Soviet authorities started to conduct systematic research on modern building and construction techniques in foreign countries in 1925, during the early stages of Stalin’s industrialization and urbanization program. The visual language and the numerous cultural references used in the films to construct the Soviet West on screen were formed in the vibrant and eventful context of a Western-Soviet cultural transfer, which covered various artforms from architecture and painting to literature and film. The following article considers these three modes of representing the West and the forms in the films Salamander (1928), Feast of Saint Jorgen (1930), Conveyor of Death (1933), Horizon (1932) and Prosperity (1932). ![]() The ways in which the West is conceived, staged, and interpreted, can be divided into three modes of representations: as an enemy, as an ally, and as an example of progress. About 150 films that were produced during the 19s refer to the West. Sobolevskii’s statement is significant for the purpose of this article, which examines how mise-en-scène and production design became important tools for highlighting national and cultural differences between Soviet Russia and ‘overseas’ regions. ![]() What mattered was that they were not like us”. Whether it was America or France, Denmark or, for example, Spain, it did not matter. We learnt how to see differences between countries which not only have nothing in common with our country but stand in a remarkable contrast with it. Today ‘generalizations’ of this kind are rare. The actor Piotr Sobolevskii, who played numerous roles in ‘Western’ films, claimed that the accurate national specificity in representing a Western state was completely detached from the script material : “I have to say that most of the films based on foreign material were made according to the following scheme: we are Russia and everything that is beyond, ‘on the other side’ is the overseas (‘zagranitsa’). Filmmakers of the first productions of this kind were not concerned about historical authenticity and accurate representations of the West. Thus, the screen presence of the West took its place and kept its position from the mid-1920s until the late 1930s. They also began to produce films addressing the West. Some future directors like Sergei Eisenstein and Esfir Shub worked at the so-called ‘Re-editing bureau’, where films were adjusted to the needs of Soviet ideology. ![]() Having won popularity with the general audience, these films also provoked admiration and interest from Soviet filmmakers and theorists. This brought a remarkable preponderance of foreign films onto the Soviet screen. ![]() This crisis made the USSR State Committee for Cinematography, the institution responsible for regulating the distribution process, purchase films from the USA, France, Germany, Austria and other European countries. The Soviet film industry of the early-to-mid-1920s faced a production crisis of celluloid materials. Along with a whole range of international agreements, which were concluded during the interbellum decades, cinema was one of the most accessible and powerful channels of cultural exchange between the Soviet Union and the West. Up until the 1930s the USSR was gradually building connections with the post-WWI order, seeking military, industrial, and technological allies in the West. For the young Soviet state, the period from 1920 to 1930 was a period of political, economic, and cultural synchronization with the West that followed a short period of isolation.
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