting the traditions of Saltykov-Shchedrin, in particular those deriving from his novel The Golovlyov Family. The methodological foundation of the presented case study constitute the concepts of cultural memory of Aleida Assmann, Renate Lachmann and Astrid Erll, which find their common ground in treating literature as a medium through which culture is continually rewritten, retranscribed and renegotiated. The interpretation of the selected satirical aspects of eating and drinking activities found both in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s and Zvyagintsev’s works leads to establishing a new intertextual relationship in the domain of cultural memory and to revealing areas of cultural communication between different media, based on structural and symbolic parallels revealed in the literary and cinematic text.

Highlights

Leviathan (2014), the fourth feature film by Andrei Zvyagintsev, is probably one of the most often studied and reviewed works of this Russian director
The juxtaposition of the selected texts should lead to the exposition of intertextual and intermedia relationships allowing the recognition of Zvyagintsev’s strategies of building up his work on the literary canon, which becomes the medium of creating a universal film message, having an impact on the development of cultural memory
The analysis of the film Leviathan presented above showed a number of analogies with the novel The Golovyov Family, in particular in the approach to the function of the body and space organization

Summary

Introduction

Leviathan (2014), the fourth feature film by Andrei Zvyagintsev, is probably one of the most often studied and reviewed works of this Russian director. This paper, is aimed to go further than the surface level of following plot associations and present the analysis of subjectively selected scenes displaying the activities of drinking and eating in Leviathan and The Golovlyov Family, turning attention to the parallel interactions between observed situations, the use of humour and the spatial organization In this context it is good to recall that, to Zvyagintsev’s perceiving his film as the universal story of the state failure and not a political film, SaltykovShchedrin argued with his publishers that his books should not be treated as satire describing specific rulers, facts and phenomena in the history of Russia. The juxtaposition of the selected texts should lead to the exposition of intertextual and intermedia relationships allowing the recognition of Zvyagintsev’s strategies of building up his work on the literary canon, which becomes the medium of creating a universal film message, having an impact on the development of cultural memory

Methodology

Conclusions