What’s the deal with these padded doors in Russian movies? Here’s the door of the Director’s office in Sluzhebnyiy Roman (Office Romance) a 1977 movie.

And here’s a door to an apartment, in “Moskva slezam ne verit”, a 1979 film. And there are many others to be found. I have questions, assuming these types of doors were found in real life and not just in the movies.

• When did that style of door get started?
• What materials are used?
• Why have padded doors at all?
• Is that still a common style? If not, when did it end?
• Is/was it just a Russian thing, or were those found in other countries as well?

I suppose I could answer some of those questions myself by paying closer attention to the dates of movies I’m watching.

On my ride home from work tonight, I listened to some of the book of Luke from the Russian bible I downloaded from the Faith Comes by Hearing site. Occasionally I listen to it while exercising on our elliptical machine, usually with a printed version of Russian and English to study alongside. Sometimes it takes me an entire 20- or 30-minute session to work my way through one chapter. Though when there’s a Big Ten basketball game on TV, I usually watch that while exercising instead of working on Russian. But when there’s no game on TV, I’ll work on Russian. I’m also reading “Wintering Station on Chill River” by D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak in a bilingual printed version.

But there’s no audio for that, so for bicycling I listen to a movie soundtrack, or some Russian songs, or in this case, the Bible.

I got the slightly dramatized version of the Russian Bible. Several years ago I got a “Parole de Vie” Bible (limited-vocabulary French) from these same people. (It’s a long story, but it came about when our pastor called my bluff.) That recording seems to have been produced by French-African people. I thought the dramatization was very nicely done. The various voices are good, and the music or other background sounds were just the right touch — not overdone, and it stands up to repeated listening — but stands out just enough to be an aide to listening. You even get a Caribbean flavor with steel drums in a few places where it’s just the right thing.

So I had high hopes for the Russian bible, though I was worried that the dramatic effects might be overdone — like the gaudy stage settings on a lot of Russian music programs one can see on the Internet. But instead, it’s underdone. It’s no huge problem, because the voices are good, but I am a little disappointed.

What’s especially disappointing is that the musical accompaniment is often in the form of organ music. Who ever heard of pipe organ music in a Russian anything? I enjoy organ music by Bach or Saint Saens. But it just doesn’t seem right for Russian. Do they even have pipe organs in Russia? The only pipe organ I’ve ever seen in a Russian movie is the one pictured above in Sergei Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevsky” — and it’s one of the evil enemy German clerics who is playing the thing. For Russian they should use a garmoshka, piano, or guitar, shouldn’t they? Or better yet, all of the above. You see those in lots of Russian movies, anyway.

It could be worse. At least it’s an understated organ accompaniment. But I still find it somewhat disconcerting, and probably would even if I had never seen that Alexander Nevsky movie.

I did make myself finish watching Strana glukhikh last night. It was not the ending I expected!

But I got to wondering how Russian Sign Language relates to American Sign Language. Where is it in the taxonomy of sign languages? I don’t know any sign languages myself — I need the subtitles — but I’m curious about things like that.

I didn’t find an answer to my question, but I did find this web page that tells about a Russian Sign Language/American Sign Language translator program. And some Russian Sign Language is used in the US:

In communities in the United States with a large Russian presence, such as New York City, interpreting agencies may offer Russian sign language interpreting services.

]]> http://kino.reticulator.com/2009/02/10/asl-vs-russian-sign-language/feed/ 0 http://kino.reticulator.com/2009/02/02/krylya/ http://kino.reticulator.com/2009/02/02/krylya/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:03:56 +0000 Reticulator http://kino.reticulator.com/2009/02/02/krylya/

We finished watching Krylya (Wings) tonight. That’s a very good film, at least the first time through.

Afterwards I looked for reviews with which to compare my reactions, and found this:

She is unable to come to terms with her past nor with the present, in which she is the director of a high school and the mother of an adoptive daughter. Her attempts to compensate for her distraction all lie in the direction of appearing authoritative, but the students and her daughter, with the unerring instincts of the young, distrust and despise her.

That wasn’t quite my take on it. The first sentence is a good description, but the 2nd, about “appearing authoritative” doesn’t seem right. Her character has no trouble appearing authoritative. She can’t help but be authoritative. Even when she tries to treat people well, she ends up not being able to help herself. She sets very high standards for herself — which is probably what enabled her to be a successful fighter pilot. But the authoritative part is not an attempt to compensate — it’s just the way she is. She tries again and again, but is unable to expect any less from her daughter, her new son-in-law, her students, or anyone else. And she is not satisfied with her present position in life, either, much of what is too boring for her.

