Experiencing Moscow through Film:

A Study of the Contemporary City/Cinema Relationship

A Master’s Thesis for the Degree Master of Arts (Two Years) in Visual Culture

Daria Berezhkova

Spring semester 2012

Grader:

Supervisor: Ingrid Stigsdotter

Daria Berezhkova

LUND UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT

DIVISION OF ART HISTORY AND VISUAL STUDIES / FILM STUDIES

MASTER OF ARTS IN VISUAL CULTURE

Experiencing Moscow through Film

A Study of the Contemporary City/Cinema Relationship

by Daria Berezhkova

This thesis explores the roots and theoretical basis of the contemporary city/film

relationship, and examines a case study of six Moscow motion pictures made

between the years 2002-2011. The theoretical part is grounded on the idea that both

city and film are spatial systems, which have mobility as their binding element.

Exploring both of these systems involves movement. Since motion is a physical

ability of our bodies, the experience of the city and film is haptic. Traveling through

the urban space is similar to ‘traveling’ through moving pictures.

The empirical part of my work is based on the research of contemporary

Moscow cinema. The choice of this particular capital is explained by the fact that it

is one of the fastest growing global cities and yet, its rich contemporary cinema

culture has not been explored sufficiently. This thesis focuses on indicative films of

the recent years, derives common themes and analyzes them using theoretical

notions.

The work claims that cinema cannot be perceived only as a reflection, a mere

representation of a city. Instead it is a powerful tool for creating the actual urban

environment. A city is comprised not only of its geographical maps, but also of the

cultural production that surrounds it. At the same time today, the delicate matter of

the city and city film is under risk of being shattered by the homogenizing effect of

globalization.

2

Daria Berezhkova

Table of contents

List of Images 4

1. Introduction 5

1.1 Relevance of the Study 5

1.2 Postmodern Cities and Cinema 6

1.3 Moscow in Film and Film in Moscow 8

1.4 Russian Film Industry Today 9

1.5 Moscow as a Global City 10

1.6 Background, Theories and Structure 12

2. The City/Film Relationship 14

2.1 Film as a Spatial System 14

2.2 New Experiences of Modernity 15

2.3 Traveling through Cities 16

2.4 Getting Lost and Being Found 17

2.5 The Real Cities 18

2.6 The Effects of Globalization 20

3. The Haptic Realm of Film 24

3.1 The Haptic in Cinema 24

3.2 The Embodied Experience of Film 25

3.3 The ‘Cinesthetic Subject’ 27

3.4 Haptic Visuality and Haptic Memories 28

3.5 ‘Site-seeing’ 29

4. Moscow in Film 32

4.1 Case Study: Six Moscow Films 32

4.2 A Tourist’s Site: Iconic Locations 34

4.3 A Local’s Site: Inhabited Places 36

4.4 Ways to Get Around: Vehicles 39

4.5 Ways to Get Around: Without Vehicles 41

5. Conclusion 44

6. Bibliography 46

7. Filmography 50

8. Image Appendix 52

3

Daria Berezhkova

List of Images

Image 1: 52

Image 2: 52

Image 3: 53

Image 4: 53

Image 5: 54

Image 6: 54

Image 7: 55

Image 8: 55

Image 9: 56

Image 10: 56

4

Daria Berezhkova

Chapter 1

Introduction

This thesis aims to study the contemporary relationship between city and film. The

work’s focus will be on applying theoretical ideas concerning spatial and haptic

qualities of cinema to empirical material: motion pictures about Moscow made in

2002-2011.

1.1 Relevance of the Study

Exploring the different aspects of the city/film interaction is valuable, as cinema is

one of the most important cultural forms and city is an essential type of social

organization. Motion pictures and urban landscapes influence each other and create a

lived social reality.1 Thanks to its technical and narrative qualities, film, like no other

medium, can capture the city in all its dynamic energy. Cinema can help present a

social image of an urban space, but it can also develop, configure and alter it. The

footage of a landscape is a fundamental element of the construction of cities

themselves, as they can be defined not only by their map coordinates, but also by all

the mythology, hearsay, and works of art that surround them.2

The Russian director Sergei Eisenstein in his 1938 work Montage and

Architecture compared a walk around the Athenian Acropolis to the experience of

watching a film.3 According to him, in order to understand and enjoy architecture,

one has to move around and observe it from different angles. In film too, the viewer

is a mobile spectator who takes a journey through space. The architect Le Corbusier

agreed with Eisenstein’s ideas. In his opinion, architecture requires motion, walking

from one object to another, which he calls ‘promenade architecturale’ (architectural

promenade).4 It shows that from early on, directors and architects acknowledged

motion and mobility as important elements that bring together urban space and film.

