The Discussion of the Work of Sovetsky Ekran (The Soviet Screen) Magazine in 1958. The Sentiment of Cinema Professionals

The article is based on the transcript of the discussion on the work of the popular illustrated magazine Sovetsky Ekran (The Soviet Screen) and the materials of the issues of 1957 and 1958. This array of texts and illustrative materials has not been previously studied and analysed in the humanities, which determines the substantial novelty of the research. The relevance of this topic is due to the need to comprehend the Soviet experience of periodicals on cinema associated with a wide range of authors — journalists, film critics, historians, and film theorists. The purpose of the article is to identify the sentiment of the meeting participants on the ideological discourse and their professional circle. The author compares the discussions with the specifics of articles and photo reports on the pages of Sovetsky Ekran, traces the development of behavioural patterns and rhetorical formulas during the meeting, and puts the issues under discussion in the context of the development of criticism, film studies, attitudes to cinematography as the ‘auteur’ film aesthetics and the entertaining, ‘light’ formats. This allows us to analyse the trends of self-positioning of film industry professionals, film critics, and film historians and to see the complexity of their relationship with the ideological system. The author notes the combination of Thaw tendencies with the speakers, their appeal to the concept of friendship, the desire to defend the interests of film professionals and the interests and values of wide circles of intelligentsia. Symbolism is associated with digressions from the official agenda of the meeting. The speeches regularly feature memories of the 1920s and the references to the topic of foreign countries and foreign cinema life. There is an obvious interest in turning the magazine into a platform for professional film studies. Conclusions are drawn about the underlying reluctance to discuss cinema and magazine business from the standpoint of ideology, about the desire of the intelligentsia to strengthen their cultural influence, and about the cinematographers’ rejection of the need to satisfy mass tastes through light, entertaining magazine materials.