This module is only for affiliate students at UCL for Term 2 only.

 This module explores twenty-four Russian and Soviet films from 1896, the date of the...

The Reflecting Screen: Russian and Soviet Cinema in its Cultural Context, 1896 to the Present A (SEES0127)

This module is only for affiliate students at UCL for Term 2 only.

 This module explores twenty-four Russian and Soviet films from 1896, the date of the first demonstration of the Lumière Brothers’ cinematograph in Russia, to the present day. The films have been selected as examples of the important dialogue that takes place in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries between cinema and other forms of cultural expression, but also for their significance in the development of Russian and Soviet film culture and film-making practices generally. The films engage with a range of discourses in the spheres of art, literature, history, ideology, politics, social and religious thought, and film culture; they act as a mirror or screen with which to reflect these discourses, but also as an instrument with which to reflect upon them. The module is intended to appeal to postgraduate students from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds. It is a cinematic odyssey through some of the most important cultural trends and intellectual ideas during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as far as Russia and the Soviet Union are concerned. Each film is presented in the context of a specific cultural discourse.

 The module is delivered in two separate contact hours. The first, primarily a lecture hour, introduces the films, supplies a context in the form of a particular cultural and intellectual discourse, and refers students to a selected range of writings in which that discourse is embodied; students will also be required to give presentations during this hour and there will be an element of seminar-style discussion of the material covered. The second, the tutorial hour, timetabled separately and later in the week, involves students in discussing and analysing the individual films from the perspective of the particular discourse. Film screenings are arranged in the students’ private time between the lecture hour and the tutorial hour.