Feeling Revolution: Cinema, Genre, and the Politics of Affect under Stalin

Toropova, Anna

Abstract

Stalin-era cinema was a technology of emotional and affective education. The filmmakers of the period were called on to help forge the emotions and affects that befitted the New Soviet Person—ranging from happiness and victorious laughter to hatred for enemies. Feeling Revolution: Cinema, Genre, and the Politics of Affectunder Stalin shows how the Soviet film industry’s efforts to find an emotionally resonant language that could speak to a mass audience came to centre on the development of a distinctively ‘Soviet’ genre system. Its case studies of specific film genres, including the production film, comedy, thriller, and melodrama, explore how the ‘genre rules’ established by Western and pre-revolutionary Russian cinema were rewritten in the context of new emotional settings. ‘Sovietizing’ audience emotions did not prove to be an easy task. The tensions, frustrations, and missteps of this process are outlined in this book with reference to a wide variety of primary sources, including the artistic council discussions of the Mosfil′m and Lenfil′m studios and the Ministry of Cinematography. Bringing the limitations of the Stalinist ideological project to light, Feeling Revolution reveals cinema’s capacity to contest the very emotional norms that it was entrusted with crafting.

Citation

Toropova, A. (2020). Feeling Revolution: Cinema, Genre, and the Politics of Affect under Stalin. Oxford: Oxford University Press (OUP). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198831099.001.0001

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Acceptance Date: Aug 30, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 20, 2020
• Publication Date: Jul 8, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jan 12, 2021
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Series Title: Emotions in History
• ISBN: 9780198831099
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198831099.001.0001
• Keywords: Soviet cinema, emotion, feeling, genre, affect, Stalinism, Soviet culture
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4919677
• Publisher URL: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198831099.001.0001/oso-9780198831099