Thread: UPDATED: Greatest Hits of Russian Cinema +100 Films / Movies

Concerning the movie "A Man from Boulevard des Capucines" ("Человек с бульвара Капуцинов", " Chelovek s bulvara Kaputsinov" – 1987, by Alla Surikova): The movie genre is comedy-western (not drama). There was some short description in the films thread.

I insist one movie must be added to the list "At Home Among Strangers, Stranger at Home" ("Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих"). This movie is worth being not only in the top 100 but in the top 10 or even may be in the top 1 . Even more this movie deserves its own genre "Eastern".

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

I insist one movie must be added to the list "At Home Among Strangers, Stranger at Home" ("Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих").

I second that.

Johanna, you didn't add "Звезда пленительного счастья" (mmm... historical?) and "Полёты во сне и наяву" (drama).
Also, the film "Любовник" (2002) is not a romance at all, it's a drama.

Group.... two thinks for everyone to chime in about...

1st item:
Olya made a wonderful posting about "war' movies and I also commented on them in the BIG catch all movie thread. I want to throw this out to everyone and see what you all think. Of the few "war" movies I have watched, to me they are "dramas" set in a "war time" not a film about a "war" or a film which 90% of it is with soldiers and takes place on a battle field.

SO, using the example of "The Cranes are Flying" I would never consider this a "war" film and if I am looking for a film to watch off of this list, I would probably skip over this film because, well... as Olya has correctly stated, I would not want to watch a movie which would upset me too much (unless I really was in the mood). On the flip side, if I were a real war buff and selected this film because I saw it was a "war" film on the list, I would probably be disappointed.

That leaves us in a dilemma. How can we categorize these films so people will "want" to watch them and not be mislead and also stay true to "Russians" and how they view and know the films?

Right now, Johanna only has one category for each film. On the BIG movie thread, I have more than one for some of them. Once again using the example of "The Cranes are Flying," I have this one listed as (Drama/Romance/War), how does this sit with all of you? Johanna, how would you feel about having more than one category for some of the films?

Does anyone else have a better or other solution to this?

2nd item:
Personally, would love to see one more column added to note if it won or was nomitnated for any awards or not. Just a simple:
Award Winner/Nominated
Yes

would be great to know when helping to decide upon a film to select to watch and to know a little more something about the film. Johanna, you even noted it in your last comment. You can leave off the "no" if they did/were not.

What does everone think about that?

Great ideas rockzmom!
Actually, it was quite hard for me to make this list bearing in mind that I only know a few hundred words of Russian PLUS I haven't actually seen most of the films on the list myself. It took some time to find the most appropriate (and internationally used) translation for some of the films.
But I thought it would be very helpful to have a list like this and I will use it myself.

I completely agree that the director should be on the list.
Possibly also any national or international awards that it has won (many of these won several... ) However finding out about that for 105 films is quite a job!

I just didn't think of using two categories with "/" in between --- but that's a really good idea.
From the point of view of somebody who is learning Russian, it is useful to know whether subtitles exist for the film. But that is fairly advanced.

Just bear one thing in mind: If the list has too many columns, then it won't fit on the page (it will get too wide). Unless the font is reduced further.

I think it would be A LOT faster if somebody who speaks better Russian than me and has actually seen most of the films on the list would download the list from http://rapidshare.com/files/281542471/rusfilms.xls.html and make some updates. The list is in Microsoft Excel format, so it helps if you have basic skills in Excel (for re-sorting the list etc.) It's very easy to add another column for "Director" and any other suitable category. When you are finished you can just upload it again to Rapidshare. I can then grab it and make another picture. If somebody wants to help but doesn't know Excel I can add the columns to make it super-easy to update and re-sort it after the updates.

If nobody is able to help with this then I'll simply update with the film that was suggested by Coffeecup and the ones that Olya mentioned which I had missed.

One idea came to mind:
It's a real shame about some great films that don't have subtitles.
For me, I will have to leave them until my Russian gets better. But Rockzmom for instance would miss out completely.

I suppose that there are Russian subtitles for ALL of these films (in order to help deaf Russians or whatever). So one idea would be to grab the Russian subtitles, open them in "SubtitleEdit " (software) save as text and then run it through an online translator, then save it again in subtitle format... But the quality from Google, Yandex etc would be HORRIBLE and I haven't actually tested this, there might be technical restrictions although it ought to work.

