Geog318 Film Project 02.17.04
Goals: This project is designed to further
discussion of some of the topics we have addressed in our class. Even more relevant could be discussion of themes not addressed
but relevant to our course. In short, you need to
write a narrative discussing geographic issues provoked by watching a moving
picture.
[Please understand that the following
long description of the project is to help you with ideas and logistical
questions. Despite the detailed and lengthy description,
all attempts have been made to keep this as a relatively small project (worth
30 points). Make sure that you address all the formal
requirements described below, and you will be fine. Use
office hours if you have questions.) This is an individual
project. Plagiarism will be punished.]
Choice of film: It should be a feature film about
Please feel free to suggest your
own (favorite and not so) film from and about
Procedures: In nutshell, do the same as with
our usual weekly responses.
1. Watch the film and write a) its
summary presuming that your reader is not familiar with the film; b) express your general feeling/opinion
about the film (Did you like it? Was it accessible? Was its aesthetics challenging? c)
list all geographical questions you have about
the film. [1/2 – 1 page]
2. The main point of the project
is to be able to see and analyze geographical issues in such a popular media
as films, and bring in ideas from our readings and lectures. Write a narrative about 6 page
long discussing the questions of geographical nature you have after watching
the film. Ideally, the questions should be not only
basic (e.g., the location of events), but also more fundamental (e.g., What is
3. Find available literature on your
film and relevant geographic literature (roughly, as a guideline, the following
would be enough: two books, or three academic articles, or four general audience
publications such newspaper articles. The web is okay,
but only the web is a kind of not.)
4. Edit you essay, make sure it is
free of errors and typos. Pay attention to logic and
argumentation.
5. It should be typed, in about 11
point font, 1.5 line spacing. It should include about
0.5 to 1 page summary of the films and your opinion. The
main body of the essay should be about 6 pages, followed by a conclusion
and a list of sources briefly cited in text. All together
the project is about 7 pages not counting any extras.
6. Deadline will be discussed in
class.
7. Have fun!
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: Before 1917
*** (easiest
choices for accessibility)
*** Andrei Rublev = Andrei Rublev / directed
by Andrei Tarkovsky
Summary Story of the famed 15th century icon painter who
survives the cruelties of medieval
Comment: A good choice. The film
is powerful, unique, very relevant to our early
discussions, you would have something to think and write about. Tarkovsky is frequently considered
among the top 10 best filmmakers ever.
Oblomov = Oblomov / directed
by Nikita Mikhalkov
Summary A comedic drama about a
landed gentry of nineteenth-century
Comment: Although the name has become quite generic (there
is Oblomov club in
War and peace
= Voina i Mir/ by Sergei Bondarchuk
Summary Follows the interconnected lives of a group of
Russian aristocrats from 1805 to 1812, including Napoleon's invasion of
Comment: The film is based on the
famous novel by Leo Tolstoy. Not the best choice because
of the epic scale of the film and its literary nature.
Sideburns = Bakenbardy /directed
by Mamin
Summary The Pushkin Club is
a group of reactionaries who affect 19th century dress and want to remove
from
Comment: I have not seen the film, but anything satirical
does not sound easy to understand.
Russian Ark = Russkiy
Kovcheg / directed by Alexander Sokurov
Summary: A modern filmmaker magically
finds himself transported to the 18th century, where he embarks on a time-traveling
journey through 300 years of Russian history. Russian master Alexander Sokurov
has tapped into the very flow of history itself for this flabbergasting film.
Thanks to the miracles of digital video, Sokurov
uses a single, unbroken, 90-minute shot to wind his way through the Hermitage
in
Comment: Sokurov
is notoriously famous for making extremely complex, incomprehensible films,
yet this one has huge and surprising mainstream success in the
Prestuplenie i nakazanie = Crime and
punishment/ directed
by Lev Kulidzhanov
Summary A former law student kills two women and is tortured
by remorse. Basically, life behind
the imperial capital’s façade of power. PN1997 .P727 1989
Comment: based on Dostoevsky’s famous novel, therefore
not a good choice (too literary).
