FMST 1321 - EASTERN EUROPEAN COMMUNISM AT THE MOVIES

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
After the 1917 revolution in Russia, Lenin famously said: "to us film is the most important of all the arts." Communists were to use cinema for propaganda purposes, in order to carry out massive state-wide campaigns aiming to bring radical social change. However, Soviet avant-garde filmmakers were also concerned with revolutionizing filmmaking itself. Some three decades after Lenin's remarks, the leaders of the countries of Eastern Europe which had become "Soviet satellites" after World War II, attempted to use censorship and control over the arts and cinema to produce effective propaganda for their own political campaigns. Writers, artists, and filmmakers were coveted allies of these new communist regimes that came to power in the 1940s. Again, however, filmmakers and actors did not always toe the Party line. Some were able to use film to craft complex works with subtle messages portraying aspects of daily life as it was experienced by ordinary people under the new regimes. Films that we will watch and analyze, released in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in the decades before the fall of communism in 1989 managed to depict, evoke, and criticize "really existing communism." This course will trace the history of East European communism and of East European film-making from 1944 to 1990, acquainting students with examples from an exceptional body of cinematographic work together with the broad outlines of East European history. Students will learn to "read" films from 20th century Eastern Europe in their cultural, political, and historical context. This is a Critical Studies course and counts for Category I towards the Film and Media Studies major and minor.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Attributes: DSAS Geographic Region General Ed. Requirement, DSAS Historical Analysis General Ed. Requirement, DSAS The Arts General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req., SCI Polymathic Contexts: Humanistic GE. Req., SCI Polymathic Contexts: Soc/Behav. GE. Req.

Click here for class schedule information.

Add to Portfolio.

Close Window