From Tikhie to Gromkie : The Discursive Strategies of the Putin-Era Auteurs

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Russian Literature 96–98 (2018) 297–327 www.elsevier.com/locate/ruslit FROM TIKHIE TO GROMKIE: THE DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES OF THE PUTIN-ERA AUTEURS JUSTIN WILMES [email protected] Russian Studies, East Carolina University Abstract The Putin-era filmmakers sometimes referred to as the Russian “New Wave” or “Novye tikhie” (“New Quiets”) explore sensitive social issues while Russian society and culture are subject to increasing, soft-authoritarian ideological controls that (in contrast with the late Soviet period) rely on circumscription rather than coercion. This article examines the paradoxes arising from this, and the artistic and discursive strategies used by these auteurs, from avoidance of taboos, to Aesopian, highly encoded texts, to overt confrontation. It considers recent films by Boris Khlebnikov, Andrei Zviagintsev, Iurii Bykov, and others, engaging theories of Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, and José Muñoz, in terms of hegemonic and counter-discourses. Keywords: Russian Cinema; Post-Soviet; Cultural Studies; Censorship; Khlebnikov; Zviagintsev; Bykov Очень правильно Сергей Шнуров назвал наше поколение – “новые тихие”. Это очень точное название. Мы ругаемся и боимся всех этих ментов – пятимся назад и как бы шепчем: сволочи, ублюдки и т. д. На мой взгляд, кино должно быть уже намного более громким и свободным.1 (Khlebnikov 2011) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ruslit.2018.05.012 0304-3479/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 298 Justin Wilmes Понадобилось двадцать лет, чтобы наше кино, петляя по ухабам безвременья, наконец-то избавилось от синдрома стыдливого страха перед “социалкой”, каковая считалась меткой совкового мышления, и вслух заговорило об этом – о постсоветском социальном устройстве.2 (Stishova 2013) From Radishchev and Pushkin to Siniavskii and Solzhenitsyn, Russian writers and artists have been defined to a large degree by their relationship to official power and ideology. Indeed, the heightened civic role of the artist – encapsulated so memorably by Evgenii Evtushenko’s line “Поэт в России – больше чем поэт” (“A poet in Russia is more than a poet”) – has become a commonplace in discussions of Russian culture. Numerous scholars have written about the unique relationship between Russian art and the public sphere.3 Cultural historian Nancy Condee observes that in the absence of a robust public sphere, “Russia’s culture – including its technology of textual production, the texts themselves, their guardians, and consumers – has historically served in their stead as historian and augur, cartulary and politician” (2009: 20). Russian film historian Anna Lawton writes that Soviet-era auteurs such as Andrei Tarkovskii, Vasilii Shukshin, and Elem Klimov were widely viewed as the “conscience of the nation”, but that in the 1990s, “with the disappearance of the tyrannical state, art works with underlying libertarian themes that conveyed clandestine information lost their raison d’être” (2004: 13). In the Putin era, while the tension between artist and state is undeniable, what is perhaps more interesting are the tortuous roads that artists traverse between the extremes of conformity and nonconformity to official ideology. As this article will demonstrate, most examples in recent years confound a binary understanding of the artist as supporter or saboteur. In the new millennium, Russian arthouse cinema, along with performance art and documentary theater, has taken up the torch from the literature of earlier periods, becoming a key locus for exploring taboos and sensitive social issues. In light of a general visual turn in culture4 and the remarkable resonance of controversial films such as Andrei Zviagintsev’s 2014 Leviafan (Leviathan), an argument can be made that the civic poet of today’s Russia is the “independent” filmmaker. This article examines the artistic and discursive strategies of the Putin-era auteurs variously referred to as the Russian “Novaia volna” (“New Wave”) or the “Novye tikhie” (“New Quiets”). This group of filmmakers has navigated major shifts in civil society and mechanisms of culture in the new millennium. Their films reveal an array of reactions to an increasingly homogeneous and controlled public sphere, from avoidance of taboos, to Aesopian, highly encoded texts, to overt confrontation. In contrast to the period of late socialism, however, the ideological controls that filmmakers contend with today are of a some- From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 299 what different nature. The postmodern, soft-authoritarian mechanisms of control employed under Putin rely primarily on circumscription rather than coercion. Thus, the social engagement of contemporary auteurs poses a number of ideological paradoxes: Can filmmakers working within a system that is primarily government-funded produce films that are truly nonconformist? Are such forms of state-sanctioned critique a kind of interpellation, reinforcing the hegemony of official ideology? Alternatively, might they be viewed as a “disidentificatory” counter-publicity that maintains or galvanizes opposition within the system? Engaging theories of Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, and José Muñoz, this article examines the films of contemporary Russian auteurs through the lens of what Foucault described as the “perpetual spirals of power and resistance” between hegemonic and counter-discourses. Soft Censorship and the Ideological Molding of Cinema in the Putin Era In recent years, political scientists have often described Russia as a “soft authoritarian state” in an attempt to refine the binary categories of democracy and authoritarianism and describe mechanisms of “soft power” in the postmodern era. Political scientist Edward Schatz writes: The cement of soft authoritarian rule is an elite’s ability to frame political debate, thereby defining the political agenda and channeling political outcomes. Soft authoritarianism relies more centrally on the means of persuasion than on the means of coercion, although coercion remains part of the ruling elite’s arsenal. (2009: 203) Cultural historians too describe the uniquely postmodern control of the Russian public sphere under Putin, which differs from late socialism in its mechanisms, if not always in its effects. In a recent article, Alexander Etkind emphasizes the decay of the Russian public sphere from the 1990s to today, attributing this to informal means of control such as the gradual expansion of ownership of television outlets by government allies and the use of misinformation in the media (2015). Mark Lipovetsky characterizes Russia’s public sphere as one of diffuse cynicism, where all narratives are viewed as equally fictitious, and postmodern spectacles of power have replaced substantive exchange (2015).5 Mechanisms of culture under Putin are indeed a unique blend of postmodern techniques of channeling outcomes and authoritarian policies recalling the Soviet Union, most notably the control of the educational curriculum, intimidation through politically motivated arrests and trials, and the cultivation of authoritarian discourse that equates government support with patriotism and dissent with betrayal.6 300 Justin Wilmes A brief examination of recent changes in film production and distribution under Putin illustrates this unique blend of persuasion and coercion. In light of the government’s heavy-handed intervention in cinema and other cultural spheres in recent years, this article analyzes Russian cinema through the lens of what theorist Louis Althusser calls an “ideological state apparatus”. In his seminal essay of 1971, Althusser builds upon the insights of Jacques Lacan to describe mechanisms through which a dominant ideology reproduces itself and determines subjectivity. Althusser divides these mechanisms of power into categories of “repressive state apparatuses”, such as the penal system, and “ideological state apparatuses”, such as educational curriculum, cinema, television, and print media. However, Althusser, like his contemporary Michel Foucault, also saw the potential for individual agency within ideological apparatuses such as cinema, where “the resistance of the exploited classes is able to find means and occasions to express itself” (1971: 98-99). While an exhaustive examination of ideological controls in cinema in the new millennium is beyond the scope of this study, an overview of some major initiatives will shed light on how ideological “channeling” occurs in the Putin era and how this system generates new strategies and counter-discourses.7 In the early 2000s, the Putin administration began expanding its influence over cinema, usually under the aegis of “increasing profitability”, but also revealing an ideological agenda.8 Government funds for cinema grew significantly9 in the early 2000s, but along with this investment came heightened scrutiny and new requirements