Cinema in Central Asia: Rewriting Cultural Histories PDF
Preview Cinema in Central Asia: Rewriting Cultural Histories
Michael Rouland is an historian of Russia, Central Asia and Afghanistan. He has published widely on Central Asian cinema, culture and national identity. Since 2003, he has taught courses on Russian, Central Eurasian and global history at Georgetown, Miami, and Stanford Universities. He is currently an historian for the US Air Force. Gulnara Abikeyeva is a Kazakh film critic and researcher, and the authorofseveralbooksonthecinemaofKazakhstanandCentralAsia. She is a member of FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics)andNETPAC(NetworkforthePromotionofAsianCinema), andhasbeenajurymemberonarangeofinternationalfilmfestivals. BirgitBeumers is Professor in FilmStudies atAberystwyth University, Wales. She has published widely on Russian and Soviet cinema and theatre,andisontheAdvisoryBoardoftheKINOseriesatI.B.Tauris. She is editor of KinoKultura and of the journal Studies in Russian and SovietCinema. Published and forthcoming inKINO: The Russian and Soviet Cinema Series SeriesEditor:Richard Taylor AdvisoryBoard:BirgitBeumers, Julian Graffy,DeniseYoungblood Alexander Medvedkin:kinofile Filmmakers’ Companion EmmaWiddis CinemaandSoviet Society: Fromthe Revolution to theDeathofStalin PeterKenez Cinemain Central Asia: RewritingCultural Histories Edited by MichaelRouland,GulnaraAbikeyeva and Birgit Beumers The Cinema ofAlexander Sokurov Edited by Birgit Beumersand Nancy Condee The Cinema ofTarkovsky:Labyrinthsof Space and Time NarimanSkakov The Cinema ofthe New Russia Birgit Beumers Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film JeremyHicks Eisenstein on theAudiovisual: The Montage of Music, Image Robert Robertson Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia andNazi Germany(second, revised edition) Richard Taylor ForwardSoviet!:Historyand Non-Fiction Film inthe USSR Graham Roberts Real Images:Soviet Cinemaand the Thaw Josephine Woll Russiaon Reels:The RussianIdea inPost-Soviet Cinema Edited by Birgit Beumers Savage Junctures: SergeiEisenstein and theShapeof Thinking Anne Nesbet Soviet Cinema:Politics andPersuasion underStalin JamieMiller The Stalinist Musical: Mass Entertainment and Soviet Cinema Richard Taylor VsevolodPudovkin: Classic Films of theSoviet Avant-Garde Amy Sargeant Queries, ideas and submissions to: Series Editor, Professor Richard Taylor: [email protected] Cinema Editor at I.B.Tauris, Anna Coatman: [email protected] Cinema in Central Asia Rewriting Cultural Histories Edited by Michael Rouland, Gulnara Abikeyeva, Birgit Beumers Publishedin2013byI.B.Tauris&CoLtd 6SalemRoad,LondonW24BU 175FifthAvenue,NewYorkNY10010 www.ibtauris.com DistributedintheUnitedStatesandCanada ExclusivelybyPalgraveMacmillan 175FifthAvenue,NewYorkNY10010 CopyrightEditorialSelectionq2013MichaelRouland,GulnaraAbikeyeva andBirgitBeumers CopyrightTranslationsq2013RichardTaylor,MichaelRouland,BirgitBeumers CopyrightIntroductionq2013MichaelRouland CopyrightIndividualChaptersq2013GulnaraAbikeyeva,BirgitBeumers,DariaBorisova, Joe¨lChapron,VitalyChernetsky,GabrielleChomentowski,Cloe´Drieu,BauyrzhanNogerbek, StephenM.Norris,SadulloRakhimov,MichaelRouland,SwetlanaSlapke,ElenaStishova, GulbaraTolomushova,EugenieZvonkine TherightofMichaelRouland,GulnaraAbikeyevaandBirgitBeumerstobeidentifiedasthe editorsofthisworkhasbeenassertedbytheminaccordancewiththeCopyright,Designsand PatentsAct1988. Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,oranypartthereof, maynotbereproduced,storedinorintroducedintoaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted, inanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise, withoutthepriorwrittenpermissionofthepublisher. ISBN:9781845119003(HB) 9781845119010(PB) AfullCIPrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary AfullCIPrecordisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber:available PrintedandboundinGreatBritainbyT.J.International,Padstow,Cornwall KINO: THE RUSSIAN CINEMA SERIES GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE C inema has been the predominant art form of the first half of the twentieth century, at least in Europe and North America. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the former Soviet Union, where Lenin’s remark that ‘of all the arts, cinema is the most important’becameacliche´andwherecinemaattendanceswereuntil recently still among the highest in the world. In the age of mass politics Soviet cinema developed from a fragile but effective tool to gainsupportamongtheoverwhelminglyilliteratepeasantmassesin the civil war that followed the October 1917 Revolution, through a welter of experimentation, into a mass weapon of propaganda through the entertainment that shaped the public image of the Soviet Union – both at home and abroad for both elite and mass audiences – and latterly into an instrument to expose the weaknesses of the past and present in the twin process of glasnost and perestroika. Now the national cinemas of the successor republics to the old USSR are encountering the same bewildering array of problems, from the trivial to the terminal, as are all the other ex- Soviet institutions. Cinema’s central position in Russian and Soviet cultural history and its unique combination of mass medium, art form and entertainment industry, have made it a continuing battlefield for conflictsofbroaderideologicalandartisticsignificance,notonlyfor Russia and the Soviet Union, but also for the world outside. The debates that raged in the 1920s about the relative merits of documentary as opposed to fiction film, of cinema as opposed to theatreorpainting,oroftheproperroleofcinemaintheforgingof post-RevolutionarySoviet cultureand theshapingof the newSoviet man, have their echoes in current discussions about the role of cinema vis-a`-vis other art forms in effecting the cultural and psychological revolution in human consciousness necessitated by the processes of economic and political transformation of the former Soviet Union into modern democratic and industrial societies and states governed by the rule of law. Cinema’s central v vi CINEMAINCENTRALASIA positionhasalsomadeitavitalinstrumentforscrutinizingtheblank pages of Russian and Soviet history and enabling the present generation to come to terms with its own past. This series of books intends to examine Russian, Soviet and ex- Soviet films in the context of Russian, Soviet and ex-Soviet cinemas, and Russian, Soviet and ex-Soviet cinemas in the context of the political history of Russia, the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet ‘space’ andtheworldatlarge.Withinthatframeworktheseries,drawingits authors from both East and West, aims to cover a wide variety of topics and to employ a broad range of methodological approaches and presentational formats. Inevitably this will involve ploughing once again over old ground in order to re-examine received opinions but it principally means increasing the breadth and depth of our knowledge, finding new answers to old questions and, above all, raising new questions for further enquiry and new areas for further research. ThecontinuingaimofthisseriesistosituateRussian,Sovietand ex-Sovietcinema in its properhistoricaland aestheticcontext, both asamajorculturalforceandasacrucibleforexperimentationthatis of central significanceto the development of world cinemaculture. Books in the series strive to combine the best of scholarship, past, presentandfuture,withastyleofwritingthatisaccessibletoabroad readership,whetherthatreadership’sprimaryinterestliesincinema or in political history. Thismulti-editedvolumerepresentsourfirstattempttofocuson the cinemas of the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, with all the added political, cultural and linguistic subtleties and compli- cations that such a study involves. As General Editor of the KINO Series I am personally hugely indebted to Professor Birgit Beumers for deploying her considerable contacts in the region and her enormous expertise and legendary thoroughness