That may sound like a trite Hollywood character, but it’s done very subtly. There are many occasions on which I was afraid this story was going to take a Hollywood turn, but it didn’t.

Maya Bulgakova did an extraordinary job of playing a complex character. I see from IMDB that this is just one of many roles she played. I’m now interested in seeing what other kinds of characters she was able to play.

Late edit:  I just now found subtitles for “My Friend Ivan Lapshin” (Moy Drug Ivan Lapshin) at mssubtitles.com.   Now if only I could find English subtitles for “The House that Swift Built” (Dom, Kotoryiy Postroil Svift).  But I haven’t even found evidence that subtitles were ever made.  I would even be glad to find Russian subtitles, even though that wouldn’t help Myra watch it with me.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who gets a mention in several Soviet-era films, though not this one) warned about the rise of a Military-Industrial Complex. What we have in this screenshot is something a little different: An Industrious Millinery Complex.

It’s from Tot Samyiy Myunkgausen. Duke Herzog (not the major character) is the industrious milliner. He knows about tucks, seams, hems, and waists, and hates it when the proper duties of his position intrude.

His aide has been trying to turn away the Baron Munkhausen’s estranged wife who is waiting outside, saying the Duke is busy with the most important affairs of state. But he reluctantly agrees to meet her. Everyone knows the drill — quickly hide all the dressmaking equipment and pull out the globe, papers, and books appropriate to the business of a duke.

It’s a minor comic theme in the movie — one of several. I was reminded of it by some wordplay on the POLITICS e-mail discussion list that I won’t go into here. It would be too hard to explain.

Though perhaps it is not as hard as trying to explain this movie. As in that other Mark Zakharov film, Obyknovennoye chudo, it’s hard to say which characters are in the story and which are outside of it.

This quartet, for example. Are they a kind of Greek chorus of the kind that Sophocles (whom the Baron has known personally) would have used in his plays to provide commentary? Or are they inside the story?

There may be a terminology to describe this technique of making the characters in the play conscious of those outside who are watching, but I don’t know what it is. Zakharov is a supreme master of it, whatever it’s called. It’s hard to explain, but that’s not even the hardest part of the movie. I’ll leave some of that for later, if I can figure out how to talk about it.

Cute. Music reminiscent of Pink Panther beginning at 3:24.

I’ve watched three YouTube segments of “Beware of the Car,” which will be the 3rd Eldar Ryazanov film I’ve seen.

When I saw this (in segment 2) I thought the guy on the left might be Ryazanov himself. But I guess it’s not.

The scene is in an insurance office, and the main character of the film (on the right) is an insurance agent. The guy on the left is his boss.

I was taken aback by the idea that there was such a thing as property insurance in the Soviet Union. It seems such a capitalist thing. In fact, the following paragraph in an academic journal article about Soviet insurance almost took the words out of my mouth, except that my thoughts on the subject weren’t quite this clear:

Insurance is closely related to the origins and growth of modern capitalist economy and the insurance contract has been identified as the springboard by which small-scale itinerant commerce of the early Middle Ages vaulted into large-scale enterprise of modern capitalism. How, then, can insurance be fitted into a non-capitalist framework and what role can it play?

The quote is from “A Survey of Insurance in the USSR”, by Paul P. Rogers, in The Journal of Insurance, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1963), pp. 273-279, published by the American Risk and Insurance Association.

This Paul Rogers also did other writing on the topic. I read a couple of his shorter works, including this 1963 article as well as one published in 1980.

A few things that I learned:

Insurance was a government monopoly, run by an organization called GOSSTRAKH (General administration of Government Insurance.) Insurance was available for agricultural and transportation. Even in a welfare state there was such a thing as life insurance and disability insurance. Insurance was also available for personal property. The purchase of insurance was mandatory for some purposes, and a matter of individual choice in others.

I presume the insurance agents did not work on a commission.

Regarding auto insurance, Rogers’ 1980 article says this:

Citizens may insure vehicles under a separate policy. The policy insures automobiles, motorcycles, mopeds, snowmobiles, sailboats and rowboats for property damage. There is no liability insurance coverage.

I suppose if there had been liability insurance, the premise of that other Ryazanov film, Railway Station for Two (Vokzal dlya Dvoikh) would have been different.

BTW, I am trying to figure out how to use Cyrillic characters in a WordPress blog set up for use primarily in English. So far I haven’t learned a way to do it.

I didn’t know that Russia had trial by jury now. But here is a movie about it: “12″

The little YouTube blurb said it’s somewhat like “12 Angry Men.” I haven’t seen that movie, but I think I read the play script in high school. Or maybe I did see the movie way back. It sounds familiar, anyway.

