"Little Vera" vs "Truffaldino iz Bergamo"

[Alina Israeli]

> made half a country go to the movies, even those who had never done it
>before. And then, having watched the movie, practically everybody was
>absolutely mad because they had waited for smth extraodinary good,

Half a country cannot possibly agree on what is extraordinarily good.


>  Besides, American critics, those who commented on the movie after it had
>been released, found it "undeniably mediocre" tooâ*¦

They were comparing it with other films that have some sex in it, let's
say. "Last tango in Paris" which had its own mediocre response from Menshov
and Alentova.

>
>  It can be seen as "cultural
>evidence" to many social anxieties of the time; it articulated, for the
>first time, many of the issues that had been "undercurrent" for years: it
>clearly "separated" sex from reproduction (these had been separated for
>decades in real life, in how people behaved, but saying this publicly was
>not comme il faut, as "there was no sex in the Soviet Union").


The question is not whether there was sex in the Soviet Union or not, we
know there was, the abortion rate tells us this, and it also tells us that
sex is separated from procreation. The question as far as films are
concerned, is it (sex) gratuitous (as in some American films), for the
titilation purposes or is it meaningful, i.e. conveys something important
relevant to the characters or mood of the films, the same way good music
does.


>  "Kogda b mne dali vlast', ja b kazhdomu nevernomu muzhchine vruchila b
>po odnoj zelenoj vetke! Togda vse goroda by prevratilis' v zelenye i
>pyshnye sady!"
>  Voila! Chem vam ne glasnost? Was she talking about reproduction or about
>sex? Or did she mean that "nevernye muzhchiny" were those who played chess
>somewhere outside home?

Yes, but that's about "them" not "us", and about "then" and not "now".


__________________________
 Alina Israeli
 LFS, American University
 4400 Mass. Ave., NW
 Washington, DC 20016

 phone:    (202) 885-2387
 fax:      (202) 885-1076 

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