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1Имагология и компаративистика. 2024. № 21. С. 259-275 Imagology and Comparative Studies. 2024. 21. pp. 259-275
Original article
UDC 791.43/45
doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/13
"From America with love"? Love
and the "Iron Curtain" in the Soviet Thaw cinema
Oleg Riabov
, . , Russian Federation,
Abstract. s with an analysis of the oviet Thaw films that
contain love stories of USSR and USA citizens. Hollywood released a number of films that told the stories of love between representatives of the two hostile blocs; following the canon established in Ninotchka, they served as a part of the "struggle for hearts and minds,", as it is shown in many studies. Meanwhile the oviet cinema also produced the movies that touched the theme of romances between oviet and American characters: from Meeting on the Elbe (1949) to Lost in iberia (1991). The author points out that oviet love stories, like Hollywood ones, served as a weapon of the cultural Cold War. They constructed emigration beyond the Iron Curtain as unacceptable for oviet citizens, emphasized the superiority of the masculinity of "us" and functioned as a means of a symbolic demasculinization of the enemy. At the same time, unlike American cinema, the oviet one released movies that told how a woman of "us" married a man of "them." However, the family couple chose the USSR as a place of their residence, and it was the woman who rehabilitated the American man, turning him into a oviet person. Love stories served as a part of not only geopolitical but also gender discourse of the Cold War, maintaining and reshaping a certain gender order. Whereas Hollywood constructed the woman as a person who valued the private sphere higher than political beliefs or loyalty to the country, Soviet love stories showed that the woman actively participated in transforming the world, was interested in worldview and political issues, and was able not only to obey a man, but also to lead him. In the perestroika cinema, along with the changes in evaluations of the oviet way of life, the narrative of love stories was deconstructed: Soviet people emigrated to their beloved ones in the West.
Keywords: relations, comparative studies
© O.V. Riabov, 2024
Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
Financial Support:
The Images of Enemy in Cold War Popular Culture: Their Content, Contemporary Reception and Usage in Russian and u.s. Symbolic Politics
For citation: Riabov, O.V. (2024) "From America with love"? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain" in the Soviet Thaw cinema. Imagologiya i komparativistika — Imagology and Comparative Studies. 21. pp. 259-275. (In Russian). doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/13
Научная статья
doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/13
" "? Истории любви
и «железный занавес» в кинематографе «оттепели»
Олег Вячеславович Рябов
Российский государственный педагогический университет имени А.И. Герцена, Санкт Петербург, Россия, [email protected]
Аннотация. Советские фильмы периода «оттепели», в которых показаны истории любви между гражданами СССР и США, сравниваются с аналогичными голливудскими картинами. Отмечается, что в кинематографе обеих стран эти истории служили оружием «культурной холодной войны». Они воспевали преимущества советского образа жизни, подчеркивали превосходство маскулинности «своих» и выступали одним из приемов символической демаскулинизации врага.
Ключевые слова: холодная война, кинематограф «оттепели», истории любви, советско американские отношения, компаративные исследования
Источник финансирования: Работа выполнена при поддержке Российского научного фонда, проект № - - «Образы врага в массовой культуре Холодной войны: содержание, современная рецепция и использование в символической политике России и США».
Для цитирования: Riabov O.V. "From America with love"? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain" in the Soviet Thaw cinema // Имагология и компаративистика. 2024. № 21. С. 259—275. doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/13
260
Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
During the Cold War, emigration played an important role in the "struggle for hearts and minds": propaganda machines of both superpowers used
occupied by the plot when the reason for one's escape was love for a mem-aristocrat Count Léon d'Algout, falls in lo
-
of the Ian Fleming's 195
Cold War caused a special value of the very fact of "choice of freedom."
-
Who, male or female, represents "us" and who represents "them" in Soviet
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Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
films? How are the differences between masculinity and femininity of "us"
and "them" shown? How did these differences relate to representations
(
-
superiority of masculinity, femininity, and the gender order of "us" over "them" were intended to show the superiority of lifestyles in general.