1 M Shiel, ‘Cinema and the City in History and Theory’, in M Shiel, T Fitzmaurice (eds.), Cinema and the City. Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford, Malden, 2001, p. 1.2 K Lury, D Massey, ‘Making Connections’, Screen, no. 40(3), 1999, pp. 229-238, retrieved 4 April 2012, <http://screen.oxford.org>.3 S Eisenstein, ‘Montage and Architecture’, Assemblage, no. 10, 1989, pp. 113-120. 4 Le Corbusier, ‘Villa Savoye a Poissy, 1929-31’, in W Boesiger (ed.), Le Corbusier, P Jeanneret. Oeuvre complete de 1929-1934, vol. 2, Les éditions d’architecture Zurich, Zurich, 1964, p. 24.

5

Daria Berezhkova

In the thesis I will attempt to disclose the way that Moscow’s urban space and

contemporary film influence each other, paying close attention to the material realm

of the cinema. The word-combination ‘Moscow city film’ used in this work describes

motion pictures that were shot in the capital and that feature the city as one of the key

characters. Today, Moscow is becoming an influential economic and cultural hub in

the international system of cities. Each year brings new films about the capital. Even

though analyses of these motion pictures may help us understand this city’s global

status better, in-depth research on these films has not been published so far. This

absence of material is one of the fundamental triggers behind the research presented

here.

Another reason for the choice of this subject lies in the history of Russian

cinema. Throughout the film era, Moscow has been an important character in

renowned works of cinematic art. Among them are such films as The Cranes are

Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957), which won a Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or

award, Moscow Does not Believe in Tears (Vladimir Menshov, 1980), that received

an Oscar for the best foreign language film, and July Rain (Marlen Khutsiyev, 1966),

a forgotten classic of the Soviet New Wave which deserves more attention than it

receives today. Bearing in mind such a rich history of representation (and

presentation) of Moscow, it is thrilling to explore the current state of city film.

Unquestionably, the cinema has inherited some of the values of its predecessors, but

it has also transformed under the influence of the current conditions of the globalized

world.

1.2 Postmodern Cities and Cinema

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the pace of urbanization has been

accelerating in almost geometrical proportions. The world’s urban population grew

from 225 million in 1900 to 3 billion in 2000.5 If in the 1900s 10% of people lived in

cities, then in 2010, the world urban population reached the number of 50.5%.6

According to a UN prognosis, by the year 2050, it will increase up to 67%.7 Today, 5 TW Luke, ‘Codes, Collectives, and Comments. Rethinking Global Cities as Metalogistical Spaces’, in L Krause, P Petro (eds.), Global Cities. Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, London, 2003, p. 160.6 Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html>.7 United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision Population Database, 2012, retrieved 26 April 2012, <http://esa.un.org/unup/p2k0data.asp>.

6

Daria Berezhkova

global cities interconnect and create a complicated worldwide network8. They can be

characterized by the constant flow of people, saturation of media and existence of

iconic locations.9 Cities can be described as centres of production and consumption

that direct global economy. Transnational commerce is concentrated in such capitals

as London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, New York, and others. Contemporary cities embody

the essence of a country in the world imagination even if in fact they only represent a

small part of the state’s lifestyle.10

When speaking of global cities, I will refer to them as “postmodern”.

According to Fredric Jameson, postmodernity emerged with the development of

consumer capitalism and post-industrial society after the end of World War II.11 The

concept of postmodernity describes Western society’s current cultural, economic and

socio-political condition. It is characterized by service-oriented economy, the growth

of hi-tech and entertainment industries, social polarization, fragmentation of urban

habitat, compression of time and space as a result of the information revolution,

multi-ethnicity, loss of barriers between “high” and “low” culture, as defined by Ewa

Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli.12

Researchers usually refer to North America when they discuss postmodern

cities. The ideal city of postmodernity is Los Angeles, the ultimate paradigmatic

space of the 21st century.13 It combines qualities of the first and the third worlds, it is

the centre of cinematic and media production. Nevertheless, other cities all over the

world can also be considered postmodern. The difference is in the proportion,

“concentration” of postmodernity rather than in its substance.14 In fact all cities

develop their own particular postmodern reality. Both in Europe and in the USA,

similar post-industrial landscapes can be found: for example, graffiti and commercial

images next to (or covering) historical buildings. In many European cities today

centres are no longer as crucially important as they were before: suburbs start playing 8 For more on the term ‘global city’, see S Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001.9 TG Oren, ‘Gobbled Up and Gone. Cultural Preservation and the Global City Marketplace’, in L Krause, P Petro (eds.), Global Cities. Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, London, 2003, p.54.10 E Mazierska, L Rascaroli, From Moscow to Madrid: Postmodern Cities, European Cinema, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. London, New York, 2003, p.7.11 F Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, in F Jameson, The Cultural Turn. Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998, Verso, London, New York, 1998, p. 3.12 Mazierska, Rascaroli, p.9.13 Shiel, p. 7.14 Mazierska, Rascaroli, p.18.

