2025 № 4 (55)

UDC 791.43/.45

BBC 85.373(2) 

DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-4-696-723

For cit.: Vlaskin K.A. The Motif of ‘Cinema about Cinema’ in Russian Feature Films of the Second Half of the 1920s. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 4, pp. 696-723. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-4-696-723 (In Russian) 

Vlaskin Kirill A. 

PhD Student, Western Contemporary Art Department, State Institute for Art Studies, 5 Kozitsky Lane, Moscow, 125375, Russia

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9943-8716 

ResearcherID: OHR-7569-2025

kirvlaskin@yandex.ru

The Motif of ‘Cinema about Cinema’ in Russian Feature Films of the Second Half of the 1920s

Abstract. The article is devoted to the phenomenon that has become quite widespread in the world cinema — films reflecting on the nature of cinema, or ‘cinema about cinema’. The motif of ‘cinema about cinema’ emerged in the early years of cinematography and was often applied in order to add comedy to films. However, even a simple joke, a cinematic gag can become a starting point for reflections on what cinematography is. Through the doubling of artistic reality, filmmakers give rise to discussions about various aspects of cinema: artistic, production, and sociological. Cinema itself reflects on its own nature and is involved in heated discussions between its theorists and practitioners.
The article analyses several Soviet feature films of the 1920s which feature the motif of ‘cinema about cinema’. The postrevolutionary 1920s became a special transition period for the Russian film industry and cinematography, when cinema, after the Civil War and the emigration of leading film industrialists, was trying to revive in the new conditions of state control. Young filmmakers who stood at the forefront of cinematography through their unusual theories and experimental practice defined the new look of cinema. However, not only manifestos proclaimed the new cinematic aesthetics. Films such as The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom (1924), A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927), and Blown-up Days (1930), where the theme of making and showing films is central, reflect different trends and views on cinema as art, entertainment, and a way of political propaganda.

Keywords: Soviet cinema, metacinema, cinema about cinema, moviegoer, filmmaking, comedy, Igor Ilyinsky, Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky 

Sources:

Delo khudozhestvennogo filma “Kinokar’era zvonorya” [Film File of the Film The Bell Ringer’s Film Career]. Bumazhnyi arkhiv GFF [Paper Archive of Gosfilmofond of Russia], f. 400, ll. 23–25. (In Russian)

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Received 05.03.2025

Accepted 11.06.2025