for how funds were distributed and which types of films were desired. Government control of cinema reached its apex after the re-election of Putin in 2012 to a third term as president and his subsequent appointment of Vladimir Medinskii to the post of Minister of Culture the same year. Since that time this tandem has introduced into the realm of film production: regulations prohibiting “homosexual propaganda”, “falsifying history”, “insulting the feelings of religious believers”, and explicit language; a new process for obtaining funds for cinema, which requires approval for films from the Ministry of Culture on a case-by-case basis, does away with the anonymity of applicants, and includes prioritized themes;10 new distribution licenses requiring approval from the Ministry of Culture for all public screenings of films, which has greatly impacted film festivals; an active role in crafting the “Week of Russian Cinema” program, which is shown in numerous countries and actively promotes a positive image of Russia abroad;11 and a new funding system for film festivals that has defunded such politically contentious events as the Moscow documentary festival “Artdokfest”.12 The vertical power structure for granting film funding and distribution licenses has been utilized with renewed vigor as an ideological tool under Minister Medinskii. In 2013-2014 a number of films were temporarily or From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 301 permanently denied a distribution license due to explicit language, homosexual propaganda, or falsifying history, including Zimnii put’ (Winter Journey, 2013), Intimnye mesta (Intimate Parts, 2013), Kombinat “Nadezhda” (Factory “Hope”, 2014), and Prikazano zabyt’ (Ordered to Forget, 2014). The celebrated film Leviafan (2014) was similarly denied the right to be screened until public outcry tipped the scales in its favor and it was granted a license with an 18+ certificate (Semenov 2014; Pulver 2014). The Film Fund also denied funding to several nascent film projects due to ideologically controversial content, such as Kirill Serebrennikov’s biopic Tchaikovskii and Aleksandr Mindadze’s World War II-era film Milyi Khans, dorogoi Petr (My Good Hans, 2015).13 In addition to these more overt mechanisms of control, numerous instances of informal obstruction and intimidation have been reported in the film industry. To relay but one representative account among many: On 30 December 2014 two dozen viewers were seated in the Moscow theater Teatr.doc, waiting to watch a documentary exposé about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Suddenly police entered, declaring the need to evacuate the building because of a bomb threat. Despite the presumed urgency of such a threat, the police carefully checked and recorded the documents of all in attendance before allowing them to exit. The three organizers of the event were then taken to a nearby police station for questioning and were released only the following morning. The screening of the film was successfully prevented (Ruble 2015). Numerous other screenings have been obstructed through informal channels, including Rossiia 88 (Russia 88, 2009) at the KinoTeatr.doc festival in 2009; Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (2013) at the Gogol Center in 2013; and the documentary Deti 404 (Children 404, 2014) at Artplay.14 More prevalent than these instances of obstruction, however, is the reality that a majority of movie theaters categorically turn down contentious films. Hoping to avoid controversy or political pressure, large commercial theaters rarely take a chance on socially or political charged films, relegating them to a handful of smaller, niche theaters in major cities, as was the case with a celebrated 2016 documentary about Boris Nemtsov, Slishkom svobodnyi chelovek (The Man Who Was Too Free; Fishman and Krichevskaia).15 These mechanisms of control in cinema parallel soft-authoritarian measures employed in other spheres. Just as controversial films such as Leviafan are allowed to be made, but have their distribution and publicity carefully controlled by the authorities, expressions of political opposition are allowed to take place, but are heavily circumscribed and always under the threat of arrest or detention. The paradoxical granting of permission to hold political demonstrations and to organize opposition movements in softauthoritarian societies are what political scientists call “release valve” policies, which create the appearance of democracy and political expression, 302 Justin Wilmes but in a highly controlled and circumscribed manner (Hildebrandt 2013; Massoud 2013). Outright prohibitions are difficult to justify domestically and internationally in a global order dominated by democratic nations. Instead, Russian authorities today employ subtle measures of obstructing, intimidating, and undermining such expressions in the largely state-controlled media. These heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory mechanisms of control recall practices of “allowed dissent” in the Soviet period. However, today there is a much greater degree of direct criticism of the system and a pretence of free speech is maintained, but continues to be heavily controlled, intimidated and channeled. It is impossible to gauge the impact of tightened ideological controls on cinema using specific examples alone, since such measures primarily act as a deterrent for new film projects. The circumscription of film production was a focus of the annual discussion of the state of Russian cinema at the 2014 Kinotavr Film Festival. Daniil Dondurei, a film critic and editor-inchief of Iskusstvo kino, remarked: Частные продюсеры сейчас боятся государства. Понятие “страх” в последнее время резко актуализировалось. У каждого режиссера есть страх, что ему не дадут денег. Частные продюсеры боятся, что на них надавят, они будут иметь неприятности, если начнут снимать фильмы такого рода, и эти предупреждения им делаются. (Dondurei 2014) (Private producers are now afraid of the government. Recently, the notion of “fear” has prominently emerged. Every director has the fear that they won’t fund him. Producers are afraid that they will pressure them, that they will have trouble if they start to make films of that kind, and these warnings are being made to them.) Thus, directors are faced not only with a narrowing field of acceptable subjects for their films, but also with a growing fear of “trouble” (“неприятности”) lest they venture into dangerous ideological territory. The following portrait of the Putin-era auteurs, their aesthetic and discursive tendencies, and a discernible evolution in their oeuvres since Putin’s reelection in 2012, will shed light on the strategies that these filmmakers have employed in the rapidly changing Russian public sphere. Toward a Definition of the Russian Novaia Volna or Novye tikhie Russian arthouse cinema – though reviled by many post-Soviet viewers following a decade of violent excesses and bleak narratives of chernukha in the 1990s – enjoyed a modest renaissance in the 2000s. Together with commercial cinema, arthouse was buoyed by economic stability and increased From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 303 government investment. A new generation of directors came of age and gained considerable recognition on the international film circuit, winning major prizes at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and other prestigious festivals. 16 Reacting to their success, some critics began referring to these filmmakers as the “Russian New Wave”, a reference to earlier periods of revitalization and aesthetic innovation in French, German, Czech, and other national cinemas. Not surprisingly, this label, which was not the result of any manifesto or self-declared movement, and was applied only haltingly by critics, was frequently disputed by the directors themselves, who pointed to their aesthetic and thematic differences.17 Others, while reluctant to embrace the idea of a movement, acknowledged the shared ethos of the generation’s filmmakers. Director Boris Khlebnikov remarked: Французская “новая волна”, или неореализм [...] это все получилось из-за того, что большое количество людей было против чего-то [...] И я думаю, дело не в том, что мы как-то договаривались, а просто что-то произошло в жизни, что у всех вдруг одна общая фобия появилась [...] по сути это состояние страха от того, что вокруг происходит. (Volobuev 2009) (The French New Wave or Neorealism [...] this all happened because a large number of people were against something [...] And I think, it’s not that we’ve somehow agreed, but simply that something occurred in life and one common phobia arose in all of us [...] essentially it is a condition of fear about what is taking place around us.) Critics noted the commonalities among this generation of auteurs, citing among other things: a unique blend of documentary film techniques, especially long takes and the alternate use of fixed and handheld camera, with mythical narratives and settings; stoic and largely silent