Dressing poetics: The Costume-Image in Soviet Poetic Cinema
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Doctoral thesis (monograph)
| Defence date: 2024-12-11
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Date
2024
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Language
en
Pages
370
Series
Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL THESES, 248/2024
Abstract
In this thesis I focus on the films of Soviet poetic cinema to explore the encounter of costume with the medium of film. The term ‘Soviet poetic cinema’ refers to the work of a small group of Soviet filmmakers who operated in the regional studios of the Soviet Union in the period between the early 1960s and late 1980s. Their work is characterised by bold experimentation, ethno-national motifs and, an element that has frequently been underplayed, a prominent use of costume. The thesis’ primary focus is on how costumes shape the vivid visual worlds of these highly imaginative films. My discussion centres on three films in particular, which exemplify in various ways how costumes define the formal and figurative aspects of the mise-en-scène in these films: Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates (1969), with costumes designed by Elena Akhvlediani, Iosif Karalyan, Jasmine Sarabyan, and Parajanov himself; Tengiz Abuladze’s The Plea (1967), with costumes designed by Tengiz Mirzashvili; and Yuri Illienko’s The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968), with costumes designed by Lidiya Baykova. I frame the analyses of these three films within a wider inquiry into costume design in Soviet poetic cinema, a singular cinematic phenomenon emerging during broader shifts in the Soviet film industry as part of the second wave of modernism that emerged worldwide in the 1960s and 1980s. By turning its attention to costume as a pronounced aspect of Soviet poetic cinema, this thesis sets itself two goals: first, to reveal and highlight the importance of costume in the fabrication of Soviet poetic cinema; and second, to position costume at the centre of the then-radical modernist redefinition of the film image. Specifically, I draw attention to how costume-focused perspectives can expand existing debates around these films on three key subjects: creative ownership and auteurism; a preoccupation with ethnic and historical themes; and a destabilisation of the classical narrative structures that characterized mainstream Soviet cinema at the time. Building on previous studies on Soviet poetic cinema and Soviet cinema, as well as scholarship on film costume, this thesis provides a conceptual and historical framework for an image-focused approach to costume that is central to Soviet poetic cinema. Key to my case studies and contextual analysis is the concept of costume-image – a concept I use to refer to the costume-as-image that spectators encounter when they experience a film. Rather than a physical costume, then, the focus is on the coming together of the sartorial and the cinematic within the film frame. Here, the costume-image is presented as a methodological tool for style analysis, and a theoretical lens that positions this research within current discourse on mise-en-scène and film style. With its emphasis on contextual analysis and a close reading of the three films, this thesis contributes to current debates on Soviet poetic cinema and costume design for film. It does so in three principal ways: first, it positions a costume-focused approach as a valuable lens for the study of Soviet poetic cinema. While there is a considerable body of literature on Soviet poetic cinema, relatively little has been written about costume as its key component. Yet costumes play an instrumental role in shaping the look and the aesthetic identity of these films. Second, it foregrounds Soviet poetic cinema as a film phenomenon that exemplifies the affective power of costume as a cinematic form. In this way, this research expands on existing scholarship on film costume by engaging with the production of the Soviet ethno-national periphery as part of a broader shift that shaped European cinema during the second wave of modernism. And third, it puts forward a novel methodological approach for the analysis of costume in film, by proposing the concept of costume-image. While there have been earlier scholarly analyses that approach ‘costume- as- image’, in this thesis I present a concrete methodological model that can be used for the investigation of costume within the medium of film. Soviet poetic cinema, perhaps more than other cinemas, offers itself for such analysis. Yet, rather than being limited by this historical, cultural, or artistic context, this thesis proposes that the concept of costume-image can be used for engaging with other forms of cinema as well.Description
Supervising professor
Pantouvaki, Sofia, Dr., Aalto University, Department of Film, FinlandThesis advisor
Kyösola, Satu, Dr., Aalto University, Department of Film, FinlandUhlirova, Marketa, Dr., University of the Arts London, England
Keywords
cinema, costume design, Soviet cinema, Soviet poetic cinema, modernist cinema of 1960s and 1980s