Bed and Sofa: The Film Companion PDF
136 Pages·2001·1.015 MB·English
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Bed and Sofa (1927) was directed by Abram Room and remains his most-well known film. It tells the story of a menage a trois (a very daring plot for the Soviet cinema in the 1920s), one woman (Liuda) and two men (Volodia and Kolia). The two men were friends during the Revolution and meet up when Volodia attempts to find living space in Moscow, where Kolia and Liuda live a married life. Kolia treats his wife as a child and she lives entirely within the domestic space. Volodia begins an affair with Liuda. He participates in the housework, brings her magazines, and takes her on plane rides. Kolia, an extremely backbone-less man still lives in his same house with the other two. Most of the film takes place in the one-room apartment and the film's plot revolves around the changing fuctions of this domestic space. Liuda is portrayed as entirely fixated by the bourgeoisie past (objects fill every corner of the cramped room and she does not have a job as a Soviet woman should). The plot comes to fore when Liuda declares she is pregnant and neither man knows for certain if it is their child. Both try to force her to have an abortion and she finally makes her own decision. There was much controversy about the ending of the film, is it happy in that Liuda finally makes a decision without influence of both of the men in her lives. Or, is it sad that she abandons her "family" without asserting herself in that sphere.
Julian Graffy's installment, 'Bed and Sofa', in the Russian Cinema Series (Kino) is a top-notch scholarly analysis of all facets of the film. I found it vital in understanding the political background, the meaning of different objects (even Room states that everything object and scene has meaning), and every detail that might help the viewer understand Room's message. Her book contains an a chapter on the director, an analysis of the film scene by scene, and the reception of the film. For someone who knows very little about the Russian culture and the political environment of the 1920s I found this book indispensable in understanding Room's controversial cinematic experiment. I would have liked Graffy to include a little more about the production of the film, but all and all this is a very useful installment in this wonderful series. Bed and Sofa is a film film that is both historically important and sadly relatively unknown to American audiences.
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