protagonists; and a feeling of alienation in their films, informed by the post-Soviet cultural crisis and the directors’ coming of age in the difficult period of the 1990s (Vishnevetskii 2010; Nekrasova 2011). Nonetheless, the intellectual baggage of the “New Wave” label and the hesitancy of critics to crown this generation a bona fide New Wave relegated the term to the dustbin of history. As this moniker fell out of favor, another arose that perhaps more accurately describes a certain core group of the generation’s directors. Director Khlebnikov introduced the term “Novye tikhie” at the annual discussion of Russian national cinema at Kinotavr in 2011, and it has since gained wide currency among critics and filmmakers. Quoting Sergei Shnurov, the cultural icon and singer of the band Leningrad, Khlebnikov, somewhat self-deprecatingly, remarked on the understated, highly encoded social commentary and alienated protagonists of his generation of film- 304 Justin Wilmes makers, concluding: “На мой взгляд, кино должно быть уже намного более громким и свободным. Мы должны не шептать, а производить кино куда более прямого социального действия” (Khlebnikov 2011; “In my opinion, cinema should already be much louder and more free. We shouldn’t whisper, but make films of much more direct social significance”). Indeed, the cultural production of the so-called zero years (nulevye gody), particularly in arthouse cinema, is largely “quiet” in its treatment of social realities and taboos. This is the result of a confluence of factors. Although some of the mechanisms for ideological molding of cinema were put in place in the early 2000s, they were not the principal factor. A certain aversion to tendentious, ideological art in the wake of Socialist Realism and its antithesis chernukha prevailed during this period. Auteur directors were often dismissive of social interpretations of their films and professed an ethos of l’art pour l’art.18 Elena Stishova, a prominent film critic, remarked a “timid avoidance of social cinema” in the first decade of the 2000s, which she claimed was perceived “as a mark of Soviet thinking” (2013). More generally, the artist’s role as critical vanguard was tempered in the new millennium by what language historian Michael Gorham calls a “period of restoration” in Russia’s language culture (2014: 13). Centripetal rhetorical practices – to borrow Mikhail Bakhtin’s term (1981: 271-272) – reflected not only expanding ideological controls imposed from above, but also a grassroots and self-imposed conservatism and desire for affirmative forms of identity. Director Nikita Mikhalkov initiated this demand for “positivity” and “role models” in cinema as early as December 1997 in a muchpublicized speech to the Filmmakers’ Union (1999). Following his example, proposals for a self-imposed “moral code” in cinema were discussed annually and ultimately accepted by a majority of the Filmmakers’ Union in 2012. When the socially contentious documentary festival Artdokfest was defunded, Minister Medinskii asserted that “many people called to thank him”, for defunding the festival (Massoud 2015). Certainly, the Putin-era auteurs were influenced both by the general public’s distaste for bleak depictions of social realities and by industry leaders’ calls for films that provided affirmative identification for viewers. Many Russian writers, like their contemporaries in cinema, also found themselves at odds with the dominant mood. As Benjamin Sutcliffe notes, during this period the works of writers such as Liudmila Ulitskaia and Liudmila Petrushevskaia shifted away from contemporary social conditions to “trans-historical time” and focused on universal, interpersonal conflicts and allegorical or mythical spaces (2009: 100-103).19 Questions of a film movement and nomenclature notwithstanding, the films of a core group of directors – Zviagintsev, Popogrebskii, Khlebnikov, Vyrypaev, Mizgirev, Serebrennikov, Bakuradze, Gai-Germanika, Sigarev, From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 305 and Khomeriki – reveal striking commonalities that give credence to the Novye tikhie designation.20 The cinematic language and subjects of these directors reflect two predominant tendencies, which can be described as “metaphorical” and “metonymic”, corresponding loosely to Roman Jakobson’s description of these functions of language (Jakobson 2002: 95-96). The films of the metaphorical tendency – most notably Zviagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie (2003) and Izgnanie (2007); Vyrypaev’s Eiforiia (2006) and Tanets Deli (Delhi Dance, 2013); and Serebrennikov’s Izmena (Betrayal, 2012) – eschew contemporaneity, are set in generalized, composite spaces, and explore timeless themes and human dilemmas. The characters in these trans-historical narratives are often nameless or wholly archetypal, the time and place of the action unknown. Their scripts engage religious and fairytale subtexts to construct mythical spaces, while contemporary social and political realities are presented only through subtle allegory or exist in the background. The metonymic contingent of the Novye tikhie – including Khlebnikov’s Svobodnoe plavanie (Free Floating, 2006) and Sumasshedshaia pomoshch’ (Help Gone Mad, 2009); Bakuradze’s Shultes (2008) and Okhotnik (The Hunter, 2011); Mizgerev’s Kremen’ (Hard-Hearted, 2007) and Buben, baraban (Tambourine, Drum, 2009); Popogrebskii’s Prostye veshchi (Simple Things, 2007) and Kak ia provel etim letom (How I Ended this Summer, 2010); Gai-Germanika’s Vse umrut a ia ostanus’ (Everyone Dies but Me, 2008); and Khomeriki’s Skazka pro temnotu (A Tale about the Darkness, 2009) and Serdtse, boomerang (Heart, Boomerang, 2011) – situates narratives in highly contextualized settings and social milieux of post-Soviet Russia and portrays them with quasi-documentary authenticity. However, rather than contentious social or political topics, these films, like their more mythical counterparts, focus on the universal and interpersonal themes of parents and children, marital infidelity, illness, and maturation. Their social and political signification too lies in the background rather than in direct engagement with taboo subjects. Through stifled and alienated protagonists and “unvarnished” everyday conditions, they construct alternative representations of society, which clash ipso facto with the glamorized reality and patriotic tone of blockbuster cinema. Two of the most celebrated early films of the Novye tikhie, Zviagintsev’s Vozvrashchnie (2003) and Khlebnikov’s Svobodnoe plavanie (2006) illustrate this “escape” into mythical and material realms and subtle encoding of contemporary social meanings. In Vozvrashchenie a father returns home after a mysterious twelve-year absence and takes his two sons Ivan and Andrei on a fishing trip. The trip becomes a rite of passage for the boys, who react very differently to the father’s harsh lessons in manhood. The younger son, Ivan, questions the legitimacy of the father’s authority 306 Justin Wilmes throughout the film, culminating in its final scene. While chasing the fleeing Ivan up into an old tower, the father accidentally falls to his death. Figure 1. The Father with Andrei and Ivan in Vozvrashchnie. The film’s rich symbolism and open-ended narrative have led to a wide range of interpretations. While most focused on its nuanced psychological portraits and stunning cinematography, others found social and allegorical meanings. One scholar reads the film as an allegory about the troubled return of authority in Russia, which “coincides with the stabilization of the Russian economy and the rather rapid consolidation of President Putin’s power” (Hashamova 2010: 181). Notably, the twelve-year hiatus of authority in the boys’ home coincides with the twelve-year period between the end of the USSR in 1991 and the film’s release in 2003. Another scholar, citing clues in the film about the father’s criminal associations, suggests a subtle commentary on the rise of criminal organizations and illegitimate authority in Russia (Strukov 2007: 334). Khlebnikov’s Svobodnoe plavanie follows Lenia, a recent high-school graduate in a dusty provincial town near Yaroslavl. When the factory where he secures his first job is purchased and shut down by a western competitor, Lenia finds himself “floating” aimlessly through life. Appealing to the local unemployment bureau, he tries his hand as a plasterer and shoe salesman at a market before settling into a position as a road repairman. While on the job, Lenia encounters “Khriushka” (“Piggy”), a girl from his school, and a romance ensues. Ultimately, Lenia leaves his job at the public works too, only to take on a new position as a barge worker at the film’s conclusion. This quintessential postdocumentary21 film eschews a traditional narrative arc, leaving the few conventional plot devices (such as Lenia’s relationship with Piggy) unresolved. Rather, Svobodnoe plavanie adheres to the loose From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 307 structure of everyday reality and consists primarily of mundane