How Americans Look at Russia - Summary

[Jules Levin]

At 10:38 AM 10/17/01 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Thanks for sharing your film list.  I also wanted to add my two kopeks -
>how about _Reds_ (Warren Beattie, Diane Keaton)?  It's been years since
>I've seen it, but I seem to recall there was some Russian spoken in it.

 I hated the politics in it, but Reds was a very well-done film.   I
actually saw it with a recent emigre couple, and we had no problems with
the Russian.  I don't remember the details, but some of the revolutionary
characters portrayed were not ethnic Russians, and probably spoke accented
Russian in reality.  What impressed me was that they got the color "red"
just right--I am an amateur painter and very aware of color shades.  There
is or was a very specific "Soviet" red that doesn't correspond to the
generic red color in the west.  Slightly washed out and very slightly
orangeish.  The scene of the train pulling into Petrograd station, evoking
images of eternal Russia [tam Rus'yu paxnet...], brought tears to the eyes
of my emigre friend (to my astonishment!).  It was filmed in Finland I
believe.

>Also, consider the fact that, for many Americans of a particular age
>group,  Boris's and Natasha's were the very first Russian accents ever
>encountered.  What does this say about our collective psyche?

These characters recurred in "Crusader Rabbit"--sidekick was Rags the
Tiger.  I don't think my psyche was adversely affected, although Kukla,
Fran, and Ollie certainly turned me into a fanatic hater of middle-aged
white women who talk to hand puppets...  I'm not even going to say what
Dudley Doright of the CNWMP did to my psyche...

Jules Levin

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