Soviet movies

[Alex Him]

Originally Posted by steven clark

Alex, I went to YouTube and was able to watch 'Agony.' I hadn't seen it in 33 years, and it was a lot of fun to watch and was as I remembered it.

I'm glad you got a little spinning on the waves of nostalgia

When it was shown in Boston, critics enjoyed the newsreels interspaced with the action, and was very new, as we in the West know absolutely nothing about WWI in Russia.

I'm sure some of the scenes might have been lifted from earlier movies, though.

It was also good to see a period film in Russia with Russians, and not a not of English actors. It was also liked for giving a humane portrait of Nicholas II, although he was a mess as Czar, and the film showed what kind of mental chaos the leadership of Russia was at that point. The Bolsheviks really didn't have much of an enemy in that respect.

Still, history should be learned not from movies and works of fiction, but from the works of historians and from original historical documents.

Also on Youtube I was browsing for a version of the German film Kolberg, and found one from the USSR made in 1943 about Kutusov. May look at that.

This movie is on YouTube but without English subtitles.

Or do you want me to watch it?




Watching the movie is only possible on the channel of Mosfilm.

Kutuzov (1943)

Kutuzov (1943)

[steven clark]

I might watch Kutusov sometime. I did find a Youtube channel with English subtitles. I wonder why they're all wearing their cocked hats pushed back. Seems odd. Maybe because it was a war, they had a problem with hat sizes.

I agree with reading history rather than watching movies and TV shows, because they always change things around, and you get an unrealistic version of what happened.

Reading, you are able to think and re-examine whatever you've studied, where film is all immediacy and emotion.

I've been reading David Irving's Churchill's War, and he's a fascinating historian, and although the books are 700 pages long, they're never boring.

He's also a good lecturer. I met him several years ago and bought a copy of Hitler's War.

[Alex Him]

Originally Posted by steven clark

I might watch Kutusov sometime. I did find a Youtube channel with English subtitles. I wonder why they're all wearing their cocked hats pushed back. Seems odd. Maybe because it was a war, they had a problem with hat sizes.

I don't know what to tell you. I am not a costume specialist from the 1812 war era.

I agree with reading history rather than watching movies and TV shows, because they always change things around, and you get an unrealistic version of what happened.

Reading, you are able to think and re-examine whatever you've studied, where film is all immediacy and emotion.

I have watched several analyzes of historical movies by historians and they say what the movies is often very far from real history, in terms of events and in terms of costumes and in terms of weapons.

I've been reading David Irving's Churchill's War, and he's a fascinating historian, and although the books are 700 pages long, they're never boring.

He's also a good lecturer. I met him several years ago and bought a copy of Hitler's War.

There are several of his books translated into Russian.






Here is a Georgian short movie. (I post it here not for its great merits, but because it does not need subtitles.)





A flute (1976)



03:55 - This is a board of honor. The most successful workers of a plant or factory were on it. Such boards were in almost every plant in the USSR.

13:02 - On his jacket the inscription was imprinted: "Beware there is glass here!"

A flute (1976)

A flute (1976)

[Alex Him]

July rain (Июльский дождь) - 1966.





Watching the movie is only possible on the channel of Mosfilm.

July Rain (1966)

July Rain (1966)

[Russian-speaking commentators were divided into two groups. One group thinks the movie is meaningless, while the other group thinks the movie is great and perfectly captures the 1960s atmosphere.]