Golden age of Soviet Cinema “The Thaw” (Оттепель): Khrushchev's speech at the XXth Party Congress; Stalin’s embalmed corpse removed from the Mausoleum (Lenin’s tomb); The city of Stalingrad named Volgograd; Peasants got passports; migration to cities; housing construction: low-end apartment blocks, khruschevkas (хрущёвки); Post-secondary education boom; The country opens itself to the world: the 6 th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957 (new music, style in arts, fashion; (almost) free exchange of information; the 60s generation emerges); Scientific and technical achievements; the Sputnik and Gagarin’s flight The inflow of foreign films (trophy films, such as The Girl of my Dreams and Tarzan; French New Wave and Italian neorealism).

Khrushchev (right) and Gagarin, first human to make a cosmic flight

The Thaw Cinema The number of films produced per year rises from under 10 in early 1950s to 75 in 1956; Old masters achieve a new degree of freedom (i.e.,Abram Room, Mikhail Romm, Grigori Kozintsev); Cinema studios in Soviet republics develop film production (both quantity and quality); New breed of directors takes over (“generation of lieutenants” and younger). Screen versions of Russian and international classics (i.e., Hamlet and King Lear by G.Kozintsev, The Lady with the Dog by Iosif Kheifits, etc.).

Hamlet (1964), King Lear (1970)

The Lady with the Dog (1960)

The Thaw Cinema Films pushing ideological boundaries (i.e., Grigori Chukhrai’s The Forty-First, 1956: a human face of the “enemy,” love across ideological barrier);

Poetic films of young directors De-monumentalized cinema; human dimension; De-dramatization (influence of neo-realism and M.Antonioni); “poetic cinema”: poetry of everyday life, youth, joy of living. Poetic aspect is more important than the events. Marlen Khutsiev’s Spring on Zarechnaia Street (1956) and I Am Twenty/Ilyich’s Gate (1961, released few years later) – the embodiment of the Thaw; intelligentia’s concept of “socialism with a human face.” Reality as the primary object; quest for “cinematic truth”; everyday worries of young people; “New Wave” style.

I Am Twenty/Ilyich’s Gate (1961)

I Step Through Moscow Я шагаю по Москве (1963) Director: Georgi Danelia Starring: Nikita Mikhalkov Music: Andrei Petrov Poetry: Gennadii Shpalikov

I Step Through Moscow