Cinema and Soviet Society

Part 1 The golden age: cinema before October; the birth of the Soviet film industry; the films of the golden age, 1925-9; reaching the people, 1925-9. Part 2 The age of Stalin: the cultural revolution in cinema; the industry, 1933-41; censorship, 1933-41; socialist realism, 1933-41; films of World War II. Part 3 The death of Soviet film: film hunger, 1945-53; the nadir, 1945-53; conclusion.

The story of Soviet film over the period covered by Peter Kenez is central to the history of World Cinema. In this revised, updated paperback edition of his classic text, Peter Kenez explores the roots of Soviet cinema in the film heritage of pre-Revolutionary Russia, tracing the changes in content, style, technical means and production capacities generated by the Revolution of 1917; the constraints on form and subject imposed from the 1930s in the name of Socialist Realism; the relative freedom of expression accorded to film-makers during World War Two; and the extraordinary repression during the final years of Stalin era. Based on original research both in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in the primary sources of Eastern Europe, this is the essential student text on the period which produced the major films of such 'greats' as Eisenstein, Vertov, Kuleshov, Pudovkin and many more.

Peter Kenez is Professor of History at University of California at Santa Cruz.