Another option is if somebody who is learning English is interested in a project: Fan-subbing a film of their choice.
Creating subtitles appears to be quite easy - it's done by teenagers all the time. I am sure there are lots of guides online. If Russian subs already exist then it's particularly easy, you just use the existing timings on those subtitles - all you'd have to do is enter the translation.

The benefit for the potential translator would be that a native English speaker from this site could then help to correct his English - so it would be like an exercise that he'd learn A LOT from; how to say a whole range of everyday phrases from a film. Pretty useful practice. After they were finished, the subs could be uploaded international subtitle sites where they would benefit lots of people.

Oh. I realize its a tad late. But yeah, I'm from the US, but Ive been working in England for 3 years now. I was sent to Kyrgyzstan in july to help our people out there for a bit. But I'm back in England now, got back last week.

I'm going to be transferring to Moscow here pretty soon.Though, I don't see how posting a picture of me would prove me to be American or British... ?

Originally Posted by Johanna

One idea came to mind:
It's a real shame about some great films that don't have subtitles.
For me, I will have to leave them until my Russian gets better. But Rockzmom for instance would miss out completely.

I suppose that there are Russian subtitles for ALL of these films (in order to help deaf Russians or whatever). So one idea would be to grab the Russian subtitles, open them in "SubtitleEdit " (software) save as text and then run it through an online translator, then save it again in subtitle format... But the quality from Google, Yandex etc would be HORRIBLE and I haven't actually tested this, there might be technical restrictions although it ought to work.

Another option is if somebody who is learning English is interested in a project: Fan-subbing a film of their choice.
Creating subtitles appears to be quite easy - it's done by teenagers all the time. I am sure there are lots of guides online. If Russian subs already exist then it's particularly easy, you just use the existing timings on those subtitles - all you'd have to do is enter the translation.

The benefit for the potential translator would be that a native English speaker from this site could then help to correct his English - so it would be like an exercise that he'd learn A LOT from; how to say a whole range of everyday phrases from a film. Pretty useful practice. After they were finished, the subs could be uploaded international subtitle sites where they would benefit lots of people.

I think that is a great idea. I've just recently started watching Russian movies for the benefit of learning Russian, but I'd love to watch them with English subtitles just for enjoyment.

I think something like this thread would work well. Here, gRomoZeka was translating the subtitles for a kids film called "Каникулы Петрова и Васечкина." Part 1 was posted on You Tube, but it doesn't look like it has been worked on since last year.

In regards to your comment about using an electronic translator, I tried it, "HORRIBLE" is an understatement. I ripped the subtitles myself (I couldn't find them online anywhere) for the movie above ("Каникулы Петрова и Васечкина") and its prequel, saved it as a text file and ran it through Google Translate. I think it has something to do with how the sentences are broken up into different lines in the subtitle file, Google thinks they are separate phrases.

As an English speaker, I can help with making the end result sound better in English.

I know our very own Olya has already done a few movies and Basil tired a cartoon recently.

Johanna, some of the things you to want to add to your list, if subtitles are out there, awards additonal genre types, that information I already have on the list of films on page 13 of the BIG film thread. And the links to the Wiki pages for each movie is there as well and that usually has the director's name listed on it. I even have most of the links to find the films, if you want to add that column (but it might make it too wide).

Example from the BIG movie thread:
"The Cranes are Flying", (Летят Журавли, Letyat Zhuravli), 1957
(Drama/Romance/War)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cranes_Are_Flying

Awards
Winner of Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival
Winner of Special Mention Award for Tatyana Samojlova at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival
Winner Diploma of Merit, Foreign Actress (Tatyana Samojlova) at the 1958 Jussi Awards (Finland)

You can download this video (avi-file with English subtitles, DivX or XViD, 25 fps) from Russian Yandex-server. It's very easy.
How to download a movie:
1. Enter the following link:
http://narod.ru/disk/7257110000/The_..._subs.avi.html

________________
So from that information you already can add or update:

Awards/Nominations
Yes

Subtitles
Yes

Genre
(Drama/Romance/War)

and if you want, even include the link...
Film available online
http://narod.ru/disk/7257110000/The_..._subs.avi.html

and from the Wiki link I found:

Director
Mikhail Kalatozov

If you want the Director column.

Originally Posted by Johanna

I suppose that there are Russian subtitles for ALL of these films (in order to help deaf Russians or whatever).

Believe me, NO.

