Hero, Society and History in the National Cinema of the 1960s–1970s

Abstract

One of the main problems of film practice and film theory is the search and comprehension of adequate techniques and elements of expression making the film language fit to embody on the screen the “hero of the time”. The “new reading” of the past-time creations is aimed not only and not so much at the viewers’ general acquaintance as at the analytical understanding and sometimes rethinking the essential parameters of development of the domestic cinema. In this regard comes to the fore the appeal to the films of the latter half of the 20th century which set a new vector in the screen representation of relations between individuals and the human society, with a special focus on the historical past of our country.
The two post-war decades had worked fundamental changes in the sociocultural and economic life of the country, a period of “ottepel” (“thaw”) came, if rather short. The film directors of that era strove for greater authenticity in the reflection of the real world and the basic moral and ethical principles and values of the new post-war generation. Yet the iconic films of the 1950s and 1960s set forth the themes of sparring between generations, of search for identity. The 1960s were the time of cardinal reassessment of social life and history that found reflection in the films of the next decade. The “social romanticism” of the 1960s gave in the 1970s way to the historicism of artistic thinking which became not just a thematic area but an expression of hard thinking of their authors not only about the past but also about the present and the future of the country. Despite the ideological boundaries, cinema found artistic forms and stylistic techniques fit to express the internal need of the society to awaken to social and existential issues. The domestic cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, with all its auteur innovations, held tight to its basic principles based on the conception of the modern social, moral and spiritual problems through the prism of history and understanding the laws of the social development, which becomes particularly relevant at the present stage of evolvement of Russian cinema.