Graham, S; (2016) Soviet Film Comedy of the 1950s and 1960s: Innovation and Restoration. In: A Companion to Russian Cinema. (pp. 158-177). Wiley: Malden, MA, USA.

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Abstract

The formidable Soviet film industry produced nearly 7000 motion pictures between 1918 and 1991. This chapter will attempt to do just that, focusing on the post-Stalin period, that is, the 1950s and 1960s. After a look at the trajectory of film comedy in the Soviet Union during the preceding periods, the chapter discusses how the comedy genre was (and was not) reinvented after Stalin's death, its role in the larger cultural processes of the Thaw, and the importance of comedy in the formation of the post-Stalinist popular film spectator. Like the Stalinist and early-Thaw focus on recalcitrant bureaucrats, early Soviet film comedies tended to favor ideologically safe targets. The most purely satirical Soviet silent comedies were early anti-religious satires, and show the lingering spirit of the period of Civil War and War Communism: The Miracle Worker - famous for being Lenin's favorite film - and Brigade Commander Ivanov.

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