scenes of Lenia sleeping on his pull-out couch, riding on public transport, and repairing potholes in the road. As in documentary cinema, material reality is the subject of the film, not merely a backdrop for the narrative. Long takes, static shots, and the absence of a musical score allow the viewer to enter into the film’s physical space and contribute to its deadpan humor of recognition. Figure 2. Lenia and his road crew in Svobodnoe plavanie While ostensibly apolitical, Svobodnoe plavanie’s portrait of a modern-day, provincial factotum suggests stagnation and disorientation in everyday Russian life. In one scene, two young men from Lenia’s neighborhood get drunk and watch him as he repairs the road. The three men stare at one another with expressions of embarrassment. In this poignant, silent exchange, the characters recognize the bleak prospects available to them in their small town: to become unemployed alcoholics or to fill holes in the road. Later, in the film’s eponymous poetic climax, Lenia impulsively goes for a swim in the river after a drinking spree. He paddles defiantly against the current, declaring, “Поломаю сейчас всю эту реку на фиг!..” before conceding, “Я всe... Я всe... Нафиг не надо мне” (“I will split this whole river apart [...] Okay, enough. Enough. I don’t need this”). The scene literalizes the film’s central metaphor of “svobodnoe plavanie” (“free floating”) suggesting Lenia’s disorientation and struggle for self-actualization in his stifling environment. Film scholar Liliia Nemchenko has argued that in recent auteur cinema, “the commonality of the everyday generates a commonality of the tragedy of existence” (2011). The “tragic everyday” 308 Justin Wilmes portrayed in films such as Svobodnoe plavanie, Buben, baraban and Okhotnik, at once comments on socio-economic conditions and expresses aimlessness and identity crisis amidst the ruins of the former Soviet empire. As Nemchenko observes, characters live amidst the artifacts of this former civilization (Soviet monuments, décor, furniture), which serve as a constant reminder of its collapse and decay. Like the chernukha of the previous decade, Svobodnoe plavanie and other metonymic films of the Novye tikhie provide alternative constructions of physical reality that feel subversive on the aesthetic level. However, in contrast to much of chernukha cinema, their political themes remain muted and they are redeemed by various forms of generic and aesthetic experimentation. The ubiquitous irony and deadpan humor in Svobodnoe plavanie shifts its emphasis from a chernukha-style exposé of social conditions to a metacinematic experiment with form. Several factors influenced the “quiet” auteur cinema of the early 2000s – a gradual tightening of ideological controls, the predominant mood of conservatism and affirmative nation building, and an aversion to negativity and didacticism after chernukha. Nevertheless, these films resist a binary understanding of artistic conformity and nonconformity. On the one hand, the Novye tikhie certainly conformed to discursive norms by avoiding direct engagement with taboos and escaping into mythical and material realms. However, they often encoded social and political meanings into the background of their films or through allusion and allegory. The metonymic films of the Novye tikhie construct alternative portraits of everyday conditions that challenge the glamorized reality of blockbuster cinema. The tone of alienation and stagnation in films such as Khlebnikov’s Svobodnoe plavanie and Bakuradze’s Okhotnik, as well as the allegory in the films of Zviagintsev and Vyrypaev, tapped into what Frederic Jameson calls the “political unconscious” of Russia in the early 2000s, and contribute to the resonance of the work of this generation of filmmakers. Considering the political and social engagement of the Novye tikhie, and their contemporaries in other artistic spheres, one might ask whether artistic strategies that simultaneously acquiesce to and challenge dominant ideology are an Althusserian “interpellation”, a conformity to the limits of their ideological universe? Or, on the contrary, should they be viewed as counter-discourses with subversive potential? Michel Foucault challenges a binary view of power structure and agency by formulating a theory of the polyvalence of discourse as follows: We must not imagine a world of discourse divided between accepted discourse and excluded discourse, or between the dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as a multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies [...] We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby discourse From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 309 can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. (1990: 100-101) Several theorists, such as Michel Pêcheux and Judith Butler, have invoked Foucault’s characterization of discourse to demonstrate how individual subjects employ strategies of resistance. José Muñoz theorized the “disidentifactory subject”, who employs counter-discourses or constructs forms of counter-publicity within an existing power structure. Disidentification, Muñoz argues, is a survival strategy that simultaneously works within and outside the dominant public sphere (1999: 5). While some theorists, for example Slavoj Žižek, dispute the efficacy of such strategies, others such as Pêcheux, Butler, and Muñoz assert their political potential.22 Leaving aside the question of efficacy, the discursive practices of Putin-era auteur filmmakers invite an analysis in terms of disidentification – how these directors work on, within, and against cultural forms – rather than straightforward conformity or nonconformity. Further Stratification: Conformity and Confrontation under “Putin 2.0” Since the re-election of Putin to a third term in 2012, expanding ideological controls, unfavorable economic conditions, and further homogenization of the public sphere have stratified artistic responses, pushing some auteurs into more radical political territory, while further deterring many others from social and political engagement. Many of the Novye tikhie and other auteurs have turned to the more neutral territory of genre cinema and television serials. Nikolai Khomeriki transitioned from the critical docufiction of Skazka pro temnotu (2009) and Serdtse, bumerang (2011) to the fantasy series Sindrom drakona (The Dragon Syndrome, 2012), the murder mystery Tainy goroda En (The Secrets of City N, 2015), and a new historical, patriotic blockbuster Ledokol (The Icebreaker, 2016). Aleksei Mizgerev’s action blockbuster Dueliant (The Duelist, 2017) seems to bear little resemblance to his earlier controversial films Kremen’ (2007), Buben, baraban (2009), and Konvoi (The Convoy, 2012). Pavel Lungin’s Taxi Blues (1990), Luna-Park (1992), and Ostrov (The Island, 2006) – which engage taboos about anti-Semitism, skinhead culture, and World War II – stand in contrast to his latest spy thriller Rodina (Homeland, 2015), a spinoff of the American serial of same name. The most recent films of Angelina Nikonova and Vasilii Sigarev – Velkam Hom (Welcome Home, 2013) and Strana Oz (The Land of Oz, 2015) – mark a departure to comedy from earlier, more provocative social dramas.23 310 Justin Wilmes The recent period, marked by a shift to more direct methods of coercion and authoritarian control of the public sphere – what some commentators have called “Putin 2.0”24 – has simultaneously prompted more radical forms of confrontation with official ideology in the arts. Auteur and documentary cinema,25 along with theater and performance art, have become the primary outlets for critical engagement with social and political issues. In 2013-2014, the films of some of the Novye tikhie took a striking political turn. Directors Zviagintsev and Khlebnikov, after a decade of avoiding taboos and reveling in mythical or material realms, suddenly went from “quiet” to “loud”, directly portraying authoritarian practices and corruption in contemporary Russia. Commenting on this change in style and subject matter in an interview, Zviagintsev invoked Russia’s tradition of critical realism and the artist as moral authority: В истории России художник со времен Пушкина был заложником этой прекрасной и чистой необходимости – говорить правду, какая бы она ни была. Если хотите, это и определяло меру могущества государства. [...] Наш долг – не прерывать эту традицию. А для этого нужно просто честно, согласуясь со своей совестью и только с ней, чувствуя происходящее вокруг, называть вещи своими именами. (Ruzaev 2014) (In the history of Russia, artists since the time of Pushkin have been the hostage of this wonderful and pure necessity – to speak the truth, no matter what it is. If you will, this even determined the degree of the government’s power [...] Our duty is not to disrupt this tradition. And to do that, we must simply call things by their names, honestly, in agreement with our conscience and only with it, feeling all that is occurring around us.) Although a clear change has occurred in the political