Denise Jeanne Youngblood's Books

The Magic Mirror

Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918

By: Denise Jeanne Youngblood

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The Magic Mirror

Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918

By: Denise Jeanne Youngblood

Youngblood provides a cultural perspective of an era traditionally viewed through a revolutionary lens, exploring how films and the film industry illuminate and reflect the popular attitudes of a turbulent time.

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244

Publisher

Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0299162346

ISBN 13

9780299162344

The Magic Mirror

Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918

By: Denise Jeanne Youngblood

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The Magic Mirror

Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918

By: Denise Jeanne Youngblood

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Page Count

244

Publisher

Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0299162346

ISBN 13

9780299162344

Bondarchuk's War and Peace

Literary Classic to Soviet Cinematic Epic

By: Denise J. Youngblood

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Bondarchuk's War and Peace

Literary Classic to Soviet Cinematic Epic

By: Denise J. Youngblood

Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace, one of the world’s greatest film epics, originated as a consequence of the Cold War. Conceived as a response to King Vidor’s War and Peace, Bondarchuk’s surpassed that film in every way, giving the USSR one small victory in the cultural Cold War for hearts and minds. This book, taking up Bondarchuk’s masterpiece as a Cold War film, an epic, a literary adaptation, a historical drama, and a rival to Vidor’s Hollywood version, recovers—and expands—a lost chapter in the cultural and political history of the twentieth century. Like many great works of literature, Tolstoy’s epic tale proved a major challenge to filmmakers. After several early efforts to capture the story’s grandeur, it was not until 1956 that King Vidor dared to bring War and Peace to the big screen. American critics were lukewarm about the film, but it was shown in the Soviet Union to popular acclaim. This book tells the story of how the Soviet government, military, and culture ministry—all eager to reclaim this Russian masterpiece from their Cold War enemies—pulled together to make Bondarchuk’s War and Peace possible. Bondarchuk, an actor who had directed only one film, was an unlikely choice for director, and yet he produced one of the great works of Soviet cinema, a worthy homage to Tolstoy’s masterpiece—an achievement only sweetened when Russia’s Cold War adversary recognized it with the Academy Award’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of 1968. Denise Youngblood examines the film as an epic (and at seven hours long, released in four parts, at a cost of nearly $700,000,000 in today’s dollars, it was certainly that), a literary adaptation, a complex reflection on history, and a significant artifact of the cultural Cold War between the US and the USSR. From its various angles, the book shows us Bondarchuk’s extraordinary film in its many dimensions—aesthetic, political, and historical—even as it reveals what the film tells us about how Soviet patriotism and historical memory were constructed during the Cold War.

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Page Count

192

Publisher

University Press of Kansas

Published Date

ISBN 10

0700620052

ISBN 13

9780700620050

Cinematic Cold War

The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds

By: Tony Shaw,Denise J. Youngblood

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Cinematic Cold War

The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds

By: Tony Shaw,Denise J. Youngblood

The Cold War was as much a battle of ideas as a series of military and diplomatic confrontations, and movies were a prime battleground for this cultural combat. As Tony Shaw and Denise Youngblood show, Hollywood sought to export American ideals in movies like Rambo, and the Soviet film industry fought back by showcasing Communist ideals in a positive light, primarily for their own citizens. The two camps traded cinematic blows for more than four decades. The first book-length comparative survey of cinema's vital role in disseminating Cold War ideologies, Shaw and Youngblood's study focuses on ten films—five American and five Soviet—that in both obvious and subtle ways provided a crucial outlet for the global "debate" between democratic and communist ideologies. For each nation, the authors outline industry leaders, structure, audiences, politics, and international reach and explore the varied relationships linking each film industry to its respective government. They then present five comparative case studies, each pairing an American with a Soviet film: Man on a Tightrope with The Meeting on the Elbe; Roman Holiday with Spring on Zarechnaya Street; Fail-Safe with Nine Days in One Year; Bananas with Officers; Rambo: First Blood Part II with Incident at Map Grid 36-80. Shaw breathes new life into familiar American films by Elia Kazan and Woody Allen, while Youngblood helps readers comprehend Soviet films most have never seen. Collectively, their commentaries track the Cold War in its entirety—from its formative phase through periods of thaw and self-doubt to the resurgence of mutual animosity during the Reagan years-and enable readers to identify competing core propaganda themes such as decadence versus morality, technology versus humanity, and freedom versus authority. As the authors show, such themes blurred notions regarding "propaganda" and "entertainment," terms that were often interchangeable and mutually reinforcing during the Cold War. Featuring engaging commentary and evocative images from the films discussed, Cinematic Cold War offers a shrewd analysis of how the silver screen functioned on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As such it should have great appeal for anyone interested in the Cold War or the cinematic arts.