and efficiency to render this project in its present, publishable form. Richard Taylor Swansea, Wales CONTENTS ix List of Illustrations xi Contributors xvii Acknowledgements xviii Note on Transliteration xix Glossary xix Historical geography 1 An historical introduction Michael Rouland Part I At the Cinematic Cradle 33 Chapter 1 Vostokkino and the foundation of Central Asian cinema Gabrielle Chomentowski 45 Chapter 2 Birth, death and rebirth of a nation: national narrative in Uzbek feature films Cloe´ Drieu 57 Chapter 3 The various births of Kazakh cinema Bauyrzhan Nogerbek Part II Cinema in the Soviet Republics of Central Asia 73 Chapter4 Landscapeandloss:WorldWarIIinCentral Asian cinema Stephen M. Norris 89 Chapter 5 Fragments from the history of Turkmen cinema Swetlana Slapke 105 Chapter 6 Bulat Mansurov’s The Contest in context Michael Rouland vii viii CINEMAINCENTRALASIA 115 Chapter 7 Tajik cinema at the end of the Soviet era Sadullo Rakhimov 127 Chapter 8 A small history of Kyrgyz cinema Jo¨el Chapron 137 Chapter 9 Re-visions of The Sky of Our Childhood Elena Stishova 147 Chapter 10 ‘AWild Kazakh Boy’: the cinema of Rashid Nugmanov Vitaly Chernetsky Part III The Era of Independence 163 Chapter 11 Cinematic nation-building in Kazakhstan Gulnara Abikeyeva 175 Chapter 12 Aesthetic influences in young Kazakh cinema Euge´nie Zvonkine 187 Chapter 13 Growing up: children in Central Asian cinema Birgit Beumers 199 Chapter 14 Kyrgyz cinema: an attempt at eternal breakthrough Gulbara Tolomushova 211 Chapter 15 A view from Moscow: myths and realities of the Uzbek film boom Daria Borisova 221 Chapter 16 Contemporary Tajik cinema in context: on Djamshed Usmonov Seth Graham Part IV Reference Section 237 Film-makers’ Biographies Gulnara Abikeyeva 271 Appendix: Filmography 287 Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Chapter1 40 Poster for Viktor Turin’s Turksib (1929) 42 Still from Alexander Razumny’s Kara-Bugaz (1935) Page Chapter2 48 Still from Behind the Vaults of Mosque (1928) by Kazimir Gertel 54 Still from Alisher Navoi (1947) by Kamil Yarmatov Page Chapter3 60 Poster for Amangeldy (1938), directed by Moisei Levin 66 Poster forPoemaboutLove (1954),directedby ShakenAimanov Page Chapter4 77 Still from Shukhrat Abbasov’s You are Not an Orphan (1963) 80 Still from Shaken Aimanov’s Land of the Fathers (1966) Page Chapter5 93 Still from The Decisive Step (1965) by Alty Karliev 97 Still from Daughter-in-Law (1972) by Khodjakuli Narliev Page Chapter6 110 Poster for Bulat Mansurov’s The Contest (1963) Page Chapter7 118 Still from Bension Kimiagarov’s The Legend of Rustam (1970) Page Chapter8 129 Still from The First Teacher (1965) by Andrei Konchalovsky 130 Still from Aktan Arym Kubat’s Beshkempir: The Adopted Son (1998) Page Chapter9 139 Poster for Tolomush Okeev’s The Sky of Our Childhood (1966) ix x CINEMAINCENTRALASIA Page Chapter10 153 Still from Rashid Nugmanov’s The Needle: Moro in the desert 158 The settlement of the ‘Children of the Sun’ in The Wild East, constructed for the filming on the south shore of Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan. Courtesy of www.yahha.com Page Chapter11 165 Poster for Sultan Khodjikov’s Kyz-Zhibek (1969–70) 168 Poster for Amir Karakulov’s A Woman Between Two Brothers (1991) Page Chapter12 179 Still from the film Swift (2007) by Abai Kulbai 184 Still from the short film 113th (2007) by Talgat Bektursunov Page Chapter13 190 Poster for Serik Aprymov’s Aksuat (1998) 196 Still from Aktan Arym Kubat’s The Chimp (2001) Page Chapter14 204 Still from Marat Sarulu’s Song of Southern Seas (2008) 209 Still from Talgat Asyrankulov and Gaziz Nasyrov’s Birds of Paradise (2006) Page Chapter15 214 Still from Rustam Sagdiev’s film The Unexpected Bride (2006) Page Chapter16 230 StillfromDjamshedUsmonov’sToGettoHeavenFirstYouHave to Die (2006) The editors would like to thank Kazakhfilm and Mentai Utepbergenov for permission to use stills and posters to illustrate this volume.
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