stance of artists in various fields26 who feel a renewed sense of urgency and civic duty, they continue to employ a mixture of strategies of appeasement and resistance. Two films in particular reveal the common preoccupations of these filmmakers and a marked political turn in their oeuvres: Khlebnikov’s Dolgaia shchastlivaia zhizn’ (A Long Happy Life, 2013) and Zviagintsev’s Leviafan (2014). Both films emphasize the absence of the rule of law in Russia today and the ability of the government to deprive citizens arbitrarily of their property and rights. Clear allusions are made in these films to the current government, from shots of United Russia party symbols to the portraits of Putin hanging prominently in the offices of corrupt officials. Perhaps most poignant and original is their critique of the Russian people, who, rather than uniting in resistance, turn against their own advocates and are often no less eager than the authorities to quell dissent. From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 311 In Khlebnikov’s Dolgaia schastlivaia zhizn’, the protagonist Aleksandr Sergeevich runs a small, faltering farm in a village near Murmansk. The land on which the farm is located has attracted a local businessman, and the government begins pressuring Aleksandr and other local farmers to sell their land. When he breaks the news to the villagers, a “malen’kaia revoliutsiia” (“small revolution”) breaks out. They implore him not to sell, even suggesting armed resistance if necessary. However, when the police pressure the villagers, they begin to turn against one another, one by one abandoning the cause. Ultimately the lone idealist Aleksandr Sergeevich is alone on the farm, leading to a tragic ending. In a moment of desperate defiance, he shoots the local politicians and policeman who come to force him off the land. Serving as the opening and closing scene of Khlebnikov’s film is a beautiful but unsettling shot of the river that runs through the village. Is this a rising tide of seething unrest, as one critic suggests? (Stishova 2013). Or, more likely, a river that flows by for all times, impervious and unchanged, paralleling a populace that is unmoved by political and social realities? Although its docudrama aesthetic is similar to that employed in Khlebnikov’s previous films Svobodnoe plavanie and Sumasshedshaia pomoshch’, the naturalistic, gritty cinematography and setting of Dolgaia schastlivaia zhizn’ are put at the service of a more explicit political critique. Figure 3. One of several allusions to Vladimir Putin in recent political cinema (Leviafan). In Zviagintsev’s Leviafan, also set in a small town near Murmansk, the government is attempting to expropriate the home of Kolia, a mechanic with a beautiful wife and son. Kolia’s ancestors built the family’s rural homestead and he is determined to keep it. His appeals in court are met with a barrage of Kafkaesque legalese that recalls recent high profile “show trials” in Russia.27 Not only does Kolia’s appeal fail, but also the corrupt 312 Justin Wilmes town mayor makes it his mission to ruin Kolia’s life. When his wife Liliia apparently commits suicide, driven to despair by their problems with the authorities and by her own marital infidelity, the mayor conspires with the local court to convict Kolia of her murder and ultimately seizes his land. 28 As in Dolgaia schastlivaia zhizn’, in Zviagintsev’s Leviafan a visual leitmotif, the skeleton of a whale, is shown at key moments. The Leviathan – both in its Biblical context and in Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 political treatise – is an indomitable force or authority that cannot be overcome. I would argue that, in the political cinema of the last few years, this crushing Leviathan represents not only an absolutist government, but also the inert mainstream, a narod highly resistant to political and social change. Figure 4. United Russia officials force Aleksandr off the land (Dolgaia schiastlivaia zhizn’). Figure 5. Opening and closing shot from Dolgaia schiastlivaia zhizn’. From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 313 Figure 6. The faltering people’s revolt (Dolgaia schastlivaia zhizn’). No less importantly, it is bookended by a sequence of austere landscapes of the Russian Far North, overlain with a powerful passage from the opera Akhnaten (1983) by minimalist composer Philip Glass. As the violent waves of the Barents Sea smash against towering cliffs, the score stimulates contemplation and awe at the beauty and brutality of creation.29 A small barrel appears intermittently, tossed about and crashing against the shore, suggesting the frailty of man and creating a metaphor for Kolia’s struggle. In this way, Zviagintsev continues to explore timeless themes but through a strikingly contemporary, political narrative. Even more than Khlebnikov’s film, Zviagintsev’s Leviafan comments on the roots of Russia’s fatalism and civic passivity. In several scenes the corrupt town mayor meets with an Orthodox bishop who reassures him: “Всякая власть от Бога” (“All power is from God”). At the end of the film, the protagonist Kolia, after losing his home and wife, asks a priest Father Vasilii about the meaning of his suffering. The priest quotes the Book of Job, reminding Kolia that, through bitter suffering, Job regained his piety and humility before God: Можешь ли ты удою вытащить левиафана и верeвкою схватить за язык его? Будет ли он тебя умолять? Будет ли он разговаривать с тобой кротко? На земле нет подобного ему. Он царь над всеми сынами гордости. (Can you draw out the Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down his tongue with a cord? Will he make supplications to you? Will he speak to you soft words? On the earth he has no equals. He is ruler over all sons of pride.) 314 Justin Wilmes Figure 7. Kolia struggles against the Leviathan. Figure 8. The skeleton of a whale that reappears in Leviafan However, as one Russian critic astutely observed, Leviafan is Zviagintsev’s statement precisely against Jobian passivity and endurance in Russia today (Dolin 2014). Rather, the film equates passivity with cowardice and resistance with a spiritual act. The film challenges the widespread fatalistic Orthodox notion that, as the bishop reassures the corrupt local mayor, “Всe в руце божией” (“Everything is in God’s hands”). A third film, Iurii Bykov’s Durak (The Fool, 2014), is perhaps the most explicit critique in recent cinema of the political realities in Russia today, echoing concerns about authoritarian abuses, the rule of law, corruption, and the complicity and inertia of the mainstream. The eponymous hero Dima Nikitin, a plumber in a provincial town, discovers a dangerous infrastructural problem in an old dormitory that houses hundreds of people. From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 315 Convinced that the building could collapse at any moment, he runs to alert the local authorities, disturbing them at an evening party. The administrators eventually realize the gravity of the situation, but since acknowledging it will incriminate them in negligence, they decide to ignore the problem. When Dima attempts to force the resettlement of the building’s residents, the officials decide to “get rid of him”. Yet ultimately it is not they who are his undoing. In Durak’s final scene, in desperation Dima runs into the dormitory to evacuate the building’s inhabitants, only to have this impoverished and ignorant crowd, annoyed by his “alarmism”, turn on him. They beat him nearly to death just before the credits roll. The film’s extended allegory about a man warning of a collapsing building and the people inside who prefer not to hear him, evokes the sense that there is an impending crisis in political and civil society in Putin’s Russia and that the majority of its citizens are politically disengaged, and hostile to criticism of the authorities. Figure 9. The aggressive residents of the dormitory turn on Dima (Durak). In all these films the conflict between characters’ private interests and civic duty comes to the fore. In an ironic twist on the Pavel Morozov tale, Dima in Durak chooses the interests of the “big family” over his “little family”.30 His wife Masha berates him near the end of the film for interfering and attempting to evacuate the dormitory, declaring: “Они все твои жeны и дети? Они нам никто!” (“Are they all your wives and children? They are no one to us!”). Voicing the film’s central idea, Dima responds, “Ты не понимаешь, что мы живем как свиньи и дохнем как свиньи только потому, что мы друг другу никто?” (“Don’t you understand that we live and die like pigs only because we are no one to each other?”). 