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: Around 1917
Revolution
Rasputin = Rasputin
/ directed
by Elem Klimov
Summary The story of the rise of Rasputin, his influence
over the royal court, and his lust for power that eventually threatens the
House of Romanoff and all of
Comment: should not be too difficult to understand.
October 1917 / direction,
Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori V. Alexandrov.
Summary Silent film by the Russian master, Sergei M. Eisenstein, detailing the events leading
up to the Russian Revolution. The original version was heavily censored by Stalin,
but in 1967 a full restoration was made, and a music score by Shostakovich
and sound effects track were added. PN1997 .O3 1990
Comment: We need to have something
from the genius. Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin
is often labeled the best film of all times (also available from our library
for the project).
Strike = Stachka/ directed
by Sergei Eisenstein
Summary Story of a strike by factory workers in Tsarist
Russia which is brutally suppressed. Originally
released in 1925. PN1995.75 .S774 1999
Comment: See above.
*** The Red and
the white / directed
by Miklуs Jancsу
Summary Powerful film about the absurdity and evil of
war. Set in
Comment: I have not seen the film, yet the film sounds
to be very geographical and relevant. See also the
description below.
From amazon.com: Miklós
Janscó takes the romance out of Russia's Revolutionary
struggle in this simultaneously beautiful and brutal look at the civil war
following the Bolshevik coup of 1918. Set in a remote region of
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: WWII
My name is Ivan
=
Summary An orphan boy serves the Russian army by reconnoitering
behind enemy lines during World War II. PN1997 .I926 1991
Comment: another masterpiece from Tarkovsky.
*** Come and see
= Idi i smotri = Viens et vois / directed
by Elem Klimov
Summary The horrific and harrowing experiences of a young
boy coming of age during the brutal German occupation of
Comment: Come and see.
Ballad of a soldier
= Ballada o soldate / directed
by Grigori Chukhrai
Summary A young soldier refuses a medal following a heroic
action and instead takes leave from the front to visit his mother. During
his travels by train, truck, and on foot, he meets many people: a crippled
veteran, a comic sentry, faithful and faithless wives, and a girl with whom
he falls in love. PN1997 .B34 1980
Comment: One of the most popular, a bit melodramatic, Soviet
films about WWII.
*** The cranes are flying = Letiat Zhuravli / directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
Summary: Mikhail Kalatozov's luscious portrait of love and loss during
World War II stars almond-eyed beauty Tatyana
Samojlova and handsome Aleksei
Batalov as moony-eyed young lovers whose innocent
romance is shattered by war. When the idealistic boy volunteers for service,
his draft-dodging cousin steals the despondent girl by brute force, yet she
never gives up on her true love, even when he's reported dead. Kalatozov's patriotic paean to fallen soldiers and
home-front heroes is an undeniably sentimental melodrama suffused with lush
images and lyrical sequences, a kind of cinematic poetry unseen in Soviet
cinema since the experimentation and optimism of the silent days. Produced during the "thaw" following Stalin's repressive reign,
it won the Palme d'Or
prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival and set Kalatozov
on the road to more ambitious expressions of Soviet idealism in the modern
world.
Comment: Gone by the wind of WWII. Public Library has a
copy.
Kindergarten =
Detskii Sad / written
and directed by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Summary: "...s sprawling, semi-autobiographical
film which follows the adventures of a young boy cast adrift in
Comment: the film’s narrative is a bit
too subjective.
*** Vor = The thief / directed
by
Summary An Academy Award nominated (Best Foreign Language
Film, 1997) tale of passion, betrayal and innocence lost, as seen through
the eyes of an impressionable young boy. Set in post-World War II Russia. Video Cassette 10008
Comment: moving film.
URBAN GEOGRAPHY / STALIN
The world is laughing = Veselye rebiata / directed
by G.V. Aleksandrov
Summary A musical comedy which pits a whip-cracking, animal-herding,
good-hearted rustic with a fine voice and a Pan-like effect on all who hear
him against a so-called "finer" stratum of society. Leaving a trail of mirth
and mayhem from the seaside to the
Comment: Liubov
Orlova was the Soviet answer to
Summary The post-Soviet
Comment: Very arty, surreal film filled with haunting and
strange beauty.