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Page Count

312

Publisher

University Press of Kansas

Published Date

ISBN 10

0700620206

ISBN 13

9780700620203

Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935

By: Denise J. Youngblood

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Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935

By: Denise J. Youngblood

The golden age of Soviet cinema, in the years following the Russian Revolution, was a time of both achievement and contradiction, as reflected in the films of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Kuleshov. Tensions ran high between creative freedom and institutional constraint, radical and reactionary impulses, popular and intellectual cinema, and film as social propaganda and as personal artistic expression. In less than a decade, the creative ferment ended, subjugated by the ideological forces that accompanied the rise of Joseph Stalin and the imposition of the doctrine of Socialist Realism on all the arts. Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935 records this lost golden age. Denise Youngblood considers the social, economic, and industrial factors that influenced the work of both lesser-known and celebrated directors. She reviews all major and many minor films of the period, as well as contemporary film criticism from Soviet film journals and trade magazines. Above all, she captures Soviet film in a role it never regained—that of dynamic artform of the proletarian masses.

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Page Count

353

Publisher

University of Texas Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0292761112

ISBN 13

9780292761117

Russian War Films

On the Cinema Front, 1914–2005

By: Denise J. Youngblood

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Russian War Films

On the Cinema Front, 1914–2005

By: Denise J. Youngblood

War movies have long been the most influential genre in Russian cinema, so much so that in the Soviet Union's militaristic society, "cinema front" was used to describe the film industry itself. Denise J. Youngblood, an internationally recognized authority on Russian and Soviet cinema, provides the first comprehensive guide to this long-neglected genre. In this illuminating study, Youngblood explores more than 160 fiction films on Russian conflicts from World War I to Chechnya. These movies represent a wide range of cinematic styles and critical receptions, with particular emphasis on films little known in the West but popular in the USSR. While not ignoring classic war films like Chapaev and The Cranes Are Flying, Youngblood introduces readers to the films that shaped and reflected Soviet views of war, like the rousing World War II favorite Two Warriors, the Thaw classic The Living and the Dead, and the Brezhnevian extravaganza Liberation. This remarkably humanistic body of work was often at odds with official policies and depicted the futility of war. Youngblood is especially insightful regarding the relationship between Stalinism, Socialist Realism, and filmmakers in creating the war film genre during an era marked by increasing militarization, conformism, and state terror and the importance of cinema in the World War II propaganda effort. Stalin's obsession with movies led to the "revisioning" of his role in the Civil War and the "Great Patriotic War." Yet, Youngblood argues, Soviet filmmakers were not mere puppets of repressive regimes. Indeed, some filmmakers subtly subverted official politics and history in the guise of art or Hollywood-style entertainment. She brings the story to the present by showing how post-Soviet Russian filmmakers have not only turned a critical eye on the recent wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya but are also revisiting the complex realities of World War II. Through her accessible narrative, Youngblood tells a fascinating story that will appeal equally to film aficionados and history buffs. By tracing the evolution of cinema through the twists and turns of both Soviet and post-Soviet society, she helps us the role movies played in 20th century Russia, not only in the making and unmaking of political myths but also in the "writing" of history.

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Page Count

336

Publisher

University Press of Kansas

Published Date

ISBN 10

0700617612

ISBN 13

9780700617616

Cinematic Cold War

The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds

By: Tony Shaw,Denise J. Youngblood

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Cinematic Cold War

The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds

By: Tony Shaw,Denise J. Youngblood

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N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

312

Publisher

University Press of Kansas

Published Date

ISBN 10

0700620206

ISBN 13

9780700620203

Book's by Denise Jeanne Youngblood

The Magic Mirror

The Magic Mirror

The Magic Mirror

The Magic Mirror

Bondarchuk's War and Peace

Bondarchuk's War and Peace

Cinematic Cold War

Cinematic Cold War

Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935

Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935

Russian War Films

Russian War Films

Cinematic Cold War

Cinematic Cold War

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