316 Justin Wilmes Refusing to take the potential deaths of 800 people on his conscience, Dima sends his wife and son to flee the city without him. This symbolic act of choosing civic duty over private concerns, by implication, inverts the usual modus operandi in society. It sets out a new form of heroism, marked by direct confrontation and principled action, in post-Soviet cinema. Nearly identical dialogues occur in the films of Khlebnikov and Zviagintsev. In Leviafan, Kolia’s wife Liliia pleads with him to take the government’s payoff and move from their homestead to an easier life in Moscow. In Dolgaia schastlivaia zhizn’, the villager Zhenia is convinced by his wife in painstaking detail that he must think first about his family and abandon the village’s resistance. All these new, overtly political films present conflicts between the pursuit of ideals and the pursuit of material prosperity, between civic duty and duty to one’s family, in scenarios that reveal the power structures that ensnare ordinary Russians today. The ambivalent positions of their protagonists suggest an allegorical critique of the “stability bargain” in Putin’s Russia, the tacit contract in which citizens turn a blind eye to authoritarian practices in exchange for guarantees of material prosperity.31 The critique of Russia’s politically disengaged mainstream is borne out by recent sociological data. Opinion polls conducted in August 2014 showed that only 12 percent of the public considered public protests viable. The percentage ready to take part in protests was an even lower figure of 7 percent (RT Online 2015). Alarmingly, about one-third (37 percent) of Russian citizens expressed indifference to the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in 2015 (Lawton 2015). The authors of Dolgaia schastlivaia zhizn’, Leviafan and Durak take a caustically ironic position vis-à-vis the society in which their protagonists find themselves. Enduring mockery from friends and family for their naive idealism, their “foolish” heroes refuse to compromise their principles. Thus, there has been a shift from the thwarted or potential heroes of earlier New Quiet films, such as Lenia in Svobodnoe plavanie, to idealistic men of action who are crushed by the system – from inaction and inescapability to action and doomed failure. The films draw upon a wealth of literary prototypes to depict these secular “holy fools”, and invite the question: Who is in fact the fool, the idealistic hero or the overwhelming majority, whose cynicism and compromise appear to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? As one Russian critic put it: “The Russian fool is the modern hero in a hero-less time” (Artiukh 2014). In short, each of these three films comprises just the sort of loud, outspoken political engagement that critics claim was absent in earlier films of the Novye tikhie. Their commonalities are striking: an indictment of corrupt and absolutist government and of the wilfully ignorant and inert Russian majority. The recent political turn of a few auteur film- From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 317 makers in Russia is not only a bold protest, but also a call to the disengaged Russian people for self-confrontation. However, despite the aesthetic and discursive shift in the recent works of these directors, they nevertheless continue to employ various artistic and public relations strategies in order to “survive” within a highly controlled film industry and a caustic public sphere. Even Andrei Zviagintsev, despite enjoying relative independence due to his worldwide acclaim, often resorted to strategies of appeasement in filming and releasing Leviafan. Working within the constraints of the film industry and public discourse, which he described in 2014 as a “minefield”, Zviagintsev has repeatedly emphasized that the original inspiration for the film came from an event that occurred not in Russia, but the United States (Walker 2014).32 The rhetorical practice of “whataboutism” – the deflection of criticism of Russian society by pointing to similar incidents in the West – is one of many rhetorical strategies artists and activists employ to soften their critique for domestic consumption (Rann 2014). Moreover, when speaking to Russian news outlets, Zviagintsev often resorted to the Aesopian language of his earlier works, emphasizing Leviafan’s timeless and universal themes rather than its topical political content: “It’s about the nature of man, his earthly destiny, about the issues that have troubled us all for a long time: betrayal, love, lust for power, forgiveness, revenge” (ibid.). Less often, in moments of frustration or in interviews with foreign publications, Zviagintsev described the film quite differently. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, he claims that, although Leviafan’s themes are relevant everywhere, it is very much a film about Russia today, which he calls “a feudal system where everything is in the hands of one person, and everyone else is in a vertical of subordination” (ibid.). Zviagintsev’s discursive strategies of masked or ameliorated criticism ultimately allowed the film to receive a distribution license and government funding,33 and to temper the public backlash against it (which was nonetheless severe, including frequent characterizations of Zviagintsev as a traitor and vassal of the West).34 In other words, such strategies allowed Zviagintsev to make his statement without being crushed by the Leviathan himself. This article has examined several representative films of the Novye tikhie to shed light on artistic strategies more broadly in the Putin era. Certain continuities can be observed with the “allowed dissent” of the Soviet period – limited, state-sanctioned forms of critique; Aesopian language; and the spectrum of strategies and responses from the artistic community. However, filmmakers and artists face more subtle mechanisms of control in today’s “soft authoritarian” state, which relies primarily on postmodern techniques of circumscription through funding, distribution licenses, and informal pressures. These ideological controls have prompted new artistic strategies Justin Wilmes 318 and discourses in cinema that might best be described as polyvalent and “disidentificatory” per Foucault and Jose Muñoz, rather than straightforwardly conformist or nonconformist. The complex artistic responses of directors like Andrei Zviagintsev and Boris Khlebnikov – alternately conforming to and pushing political, aesthetic and genre boundaries – bear out Foucault’s conception of discourse, not as a binary relationship of the accepted and the excluded, but a polyvalent constellation in which authorial utterances can be both “an instrument of power and a starting point for an opposing strategy”. While still dependent on government funding and distribution channels, auteur cinema continues to be a key locus for constructing alternative narratives and forms of identity – or disidentification. The phenomenon of the Novye tikhie filmmakers is an interesting case study, as their tortuous and evolving strategies of social engagement illuminate the nature of Russian artistic discourse writ large in the Putin era. In the early 2000s the social commentary of auteur filmmakers was expressed primarily through indirect allegory or subtle allusion. Today Russia’s increasingly censored and homogeneous public sphere has stratified artistic response, leading to retreat from confrontation among many artists and a more radical political engagement from others. However, the polarized and largely caustic reception of films like Leviafan and Durak, as well as the mounting obstacles to obtaining support for such projects, portend a difficult and perhaps dwindling future in Russia for critically minded filmmakers. NOTES I am grateful to my colleagues for their readings of an early version of this text as a part of my doctoral dissertation, particularly Helena Goscilo, Yana Hashamova, Steve Norris, Jennifer Suchland, and Jessie Labov. Gratitude also to Anzhelika Artiukh, Nancy Condee, and Viktoria Belopolskaia for their help with sources, and to the anonymous reviewers of Russian Literature. 