УДК: 791.43-22

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2022-1-109-130

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Stanislav N. Dedinskiy

Master of Arts, Editor-in-chief
The Film Scholars Cooperative 1895.io (ANСO “Film Cooperative 1895”)
Moscow, Russia
E-mail: 1895@1895.io

Carnival Night as a New Type of Post-Stalinist Comedy

Abstract

The debut feature film by Eldar Ryazanov Carnival Night (1956) became one of the landmark events of the first period of the Khrushchev Thaw. But for the society it also marked its real beginning in cinema, showing on the screen the degree of freedom of young heroes and their struggle – albeit within the framework of a genre film. There were both the representatives of the previous generation and at the same time the representatives of the authorities. Studying the history of the film creation simultaneously shows these two interrelated components of the idea and its reliazation: a radical expansion of the showing the change of generations and political paradigms on the screen – and progress of the comedy genre. The creators of the film frankly spoke about the need to update the comedy genre and associated this need with a changing era. The transcripts of the discussions also show the uncertainty that these changes in the society and in the film industry had really come to stay. So the cautions of film authorities and fellow filmmakers found their parallel on the screen and became the “second layer” of the film’s action. The plot of Carnival Night includes resistance to censorship. Thus the screenwriters Boris Laskin and Vladimir Polyakov and the director Eldar Ryazanov introduced overtones of their own confrontation with censorship into the film. The archival materials have made it possible to confirm. The article features excerpts from different versions of the screenplay and the shooting script of Carnival Night. They are from the scenes which were not filmed or were significantly changed. The article also includes material from the preserved transcripts of the production’s discussions at the meetings of the Artistic Council of the Mosfilm studio (speeches by Ivan Pyryev, N. Orlov and others). The publication establishes the relationship between the demands of the Soviet film distribution (about which the journal Iskusstvo Kino (The Art of Cinema) wrote at the time), and the motivation of the leadership of the country’s largest film studio.

Keywords

Soviet cinema of the Thaw era, Carnival Night, Mosfilm, E. A. Ryazanov, I. A. Pyryev, The Art of Cinema journal.

For citation

Dedinskiy S. N. Сarnival Night as a New Type of Post-Stalinist Comedy. Theatre. Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2022, no. 1, pp. 109–130.

 DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2022-1-109-130

References

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Received: 13.01.2022

Revised: 01.02.2022

Accepted: 11.02.2022