I googled for some information and learned that Russia adopted (or re-adopted) trial by jury in 1993. I picked this article as something to read, just for the sake of starting somewhere. It sounds like it was written around 1999, so I’m not sure how up-to-date it is.

This paragraph reminded me of the movie Mimino:

…the institution of returning the case for reinvestigation is closely connected with a lot of other provisions in our criminal procedure. For example, the absence of the advocate’s right to collect evidence. Having no possibility to collect evidence independently, the advocate in our criminal procedure sometimes has to petition to return the case for reinvestigation.

So if that’s the case, what was that cute young attorney doing for our hero in Mimino, when she put all that work into collecting evidence independently?

The strange part of the article is the final section, which bear no connection to all the informative material that has gone before. It starts with this paragraph:

Trial by jury is, probably, the privilege of a stable society. It must be stable in the economic, social, political, and legal respects. In the opposite case trial by jury is doomed to live out a miserable existence. Trial by jury in Russia is a vivid example of that.

Say what? I’m not sure there is any such thing as a stable society. Everything is always changing. And why does that matter, anyway? The author breathes not a word of argument or evidence to support her assertion that trial by jury is doomed where society is unstable. So why did she say something like that?

I found it when looking for Mark Zakharov movies. Netflix doesn’t have any, nor are there any on Ebay. But there are some here.

Russiandvd.com not only sells DVDs but has a rental program, too. I’m starting to run out of Russian movies on Netflix. When I exhaust those, maybe I’ll subscribe here.

There is a problem, though. A lot of them do not have subtitles, which means I’ll have to learn a lot more Russian before I can watch them properly. And even when I do, I can’t expect Myra to be enthusiastic. She likes to watch Russian movies with me, but has no interest in learning the language.

Just the same, it’s something to keep in mind.

Yesterday we finished watching “Aguirre, The Wrath of God”. Tonight I read about it on Wikipedia and elsewhere. It seems other people have a lot higher opinion of it than I do. It has its good points, but I’m going to ignore those and talk about something else.

The puppet emperor in one scene is shown gorging himself on delicacies while the rest of the crew are reduced to rationing out the last few grains of corn to eat. (It’s not in the scene in the above YouTube clip, though, even though it’s the same character. I wasn’t able to find a clip of the one I’m talking about.) BTW, All the actors look pretty well fed, the starving ones as well as the upper crust.

Up to this point the movie hadn’t done a good job of portraying the social differences between the classes in any way that would seem to engender resentments, then all of a sudden it shows this scene of stark contrast. It’s a very crude way of putting it, and it’s not a theme that was developed very carefully in the movie.

It reminds me of one of the things that has been surprising to me about Soviet era Russian films. They portray the social differences of the pre-Revolution era in a much more subtle, human fashion than I ever would have expected. I’m talking about post WWII films, not those of the Stalin era. I’ve seen a few of the Stalin-era ones on RTR Planeta, and they are about as crude as you might expect in demonizing the aristocrats. But some of the post-Stalin ones do a nice job. The message is subtle.

I’m thinking about movies such as Siberiade or Unfinished Piece for Player Piano, or even Oblamov. Yes, there is class conflict and there is a social distance, but the movies don’t overplay it. The human relationships seem real, plausible, and very ordinary.

I’m not keeping up with my movie-watching lately. But I enjoyed this segment of White Bim Black Ear. (And did I really call it Black Bim White Ear a few posts back?).

Here are the parts I liked:

• I liked the winter scenes with effects you get with the mid-day sun low in the sky. Makes me wish I was there, almost. You can’t do that kind of filming in California, even if you can get the snow.
• Ice fishing. But why was the guy fishing when he said he was going hunting? And what kind of rig does he use? Do the Russians drill their holes the same way we do? What kind of bait or lure was he using? And do Russians have darkhouse spearfishing like Minnesota does? (Non-residents are not allowed to do it, so it has been almost 40 years since I’ve done any of it myself.)
• Firewood. In this and other movies and documentaries I’ve seen, it appears that Russians who burn firewood for heat have their wood split up into pieces of smaller diameter than we tend to use here in Michigan. But I wish I could smell their wood stacks when the wood is still fairly fresh to see if I could identify what kind of wood they’re burning. Some of those stacks are large enough to suggest wood as a primary source of heat — if the wood is a good quality hardwood. (We’ve burned wood as the primary source of heat in our home for 30 years now. A typical Michigan mix of firewood is mostly oak and maple, with a little hickory thrown in (if you’re lucky) and maybe some cherry. Occasionally there will be some ash or walnut, too. White oak is better than red oak (and doesn’t smell the same, either).)

The storyline? It’s so-so. A bit Rousseauian in that the kids are all virtuous and some of the older people are corrupt meanies.