1 2 “Sergei Shnurov rightly called our generation the ‘New Quiets’. It’s a very apt description. We curse and fear these cops – back away and whisper ‘scumbags’, ‘bastards’, etc. In my opinion, cinema should already be much louder and more free.” All translations are mine if not indicated otherwise – J.W. “It took twenty years for [post-Soviet] film, dodging along the potholes of oblivion, to rid itself of the timid avoidance of ‘social cinema’, which was From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 319 considered a mark of Soviet thinking. Our cinema has finally begun speaking out about these things – about the post-Soviet social order.” For a lengthy examination of the role of the Russian artist as civic and moral arbiter, see Parthe (2008). See also Cherniavsky (1961); Lawton (2004); and Condee (2009). Numerous studies show a sharp decline in readership in Russia in recent years. See Dubin (2006) and FAPMC (2012). Similarly, political scientist Karen Dawisha characterizes Russia today as a system that “mimics democracy but that actually serves the purpose of creating a unified and stable authoritarian state” (2014: 8-9). The evolution of postmodern power and culture in Russia is also the subject of Peter Pomerantsev’s 2014 book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia. See also: an analysis of official memory practices, including history curriculum in schools, holidays, and monuments (Etkind 2009); government plans for a unified history textbook “without ambiguous interpretations” (Nekrasova 2013); the creation of a “unified cultural curriculum” for teaching Russian literature and language in schools (“Gotovitsia edinaia”, 2015); and an extensive analysis of government control of television and news media (Gatov 2015). For a more extensive discussion of changing controls in cinema in recent years, see Wilmes (2015: 138-150). For a discussion of government concern over the profitability of cinema, see Dondurei (2013). From 2000-2013, government funding for cinema increased twelve-fold. Film attendance rose every year from 2002-2014. Box office sales increased from 1997 to 2006 by a factor of 70 and Russia overtook the United Kingdom as the second largest European film market. The number of movie theaters in Russia tripled from 2004 to 2012. And Russian films steadily increased their share of the domestic box office and were no longer drowned out entirely by Hollywood imports. This has recently included the themes of World War II and “heroes of labor” (see Nekrasova 2014; Maliukova 2014). For a closer analysis of the Week of Russian Cinema, see Artiukh (2014). For a critical discussion of this ideological “squeezing out” of liberallyoriented film festivals, see Belopol’skaia (2013) and Manskii (2013). Though the latter film was eventually granted support, again after significant public outcry (see Nekrasova 2014; Fardo 2013). For more detailed accounts of these and other instances of “informal” obstruction in cinema, see Wilmes (2015: 138-150). Some screenings of the film were directly obstructed, as was the case in Kaliningrad. In most cases, commercially oriented cineplexes eschewed the film despite its growing resonance to avoid controversy, while smaller niche theaters in big cities showed it. Despite the circumscription of its distribu- 320 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Justin Wilmes tion, the film enjoyed relative success at the box office and was one of the best grossing documentaries in years (see Fardo 2017; Vishnevetskii 2017). A sampling of the most notable awards includes: in 2003, Venice’s Golden Lion to Vozvrashchenie (Zviagintsev; The Return) and Little Golden Lion to Eiforiia (Vyrypaev; Euphoria); in 2006, Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes for Eiforiia (Vyrypaev); in 2007, Best Actor for Konstantin Lavronenko for Izgnanie (Zviagintsev; The Banishment); in 2008, Best Director at Sundance for Rusalka (Melikian; The Mermaid) and Best Director at Karlovy-Vary for Drugoe nebo (Mamuliia; Another Sky,); in 2011, the Golden Lion at Venice for Faust (Sokurov) and Un Certain Regard at Cannes for Elena (Zviagintsev); in 2014 Best Screenplay at Cannes and Golden Globe’s Best Foreign Film for Leviafan (Zviagintsev; Leviathan). When, in 2011, several directors were asked whether a New Wave existed, eight of the ten respondents (Bardin, Khlebnikov, Popogrebskii, Sigarev, Mizgirev, Bakuradze, and Voloshin) responded emphatically that there was no Russian New Wave (Saulenko 2011). It is worth noting that the core members of the French New Wave also disputed that label, which became an accepted term only retrospectively (see Greene 2007). Director Dmitrii Mamuliia, for example, objected to characterizations of his celebrated film Drugoe nebo (2010) as a critical depiction of the lot of migrant workers: “Я же хотел бы в дальнейшем отщепиться от братьев и уйти от социальных тем, потому что подобные опознавательные знаки, которые можно достроить, являются неким грузом для искусства” (Mamuliia 2010; “In the future, I would like to depart entirely from social themes because such recognizable signs, about which the viewer makes inferences, are in fact a burden for a work of art”). It should be noted that the work of a few other writers, such as Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin, became increasingly political during this “period of restoration” in the early 2000s. However, these writers almost invariably operated in the highly ironic and distanced mode of postmodernism. This list is not exhaustive but highlights the most prominent directors with shared sensibilities. The unique blend of documentary techniques and artistic metaphor that characterizes much of Novye tikhie cinema has been referred to by some as “postdocumentalism”. It is the subject of Zara Abdullaeva’s Postdok: Igrovoe/neigrovoe (2011). Slavoj Žižek characterizes disidentification as a political paralysis of sorts, “a fictionalization to the point of political immobilization” (as quoted in Munoz 1999: 12; see also Butler 1993: 219; Pêcheux 1975). This list is far from exhaustive. Consider also: Slava Ross, who after making the provocative Sibir’-Monamur (Siberia, MonAmour, 2011) directed the TV serial Syn (Son, 2014), a political drama set in Finland, and Aleksei Popogrebskii’s transition from Prostye veshchi (2007) and Kak ia provel etim letom (2010) to a forthcoming science fiction film I-Saider (2017). From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 321 The evolution and periodization of Putinism is the subject of political scientist Richard Sakwa’s 2014 book Putin Redux. Among other topics, Sakwa explores why ‘the methods of rule that had worked so well in the period of “classical” Putinism were not suited for his third term’ (2014: 190). There has been a boom in politically charged documentaries since 2012 and documentary theater and film festivals have been an important locus for critical discourses. Some noteworthy documentary films include: Putinskie igry (Putin’s Games; Gentelev, 2013); Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (Pozdorovkin and Lerner, 2013); Deti 404 (Kurov and Loparev, 2014); Maidan (Loznitsa, 2014); The Term (Srok; Kostomarov and Pivovarov, 2014); Zima ukhodi! (Winter Go Away!; Rodkevich et al., 2013); Zima v ogne (Winter on Fire; Afineevskii, 2015); and Slishkom svobodny chelovek (Fishman and Krichevskaia, 2016). Particular writers have also become political activists who previously had not been overtly political, including Boris Akunin and Liudmila Ulitskaya, who led a widely publicized opposition march through Moscow in 2012. The most prominent examples of such trials – the outcomes of which were widely viewed to be politically motivated and predetermined – include those of Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina in 2012, the political opposition leader Aleksei Naval’nyi in 2013-1214, and performance artist Petr Pavlenskii and Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko in 2015. The ambiguity of the film’s denouement has led to differing interpretations. For example, some reject the explanation of suicide, arguing that Kolya’s son Dima murders Lilya. According to Phillip Glass, the opera Akhnaten –which evokes a spiritual and intellectual struggle of epic proportions – was inspired by the ancient Egyptian pharaoh of same name, along with other transformative figures such as Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi. In Zviagintsev’s film, the piece clearly evokes Aleksei’s struggle against the status quo, and perhaps suggests a transformative potential in Russia today for such a figure, on par with those who inspired the composer. Pavel Morozov was a boy in the Soviet Union who denounced his father as an enemy of the state in 1932 and was murdered by his family as retribution. He was held up as a model citizen in Soviet mythology. The willingness of the Russian people to ignore or overlook authoritarian abuses has increasingly become an object of criticism in other cultural spheres. For example, in the closing remarks before his sentencing hearing in December 2014, political activitist Aleksei Naval’nyi made a famous speech in which he exhorted the Russian people to confront the political realities of their country, declaring “Life is too short to simply avert one’s eyes” (Rozhdestvenskii 2014). In 2004 Marvin Heemeyer, a resident of Colorado and owner of an automotive repair shop, drove a bulldozer into several government buildings be- Justin Wilmes 322 33 34 fore taking his own life after a government zoning commission ruled against him in a land dispute. Surprisingly the film received 35% of its funding from the Ministry of Culture, although this was awarded by the previous, relatively liberal, Minister Aleksandr Avdeev (Pulver 2014). For an analysis of the popular and critical reception of Leviafan, see Wilmes (2015: 193-197). LITERATURE Abdullaeva, Zara 2011 Postdok: Igrovoe/neigrovoe. Moskva. Althusser, Louis 1971 ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)’. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York and London. Artiukh, Anzhelika 2014 ‘Parad zvezd i durakov’. Art1, 4 June. http://art1.ru/cinema/parad-zvezd-i-durakov/ (Accessed 15 April 2017). Bakhtin, Mikhail 1981 The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. M. Holquist. Trans. C. Emerson, M. Holquist. Austin. Belopol’skaia, Viktoriia 2013 ‘Minkul’ta shchedraia dushа’. Novaia gazeta, No. 64. Beumers, Birgit 1999 ‘Cinemarket, or the Russian Film Industry in “Mission Possible”‘. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 51, No. 5, 871-896. 2009 A History of Russian Cinema. Oxford. Butler, Judith 1993 Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London and New York. Cherniavsky, Michael 1961 Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths. New Haven and London. Condee, Nancy 2009 The Imperial Trace: Recent Russian Cinema. Oxford. 2013 ‘Vilka Mortona. Kinotavr 2013’. Iskusstvo kino, Vol. 8. Dawisha, Karen 2014 Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? New York. Dolin, Anton 2014 ‘Kanny-2014: Den’ desiatyi: pank-moleben Zviagintseva’. Vozdukh, 23 May. From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs http://vozduh.afisha.ru/cinema/den-desjatyy-pankmolebenZviagintseva/ (Accessed 15 April 2017). Dondurei, Daniil 2013 ‘Chto delat’? Kak pomoch’ natsional’nomu kino’. Iskusstvo kino, No. 8. 2014 ‘Aktual’noe kino. Lichnye versii’. Iskusstvo kino, No. 8. Dubin, Boris 2006 ‘Mass media i kommunikativnyi mir zhitelei Rossii: plasticheskaia khirurgiia sotsial’noi real’nosti’. Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniia, 33-46. Etkind, Alexander 2009 ‘Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror’. Constellations, Vol. 16, 182-199. 2015 ‘The Decay of the Russian Public Sphere’. Current History, Vol. 114, No. 774, 278-281. FAPMC 2012 ‘Knizhnyi rynok Rossii. Sostoianie, tendencii i perspektivy razvitiia v 2012’. Federal’noe agenstvo po pechati i massovym kommunikatsiiam, 4 May. http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/activities/reports/2012/item2. html (Accessed 15 April 2017). Fardo, Faina 2017 ‘“Slishkom svobodnyi chelovek”: Kak uspeshno prokatat’ dokumental’noe kino’. ProfiCinema, 7 March. http://www.proficinema.ru/news/detail.php?ID=217617 (Accessed 15 April 2017). 2013 ‘Fil’m “Milyi Khans, dorogoi Petr” provalil test na fal’sifikatsiiu istorii’. Lenta.ru, 14 August. http://lenta.ru/news/2013/08/14/mindadze/ (Accessed 15 April 2017). Foucault, Michel 1990 The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. London. Gatov, Vasily 2015 ‘How the Kremlin and the Media Ended Up in Bed Together’. The Moscow Times, 11 March. Gorham, Michael 2014 After Newspeak: Language Culture and Politics in Russia from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca and London. Greene, Naomi 2007 The French New Wave: A New Look. New York. Hashamova, Yana 2010 ‘Resurrected Fathers and Resuscitated Sons: Homosocial Fantasies in The Return and Koktebel’. Cinepaternity: Fathers 323 324 Justin Wilmes and Sons in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film. Bloomington, IN, 169-190. Hildebrandt, Timothy 2013 Social organizations and the authoritarian state in China. Cambridge. Jakobson, Roman 2002 Fundamentals of language, Vol. 1. Berlin and Boston. Khlebnikov, Boris 2011 ‘Novye Tikhie. Rezhisserskaia smena – smena kartin mira’. Iskusstvo kino, No. 8. http://kinoart.ru/archive/2011/08/n8-article4. Lawton, Anna 2004 Imaging Russia 2000: Film and Facts. Washington, DC. 2015 ‘Boris Nemtsov’. Levada Analytical Center, 18 March. http://www.levada.ru/18-03-2015/boris-nemtsov (Accessed 15 April 2017). Lipovetsky, Mark 2015 ‘Anything goes: How the Russian News Became a Postmodern Game Without Rules’. The Calvert Journal, 10 March. http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/3736/politicalsteampunk-postmodern-game-mark-lipovetsky (Accessed 15 April 2017). Maliukova, Larisa 2014 ‘Pod kopytami dereviannoi loshadi’. Novaia gazeta, No. 145, 24 December. Mamuliia, Dmitrii 2010 ‘Situatsiia Ivana Il’icha’. Seans Blog, 22 September. http://seance.ru/blog/ivan-ilyich-situation/ (Accessed 15 April 2017). Manskii, Vitalii 2013 ‘Gosudarstvo predpochitaet blondinov’. Gazeta.ru, 5 July. http://www.gazeta.ru/comments/2013/07/05_a_5413309.shtm l (Accessed 15 April 2017). Massoud, Mark 2013 Law’s Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan. Cambridge. 2015 ‘Medinskii: mnogie liudi zvonili i blagodarili za to, chto “Artdokfest” lishili finansirovaniia’. Kinote, 2 March. http://kinote.info/articles/14766-medinskiy-mnogie-lyudizvonili-i-blagodarili-za-to-chto-artdokfest-lishilifinansirovanija (Accessed 15 April 2017). Mikhalkov, Nikita 1999 ‘The Function of a National Cinema’. Russia on Reels. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London, 50-51. From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs Muñoz, José 1999 Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics, Vol. 2. Minneapolis and London. Nekrasova, Elena 2014 ‘Zakupki.ru. O mekhanizmakh gospodderzhki kinematografii’. Iskusstvo kino, No. 3. 2011 ‘Novye Tikhie. Rezhisserskaia smena – smena kartin mira’. Iskusstvo kino, No. 8. 2013 ‘Nuzhny edinye uchebniki istorii ‘bez dvoinykh tolkovanii’’. Grani.ru. http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/President/m.211808.html (Accessed 15 April 2017). Nemchenko, Liliia 2011 ‘Signs of the Everyday in Post-Soviet Cinema’. KinoKultura, 31. http://www.kinokultura.com/2011/31-nemchenko.shtml. Parthé, Kathleen 2008 Russia’s Dangerous Texts: Politics between the Lines. New Haven and London. Pêcheux, Michel 1975 Language, Semiotics, Ideology. New York. Pomerantsev, Peter 2014 Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia. London. Pulver, Andrew 2014 ‘Putin-Bashing Film Leviathan named as Russia’s Oscar Contender’. The Guardian, 29 September. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/29/putin-bashingfilm-leviathan-named-as-russias-oscar-contender (Accessed 15 April 2017). Rann, James 2014 ‘Universal Pictures: Zviagintsev, Dostoevsky and the Politics of the Particular’. NYU Jordan Center, 11 November. http://jordanrussiacenter.org/news/universal-pictureszvjagintsev-dostoevsky-politics-particular/ (Accessed 15 April 2017). Rozhdestvenskii, Il’ia. 2014 ‘Zhizn’ slishkom korotka, chtoby smotret’ v stol.’ Echo Moskvy, 20 December. http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/akselenc/1459184-echo/. RT Online ‘Police want to broaden law on rallies, cover new forms of 2015 protest’. RT Online. 17 March 17. http://rt.com/politics/241429-russian-interior-ministry-rallies/. 325 326 Ruble, Blair 2015 2014 Justin Wilmes ‘Theater and the Heart of a City: Moscow’s Teatr.doc’s Confrontation with Authority’. Wilson Center.org. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/theater-and-the-heartcity-moscows-teatrdocs-confrontation-authority (Accessed 15 April 2017). ‘Russian Film Leviathan Competes for Cannes Palme d’Or Award’. The Moscow Times, 14 May. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-filmleviathan-competes-for-cannes-palme-dor-award/500131.html (Accessed 15 April 2017). Ruzaev, Denis 2014 ‘Andrei Zviagintsev: “Sotsial’noe izmerenie v moikh novykh fil’mach – ne strategiia”’. Colta, 17 April. http://www.colta.ru/articles/cinema/2936 (Accessed 15 April 2017). Sakwa, Richard 2014 Putin Redux: Power and Contradiction in Contemporary Russia. London. Saulenko, Ol’ga 2011 ‘10 rezhisserov, v kotorykh my verim’. Film.ru, 11 January. http://www.film.ru/articles/10-rezhisserov-v-kotoryh-myverim (Accessed 15 April 2017). Schatz, Edward 2009 ‘The Soft Authoritarian Tool Kit: Agenda-Setting Power in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’. Comparative Politics, 203-222. Semenov, Maksim 2014 ‘Epos i Tanatos: Zapreshchennyi chechenskii fil’m i drugie epicheskie popytki natsional’nogo stroitel’stva na MMKF’. Colta, 25 June. http://www.colta.ru/articles/cinema/3658 (Accessed 15 April 2017). Stishova, Elena 2013 ‘Korotkii fil’m o predatel’stve’. Iskusstvo kino, No. 3. Strukov, Vlad 2007 ‘The Return of Gods: Andrei Zviagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie (The Return)’. The Slavic and East European Journal, 331356. Sutcliffe, Benjamin 2009 The Prose of Life: Russian Women Writers from Khrushchev to Putin. Madison, WI. Vishnevetskii, Igor’ 2010 ‘‘Schast’e moe’ i nashe obshchee’. Chastnyi korrespondent, 21 June. http://www.chaskor.ru/article/schaste_moe_i_nashe_obshchee _18064 (Accessed 15 April 2017). From ‘Tikhie’ to ‘Gromkie’: The Putin-Era Auteurs ‘V kaliningradskom kinoteatre otmenili pokaz fil’ma o Nemtsove “Slishkom svobodnyi chelovek”’ Klops.ru, 22 February. https://klops.ru/news/obschestvo/150591-v-kaliningradskomkinoteatre-otmenili-pokaz-filma-o-nemtsove-slishkomsvobodnyy-chelovek (Accessed 15 April 2017). Volobuev, Roman 2009 ‘Molodye rezhissery: “Novaia Volna” russkogo kino’. Vozdukh Afisha, 18 September. https://daily.afisha.ru/archive/vozduh/archive/Tikhie_igry_vol chok/ (Accessed 15 April 2017). Walker, Shaun 2014 ‘Leviathan Director Andrei Zviagintsev: Living in Russia is like being in a Minefield”’. The Guardian, 6 November. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/06/leviathandirector-andrei-zvyagintsev-russia-oscar-contender-film (Accessed 15 April 2017). Wilmes, Justin 2015 Projecting Social Concerns: Russian Auteur Cinema in the Putin Era. PhD dissertation. The Ohio State University. 2017 327