2025 № 2 (53)
Screen Impressionism and Industrial Production Drama in the Film Your Contemporary by Yuli Raisman
UDC 791
LBC 85.374.3(2)
DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-2-234-283
For cit.: Salnikova E.V. Screen Impressionism and Industrial Production Drama in the Film Your Contemporary by Yuli Raisman. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 2, pp. 234–283. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-2-234-283. (In Russian)
Salnikova Ekaterina V.
D.Sc. (in Culture Studies), PhD (in Art History), Head of the Mass Media Arts Department, State Institute for Art Studies, 5 Kozitsky Lane, Moscow, 125375, Russia
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8386-9251
ResearcherID: AAS-2122-2020
Screen Impressionism and Industrial Production Drama in the Film Your Contemporary by Yuli Raisman
Abstract. Using the methods of film studies, culture studies and aesthetics, the article analyses the formal and substantive aspects of the film Your Contemporary (1967) by Yuli Raisman and Evgeny Gabrilovich. The context of the official reception of the film and critical statements in the magazines Iskusstvo kino (The Art of Cinema) and Sovietsky ehkran (Soviet Screen) is considered. The article also contains the text of a letter in which Raisman’s film is subjected to a detailed review and a strongly negative assessment. The author of the article notes the general gravitation of the film action towards the pattern of wandering characters which G. Deleuze wrote about and which appears to be very typical of Western European and Russian auteur cinema of the second half of the 20th century. The author explores the combination of atmosphere, impressionistic style in the mood of Edgar Degas, industrial and science problems, and diegetic images of everyday life of the mid-1960s. Also, the subject of analysis is the evolution of the male genotype of the three generations of the Gubanovs — the character of the film The Communist (1957), his son and his grandson in Your Contemporary. These central characters correlate with the character of the film A Long Happy Life (1966) by Gennady Shpalikov and with the magazine criticism of excessive uncertainty in the images of contemporaries. The article analyses a range of female characters, artistic fixation of inter-gender issues, and transformation of attitudes towards work and vocational jobs. Conclusions are drawn about the differences in the semantic scope of the film and its representation in the process of official reception and criticism in the central periodicals, and about the lack of uniform viewpoints inside the official and the so-called permitted culture of the Thaw era.
Keywords: Soviet cinema, official culture, criticism, industrial production drama, moral quest, communist conscience, gender, urban environment, impressionism, character, female images
This paper is the journal’s congratulations to the remarkable film historian, Doctor of Art History Valery Ivanovich Fomin on his 85th birthday.
Sources:
Delo fil’ma (scenarnye dogovora, zayavka, materialy stsenariya, zaklyucheniya i dr.) [Gabrilovich E. — zacherknuto] “Tvoi sovremennik” [zacherknuto “Syn kommunista”]. Moskovskaya ordena Lenina kinostudiya “Mosfil’m”. Tret’e tvorcheskoe ob’edinenie “Tovarishch”. Stsenarno-redaktsionnaya kollegiya: 11.08.1964 — 30.03.1967 [Film Case (Scenario Contracts, Application, Script Materials, Conclusions, etc.) [E. Gabrilovich — crossed out] Your Contemporary [crossed out Son of a Communist]. Moscow Order of Lenin Film Studio Mosfilm. The Third Creative Association “Comrade”. Script and Editorial Board: 11.08.1964 — 30.03.1967]. Arkhiv “Mosfil’ma” [Mosfilm Archive], arch. no. 1165, bundle no. 61, inventory no. 6. 37 l. (In Russian)
Zaklyuchenie po rezhisserskomu stsenariyu “Syn kommunista” (“Vasilii Vasil’evich Gubanov”) [Conclusion of the Director’s Script Son of a Communist (Vasily Vasilyevich Gubanov)], Delo fil’ma (stsenarnye dogovora, zayavka, materialy stsenariya, zaklyucheniya i dr.) [Gabrilovich E. — zacherknuto] “Tvoi sovremennik” [zacherknuto “Syn kommunista”]. Moskovskaya ordena Lenina kinostudiya “Mosfil’m”. Tret’e tvorcheskoe ob’edinenie “Tovarishch”. Stsenarno-redaktsionnaya kollegiya: 11.08.1964 — 30.03.1967 [Film Case (Scenario Contracts, Application, Script Materials, Conclusions, etc.) [E. Gabrilovich — crossed out] Your Contemporary [crossed out Son of a Communist]. Moscow Order of Lenin Film Studio Mosfilm. The Third Creative Association “Comrade”. Script and Editorial Board: 11.08.1964 — 30.03.1967]. Arkhiv “Mosfil’ma” [Mosfilm Archive], arch. no. 1165, bundle no. 61, inventory no. 6, ll. 28–30. (In Russian)
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Received 10.01.2025
Accepted 16.03.2025
