- The 18th century
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The Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention in the period immediately following the 1917 revolution. Its most celebrated director was Sergey Eisenstein (a student of Meyerhold), whose great films include Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Ivan the Terrible (released in two parts, 1944 and 1958). Eisenstein also was a student of filmmaker and theorist Lev Kuleshov, who formulated the groundbreaking editing process called montage at the world’s first film school, the All-Union Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Supported by Lenin, who recognized film’s ability to communicate his revolutionary message to illiterate and non-Russian-speaking audiences, the school initially trained filmmakers in the art of agitprop (agitation and propaganda). Like Eisenstein, who incorporated the Marxist dialectic in his theory of editing, another of Kuleshov’s students, Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin, made his mark on motion picture history primarily through his innovative use of montage, especially in his masterwork, Mother (1926). Similarly important was Dziga Vertov, whose kino-glaz (“film-eye”) theory—that the camera, like the human eye, is best used to explore real life—had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism in the 1920s.
Film did not escape the strictures of Socialist Realism, but a few post-World War II films in this style were artistically successful, including The Cranes Are Flying (1957; directed by Mikhail Kalatozov) and Ballad of a Soldier (1959; directed by Grigory Chukhrai). A number of successful film versions of classic texts also were made in the 1950s and ’60s, particularly Grigory Kozintsev’s spectacular versions of Hamlet (1964) and King Lear (1971). Prominent among the notable Russian directors who emerged in the 1960s and ’70s were Andrey Tarkovsky (Ivan’s Childhood [1962], Andrey Rublev [1966], Solaris [1971], and Nostalgia [1983]) and the Georgian-born Armenian Sergey Paradzhanov (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors [1964] and The Colour of Pomegranates [1969]).
The 1980s and ’90s were a period of crisis in the Russian cinema. Although Russian filmmakers were free from the diktat of the communist authorities, the industry suffered from drastically reduced state subsidies. The state-controlled film-distribution system also collapsed, and this led to the dominance of Western films in Russia’s theatres. Private investment did not quickly take the place of subsidies, and many in Russia complained that the industry often produced elitist films primarily for foreign film festivals while the public was fed a steady diet of second-rate movies.
Nonetheless, Russian cinema continued to receive international recognition. Two films—Vladimir Menshov’s Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1979) and Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun (1994)—received the Academy Awards for best foreign-language film. The work of Andrey Konchalovsky, who has plied his craft in Russia as well as in Europe and the United States with features such as Runaway Train (1985) and House of Fools (2002), is also highly regarded. In the late 1990s Aleksandr Sokurov emerged as a director of exceptional talents, gaining international acclaim for Mother and Son (1997) and Russian Ark (2002), the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take. (For further discussion, see motion picture, history of the.)
Cultural institutions
Some of the most-renowned museums in the world are found in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Moscow the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum houses treasures of western European art, while the Tretyakov Gallery has a strong collection of Russian art. Moscow’s Kremlin, the former seat of communist power and the home of the Russian president, also contains a series of museums that include notable cathedrals and features the stunning architecture of the Kremlin building. The Tolstoy Museum Estate in Moscow features an excellent literary collection. In St. Petersburg the Hermitage is one of the great art museums of the world, the Russian Museum displays the world’s largest collection of Russian art, and the Russian Museum of Ethnography details Russian culture and daily life throughout history. St. Petersburg is also home to the country’s oldest museum, the Kunstkammer (formally Peter the Great’s Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography), which is now under the direction of the history department of the prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences. Moreover, in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, the former tsarist palaces at Pavlovsk, Pushkin, and Peterhof have been restored as museums. They are popular destinations for both Russians and foreign tourists.
Elsewhere, there also are various notable museums, many of which specialize in regional art, ethnography, and historical collections. For example, the Archangelsk State Museum, founded in 1737, houses collections that focus on the history of Russia’s north coast, and the State United Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan has a wide array of decorative art and historical, archaeological, and ethnographic resources from Tatarstan. In addition, the Yaroslavl State Historical, Architectural, and Art Museum-Preserve offers an extensive collection focusing on Russian history and culture. Russian private philanthropy in the post-Soviet era resulted in the establishment of a number of important foundations to support the arts and education, including the Vladimir Potanin Foundation, the Open Russia Foundation, and the Dynasty Foundation.