Even if some DVD editions sometimes, accidentally, have Russian subtitles, those subtitles are abridged, that is they don't correspond 100% to what actors say.

Originally Posted by Оля

Among classical Soviet films, I'd like to suggest some more:
1975 — Звезда пленительного счастья
1982 — Полёты во сне и наяву

Also, I like a lot these two Post Soviet films:
2000 — Приходи на меня посмотреть
2002 — Любовник
(By the way, the both are Oleg Yankovsky films, he plays the leading role in the both of them)

Also, I'd like to say some words about Russian Great Patriotic War films...

Mostly, foreigners who saw some of those films say they are too "depressive". That's what I hate.

But....... What do you want a film about war to be???? A comedy? A romance? A detective? I don't understand people who don't like to see war on the screen, who feel boring or "depressive" seeing that, and who don't want to watch things which can "upset" them; who don't want to weep over anything but a milksoppy love story or a lapdog's or a kitten's death! They don't want to understand that there were real people who lived and died at war, and it did not look like an adventure, or like a story about one person, or two persons, a man and a woman, where people around didn't matter.
I HATE the film "The English Patient" where the main character is presented like a big hero who accomplishes "feats" in the name of "love". Listen, he gave secret maps to fascists!!! Having got those maps, fascists captured a city, took many prisoners, tortured people, cut off their fingers!!!...
The only opinion about that film I came across on the internet was "this is a great film about true love"... F*ck it!!!!! It looks like western viewers really have no idea about true feats. A true feat is to save a thousand people and not one person, even if that one is your beloved and those thousand are nobodies to you.
Moreover, the hero in "The English Patient" sacrificed a thousand of human lives for only a chance of saving the woman. That makes his action even more disgusting. Why do people like this film? For me, it's just a beautiful snivel in a beautiful wrapping.

Here are some Russian forceful war films I'd recommend to watch:

Проверка на дорогах
Офицеры
Летят журавли
Баллада о солдате
Восхождение (very forceful)
Судьба человека
А зори здесь тихие
Расскажи мне о себе (the only one which is not very famous, but it touched me a lot)
Иваново детство

Also (famous films, too; not quite "war" films, but also about the subject)
Дом, в котором я живу
Военно-полевой роман
Белорусский вокзал
20 дней без войны

Оля,
What an excellent post. Thank you for it. I am not one of those foreigners that want a "happy" war movie. In the 40's folks in your part of the world went through some really bad stuff. Tell me about it. Do not dress it up. I can take it.

Scott

Originally Posted by fortheether

...Tell me about it. Do not dress it up. I can take it.

I am sorry, Scott, maybe it's my bad English, but you last words sound to me like there is a grain of sarcasm in them. Sorry, if I was too cruel to "western viewers", and of course, I didn't live in the 40's and I, personally, can't tell you or anyone else about that time. But, you know... it's not something political about the western and Russian ideas of WWII movies. It's just another human point of view. In Russian cinema, it's always a story about people, about a human nature, a war drama. In American/Western cinema, it's always an action movie, an adventure, where facts and events are more important than people. I don't like it, and I find it wrong.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Of the few "war" movies I have watched, to me they are "dramas" set in a "war time" not a film about a "war" or a film which 90% of it is with soldiers and takes place on a battle field.

SO, using the example of "The Cranes are Flying" I would never consider this a "war" film

I have already said that before, in other thread, and have said that just in this very post above, and I don't know why, but I'd like to repeat it again. Russian WWII films are dramas, not action movies, so let's call them "war dramas" henceforth and unto ages of ages.

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by fortheether

...Tell me about it. Do not dress it up. I can take it.

I am sorry, Scott, maybe it's my bad English, but you last words sound to me like there is a grain of sarcasm in them. Sorry, if I was too cruel to "western viewers", and of course, I didn't live in the 40's and I, personally, can't tell you or anyone else about that time. But, you know... it's not something political about the western and Russian ideas of WWII movies. It's just another human point of view. In Russian cinema, it's always a story about people, about a human nature, a war drama. In American/Western cinema, it's always an action movie, an adventure, where facts and events are more important than people. I don't like it, and I find it wrong.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Of the few "war" movies I have watched, to me they are "dramas" set in a "war time" not a film about a "war" or a film which 90% of it is with soldiers and takes place on a battle field.