Burnt by the sun = Utomlennye Solntsem / directed by Nikita Mikhalkov
Summary: Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov is also the star of this tragic 1994 drama
about the last happy season in the life of a Bolshevik hero's family. The
year is 1936, and Stalin's purges are in full swing. Despite his reputation
and revolutionary record, Sergei Kotov (Mikhalkov) seems
to be on the dictator's hit list, as indicated by the insulting arrival of
his wife's former lover, an agent of government police. Mikhalkov treats all this as a matter of personal
and political intrigue dropping like rotting fruit in the middle of a sunny
and loving period for the Kotov clan. The director
ingeniously understates the mounting threat until one begins to realize that
the Kotovs are only geographically distant from
the long, bloody reach of Stalin. By the time we do realize it, the shock
of change is almost unbearable. A very fine movie all around, though Mikhalkov's touches of magic realism (particularly
the presence of a golden orb that keeps popping into the action) are distracting
and a subject of controversy among viewers. (amazon.com)
Comment: The Academy Award winner as the best foreign film. Summer cottages of the elite, their
large estates in the vicinity of
***
Summary The setting is
Comment: An easy choice
for the urban. Academy Award, Best Foreign Film.
URBAN / PERESTROIKA
Legko li byt molodym? = Is it easy
to be young? / directed
by Yuris Podnieks
Summary Alienated youth in the
Comment: This is mostly
a documentary film which was one of the biggest sensations at the time of
perestroika.
Repentance = Pokayaniye/ directed
by Tengiz Abulaze
Summary In a small Russian village a woman is put on trial
for repeatedly digging up the body of the town's recently deceased ruler.
The trial gradually reveals the truth about the despot's vicious reign of
terror, and forces the townspeople to face the reality of his (and the
Comment: Another hit from the perestroika time. Very arty, surrealist masterpiece.
***Little Vera
= Malen’kaia Vera/ directed
by Vasily Pichul
Summary The controversial, award winning Russian movie
about a woman torn between her lover and her bitter parents. PN1997 .L5778 1989
Comment: A popular perestroika time
film signaling the end of the Soviet system.
GEOPOLITICS
*** Kavkazskii plennik = Prisoner
of the mountains /directed
by Sergei Bodrov
Summary A Russian army patrol is ambushed by Caucasian
rebels and two survivors are taken prisoner, by a local patriarch who is
hoping to barter them for the release of his captured son. A bond of understanding
develops between the soldiers and their captors, but it is broken when plans
for their release go awry and a chain of violence and retaliation is precipitated. Video Cassette 10894
Comment: A good choice for the geopolitics theme. Academy Award nominee.
A chef in love / by Nana Dzhordzhadze
Summary: Transcaucasia, Georgia,
1917-1921, revolutionary years. Drama.
From amazon.com: This is a tragi-comedy about a French chef who falls in love
in and with
Comment: Public library has a copy of the film which sounds
very unique.
The Legend of Suram
fortress = Legenda o Suramskoy
Kreposti / directed by Sergey Paradzhanov
Summary: Legends -- Georgia (Republic) -- Drama.
Comment: Powerful, masterpiece. Public Library.
Siberiade = Sibiriada / by Andrei Konchalovsky
Summary (from amazon.com): This ambitious
1979 Russian film attempts no less a feat than the encapsulation of the tumultuous
history of
Comment: Public Library has a copy.
*** Dersu
Uzala = Dersu Uzala / by
Akira Kurasawa
Summary: the first Russian/Japanese co-production. Dersu Uzala is the near-poetic story
of an elderly guide and gold hunter (Maxim Munzuk),
who, at the turn of the century, agrees to shepherd a Russian explorer (Yuri
Solomin) and a troop of soldiers through the
most treacherous passages of
Comment: Good choice – the best foreign film according
to the Academy. By the best Japanese
filmmaker. Public Library