Changes in Russian pronunciation

[Jules Levin]

On 6/27/2012 12:48 AM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
> [Overriding Mr. Robin's private Reply-to setting and redirecting my 
> reply to the list]
>
> Richard Robin wrote:
>
>> ... But as for the original comment, my take is that scripted movies,
>> especially those made under Soviet conditions, technical and
>> political, can probably not be taken as a model of everyday speech,
>> just as few people in the 1930s in the US spoke like Katherine
>> Hepburn.
>
> Nor looked like her, either. ;-)
>
> There's been an evolution in the cinematographic art that I find 
> highly relevant here. In the early days, both actors and directors 
> seemed very aware that they were appearing in public, and it was 
> essential to put on one's best "face," including language. So we got 
> highly artificial portrayals in which "all the women were strong, all 
> the men were good-looking, and all the children were above average," 
> to coin a phrase. All these superhuman beings dressed in evening gowns 
> and tuxes and spoke in stuffy, artificial forms up to which the man in 
> the street could gaze in awe and amazement. It took decades for 
> mainstream cinematographers to even admit the possibility that human 
> beings engaged in activities such as personal hygiene, not to mention 
> sex, or cleaned their own houses.
Not all films looked like the 30's musicals that were designed to lift 
people up from their daily tribulations.  There were plenty of Gorkyish 
lower depths movies in the 20's and 30's, with actors that did not carry 
over the speech norms of the stage.  Just because you as a child didn't 
"get" the sex, doesn't mean it wasn't there.  For adults it was 
unambiguous.  Take a look at The Postman Always Rings Twice and watch 
what was going on between Lana Turner and John Garfield.  Hot sex 
indeed!  And frankly I wouldn't pay for a ticket to watch actors brush 
their teeth or vacuum their floors.
Jules Levin
Los Angeles





> (Of course, there was an underground film industry that explored all 
> forms of depravity, but that's beside the point.)
>
> Multiply this by the Soviet propaganda machine and it's easy to see 
> how movies from the 1930s would not accurately depict everyday life in 
> Russia.
>

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