between "us" and "them." At the tions of the qualities of men and women easily correlate with a person's
between "us" and "them." Finally
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Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
During
because the women's issue played a significant role in ideological confron-in the "struggle for hearts and minds" was occupied by discussions about
from fighting to competing for a woman's heart. In other words, love stories construct the superiority not only of the "free world", but also
In a form of collective identity such as the national identity, women's
-
finds expression in various kinds of restrictions concerning women's sexual relations with representatives of "them", other national communities
1 -
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Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
the film reveals "the fundamental fact that, after all, Russians and Americans are human beings, and, therefore, share basic human qualities"
for the fact that this time the woman represents "us," while "them" are
parting that they have "a long life together of peaceful coexistence." It is and humanized Soviet character, an American girl's favorite, should express
ia's enemies; no one in his country trusted struction during the period of detente show that these stories played an im-
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Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
advantages of one's lifestyle with the help of love stories are also charac-
in Moscow in 1936 for the premiere of Aleksandrov's comedy
played by Sergei Stolyarov, and stays in the USSR. The heroine's choice
a German Franz von Kneischitz,
Aleksandrov's film
-
portant to show that Sherwood's attitude toward
Hill: "I even
respect that Bolshevik Kuzmin. He is... a real man. And you?!" In other
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Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
-
above all in such events as the American National Exhibition in Sokol'niki and Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States in 1959. The principle
Soviet leader, also influenced the representation of "enemy number one" It is indicative that the first among such movies was also Aleksandrov's
The shooting was preceded by Aleksandrov's publication in the
- to show "the pos-
government" [20. P. 55]
Scott, whose main principle Aleksandrov described as follows: "Money
-
1
to ensure the involvement of "foreign high class actors" on the roles of foreigners, which would be "a concrete confirmation of the fil tural cooperation between all countries" [21. P. 10-
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Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
of price" [20. P. 54]. After becoming
in a historical competition. While remaining a "shark of capitalism," he is
The director described her as a woman having "a rich inner life, love for
ussian psyche, openness of soul, fidelity to principles, and modesty" [20. P. 58]. This is particularly significant because, in response to Homer's
existing at that time; it was Rafail Perelshtejn's film
of Bruno Jasienski's novel -
Mr. Clark, believing that his wife should be at her husband's side
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Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
In fact, it is Masha who trains Clark mentally, helping him to "change his skin." Needless to say, in the film, as in the
This attitude toward Clark, who became the Soviet woman's chosen
idea of "two Americas": a "reactionary" and a "progressive" one. The very
demanded that the "good," i.e., communists, working class, peace activists, lack Americans, and "common people," be represented in works of fiction in addition to the "bad Americans." The idea of "two Americas" is most likely framed in Konstantin Simonov's play
Later, the idea of "two Americas" became an obligatory
sympathy for this "Second" America (as Major Kuzmin says in
: "We love America. We love this country of brave an
Roosevelt <.. > We love and respect the American people"). A tribute to the idea of "two Americas" is also given in of the workers says to the Clark couple, " derstand that Americans differ"
the Vakhsh Valley. Soviet audiences should not forget about the "First"
1 For a detailed analysis of the emergence of the idea of "two Americas," see:
-
2 It is indicative that this phrase is absent in Bruno Jasienski's novel.
3 1979 saw the release of another film adaptation of the novel A Man Changes Skin (directed by Boris Kimyagarov) — a five-part television movie, in which the interpretation of the aspect of interest to us was not fundamentally different.
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Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
Seifert's research reconstructs the history of this collaborative film, which
of the images of "us" and "them." Soviet and American characters, were The 25 April 1964 discussion of Wilson's script and the director's script
stressed that Talankin's script "proceeds from the principles and ideas of
tions" [23. P. 8]. However, during the discussion, as follows from the
one of the speakers, Talankin's script reflected "idyllic impressions about America"; in particular, the director's categorical statements that "America loving country" and that "Americans" do not want war, seemed to him "too much" [23
Wilson's script, above all by the interpretations of the main characters it offered. One member of the panel emphasized: "The Americans obviously
our hero in a more primitive way" [23. P. 13]. Talankin's observation of Wilson's script is formulated as follows: ".. .there appears a wise reflective
ussian man... All this, of course, was shown from the position ofa White man..." [23. P. 11].
actly how "us" and "them" should be portrayed on the movie working in Goncharov's research team. In Wilson's book and his script,
1 The film was released without American participation many years later in 1977 at the Belarusfilm studio (directed by Sergei Tarasov).
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Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
ts to Valya's character. Thus, the screenwriter Ivan Bakurinskii was not satisfied that "there is something of submission in her whole being" [23. P. 13]. Talankin stressed that "if Valya is engaged
interests..." [23. P. 12]; her love for Rennet arises from pity for his "unsettledness, brokenness," in other words, from the superiority of a Soviet
cult) situation of women in the United States... [23. P. 20].
-
eened. Moreover, by the end of Nikita Khrushchev's
Union (CPSU), Leonid Ilichev, made a report and stressed: "We must make socialist ideology and ideology of the bourgeoisie." The June 1963 Plenum
with an editorial in which the danger of "abstract humanism" was discussed prominently [24]. Parallel to the "tightening of the screws" in ideology, there were changes in the representation of "us" and "them," which, in
This tendency is even more pronounced in the 1977 film, in which the romantic line is substantially transformed. The American is interested in Valentina, but she is in love with Goncharov and feels only compassion for Rennet. In human terms, she rather sympathizes with him; but Rennet is burdened with the sins of the American way of life: individualism and disbelief in human progress. Being a representative of a dying social order,
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Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
he lacks a real purpose in life and therefore cannot be liked by a Soviet woman, as Valentina's explanation implies.
vantage of one's own way of life: the hierarchization of masculinities also
rhetoric, which showed the advantages of one's own way of life in the lie, social sphere. Women's nature is unchanging, and not even the Bolshe-
271
Riabov O. V. "From America with love "? Love stories and the "Iron Curtain"
discourse of the "feminine mystique" described in Betty Friedan's famous yzed films with those made at the end of the Soviet era. Leonid Popov's
Convincing his father, he exclaims: his mother realized that "f
and honor do. But I didn't understand <.. .> what could possibly keep you here?" One way or another, the priority of the Soviet way of life is already
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Hmobojiobuh / Imagology
"grilled," he confesses to espionage and is sent to a Soviet camp, where he is considered an American and given the nickname "cowboy." In the love story, the camp doctor, Anna Il'inichna, chooses the "cowboy," preis more attractive to a Russian woman than a Russian man...
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Information about the author:
O.V. Riabov, Dr. Sci. (Philosophy), leading research fellow,
, Russian Federation). E-mail: [email protected]
The author declares no conflicts of interests.
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Имагология / Imagology
Информация об авторе:
Рябов О.В. — д-р филос. наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Института истории и социальных наук Российского государственного педагогического университета имени А.И. Герцена (Санкт Петербург, Россия). E-mail: [email protected]
Автор заявляет об отсутствии конфликта интересов.
Статья принята к публикации 19.01.2024. The article was accepted for publication 19.01.2024.
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