Russian cultural expropriation, was Re: [SEELANGS] Summary List of Russian Films with American Content

[Ian Appleby]

>On 6 August 2013 03:14, Valentino, Russell Scott <russellv at indiana.edu>wrote:
>We could call the fact that some of the films in the American list are
actually British intellectually lazy, but this >(and the Russian vs Soviet)
distinction seems less important than the apparently Cold War relations
underlying >depicting the Other, which the list helps to illuminate.

There's a curious film I haven't yet noticed being mentioned in this
discussion that touches on both these points: Letter to Brezhnev (1985).
It's quite some time since I saw it last, but if memory serves it revolves
around two young women in Liverpool who have one-night-stands with a pair
of Russian sailors. One of the women then concludes that she would be no
worse off in Brezhnev's Russia than in Thatcher's Britain, hence she writes
the titular letter, asking to be reunited with her sailor. This movie might
suggest that the American vs British distinction may in fact be worth
considering more carefully, if at least one British film presents a
different -  indeed, romanticised - view of the Russian/Soviet Other during
the Cold War.

>On 6 August 2013 03:14, Valentino, Russell Scott <russellv at indiana.edu>wrote:
>There's also a crazy Russian scientist alone in an abandoned space station
in Armageddon (1998).

If we're talking space stations, Kubrick's 2001:  A Space Odyssey (1968)
has noted British comic actor Leonard Rossiter playing a straight role as a
Russian scientist.

Finally, to redress the balance, there is the USSR film Deja Vu (1990),
dealing with a 1920s Chicago gangster who falls foul of the mob and flees
to Odessa, only to be pursued by a hitman who is plagued by amnesia. As
that last detail suggests, it is in fact a comedy, and does manage to be
quite funny in places as it plays with both American and Soviet stereotypes.

Best wishes

Ian
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