SO, using the example of "The Cranes are Flying" I would never consider this a "war" film

I have already said that before, in other thread, and have said that just in this very post above, and I don't know why, but I'd like to repeat it again. Russian WWII films are dramas, not action movies, so let's call them "war dramas" henceforth and unto ages of ages.

Оля,
No sarcasm at all. I was trying to say that films that are about bad things like World War II should not sugar coat (dress it up) what happened. They should tell the truth, the whole truth. I wasn't asking you to tell me about the 40's. I was saying that a film about those times should tell the whole story. I was also trying to say that I can take watching the whole truth. OK?

Scott

Originally Posted by fortheether

I wasn't asking you to tell me about the 40's. I was saying that a film about those times should tell the whole story.

Oh, I see now, sorry for misunderstanding.

Guys, it's incredible, but we somehow forgot many Andrey Mironov's famous films (Andrey Mironov was a great, fantastically popular and terribly beloved by people Soviet actor who died in the age of 46). So, the addition:
Блодинка за углом (Rom-com)
Достояние республики (Drama / Comedy / Musical)
Мой друг Иван Лапшин (Drama)
Обыкновенное чудо (Melodrama / Parable)
Соломенная шляпка (Musical comedy)
Фантазии Фарятьева (Drama)

Originally Posted by fortheether

I was trying to say that films that are about bad things like World War II should not sugar coat (dress it up) what happened. They should tell the truth, the whole truth.

Что-то я не очень понял, он от чьего кинематографа ждет правды? Голливуд уже снял фильм про гуманное использование атомной бомбы? Дважды...

фишка в том, что фильмы, каковы бы они не были, кажутся скучными без этого "человеческого фактора". можно, конечно, снять какую-нить ленту и показать все ужасы войны (как "Иди, посмотри"), но без, допустим, любовной интриги, намного сложнее завоевать интерес зрителя.
Когда мы каким-нить образом пережили то, что переживают главные герои, мы словно взаимодействуем с ними и нам интересно, что с ними будет.

Originally Posted by Lt. Columbo

фишка в том, что фильмы, каковы бы они ни были, кажутся скучными без этого "человеческого фактора". можно, конечно, снять какую-нить ленту и показать все ужасы войны (как "Иди и посмотри"), но без, допустим, любовной интриги, намного сложнее завоевать интерес зрителя.

Странно одно - почему надо считать "человеческим фактором" только любовную интригу?
А если два бойца в отряде конфиликтуют, чуть ли не дерутся, а когда одного из них ранили, и второй его на себе тащит и говорит ему "ты прости меня за всё" - это не человеческий фактор?

A friend of mine studied "Filmography" or whatever it's called, at University. She once explained this: In order for the viewing experience to be emotional, the viewer needs to identify with a character from the film.

People "identify" with film characters who are:
1) Of the same gender (sex) as themselves
2) Same nationality
3) Same race

Scenery, climate and culture also plays in with how people relate to the film. But if the characters are well portrayed, then it doesn't matter. Not all criteria need to be filled, just one or two - enough so that you can identify with one or more character.

So supposedly, if you cannot identify with anybody in the film, then you either get bored or you are just watching the film to learn something.

I can't add much to the debate about the war film debate, but the only war films that ever made me cry as far as I remember were 1) an black/white Russian WW2 film (can't remember the name) and an American Vietnam film from ca 1970s (name escapes me here too). The WW2 film was good IMHO because it showed practically no actual warfare, just the effect of the war on regular peoples' lives. The Vietnam film was good because clearly conveyed the corruption and meaninglessness of that war and what it did to those who participated.

Originally Posted by Johanna

...but the only war films that ever made me cry as far as I remember were 1) an black/white Russian WW2 film (can't remember the name) and an American Vietnam film from ca 1970s (name escapes me here too)...

"You know, you remind me of a poem I can't remember, and a song that may never have existed, and a place I'm not sure I've ever been to. I feel all funny. I'm in love."

Ok Alex, point taken.

UPDATED!
I have now updated the Film list after getting some help from Olya. Some films that were not very famous were removed and some new ones were added. Several categories were also changed.

See post above, or the first page.
If anybody wants the Excel file for the list (allows you to cut & paste) then just grab it off Rapidshare, see link in the first post of this thread.

When/if I have time, I will add some additional information such as Director, Awards and availability of subtitles.

Thanks so much Sperk for posting the link to the site that lists availability to subtitles. Great! Unfortunately there are several films I'd like to watch that don't have subtitles.