7

Daria Berezhkova

a vital role, just like they do in the United States.15 In general, contemporary city

centres are becoming more and more international, industrial sites are being

renovated and turned into restaurants, clubs or art-galleries. There are new transport

systems being built that join different cities and countries.

This changing reality has been in part documented by film during the past

century. Cinema not only mirrors the current conditions of cities, but also

participates in the process of their development and plays an important role in their

economy. Just like the cities, postmodern film is experiencing the increasing

influence of globalization. Today, moving pictures transcend national boundaries and

become vital elements of the global system. The effects of this can be traced down in

contemporary Moscow film.

1.3 Moscow in Film and Film in Moscow

Moscow took the title of capital from Saint Petersburg in 1918, a year after the

October Revolution. Ever since then it has remained the economic and socio-political

centre of Russia. This event coincided with the development of film. From the silent

era, Russian cinematography was considered the forefront of discoveries in cinematic

art.16 Works of such directors as Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Lev Kuleshov

became subjects of book-length research. From early on, the capital has been an

important subject in cinema. Films tended to stress the main attitude that ruled at that

time: Moscow was perceived as a place where people from all over the country came

to obtain careers and education, friendship and love. In such motion pictures as Jolly

Fellows (Grigori Alexandrov, 1934), Moscow was depicted as a spacious, festive

city full of opportunities for everyone.17

Stalin’s reconstruction plan of 1935, with its imperial architecture,

strengthened this attitude. During 1930s-1950s the role of Moscow was emphasized,

15 A Fiedler, ‘Poaching on Public Space: Urban Autonomous Zones in French Banlieue Films’, in M Shiel, T Fitzmaurice (eds.), Cinema and the City. Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford, Malden, 2001, p.271-280.16 B Beumers, The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, Wallflower Press, London, New York, 2007, p. 1.17 S Yurlova, ‘Mythology of Moscow’, Izvestia Uralskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, no. 55 (15), 2008, pp. 64-70, retrieved 20 May 2012, <http://proceedings.usu.ru/?base=mag/0055%2801_15-2008%29&xsln=showArticle.xslt&id=a07&doc=../content.jsp>.

8

Daria Berezhkova

as the city played a dominant part of Stalin’s geopolitics.18 People linked their hopes

with the idea of Moscow becoming the future capital of the world. In the

“construction films” of this period, life in the city was shown as more appealing than

life in the country. During the Thaw (mid 1950s – mid 1960s) the attention finally

shifted to the private life, as opposed to the political (I am Twenty, Marlen Hutsiyev,

1965). In contemporary drama of this time, the downsides of Moscow were shown.

Soviet Union cinema was still strictly controlled by the government, but directors

found ways to express themselves and depict reality as it was with the help of the

comedy genre (Beware of the Car, Eldar Ryazanov, 1966).19 In the 1990s Russian

cinema became renowned for its negativity. The city was often depicted as a source

of evil as opposed to the pure life in the village.20 This pessimistic attitude in film

characterised the general climate in post-soviet Russia. The sudden transformation to

the market economy and the seeming availability of Western culture was juxtaposed

to poverty and internal conflicts, which brought a general feeling of despair and

moral disorientation to film.

1.4 Russian Film Industry Today

In the 1990s the Russian film industry experienced a crisis. New conditions of the

free market forced it to compete with Western cinema. On the other hand, the new

economic and political situation brought civil liberties: political censorship was

abolished and the government no longer imposed its ideology on filmmakers, at least

not to the same extent. Both commercial and independent art-house films started

appearing. Towards the middle of the 2000s the industry began to stabilize. Russia

became the sixth-highest grossing cinema market, which made it an important player

in the distribution network for foreign films.21 Some domestic pictures enjoyed

international release. Night Watch (Timur Bekmambetov, 2004), a blockbuster set in

Moscow, was in the top twenty of the international box office grosses.22 Today, the

number of movie theaters is growing and there is an increase of revenues from film

18 S Bodrov Sr, ‘Introduction’, in B Beumers (ed.), The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, Wallflower Press, London, New York, 2007, p. 1., p. 8.19Bodrov, p. xiii20 Mazierska, Rascaroli, p.137.21 Beumers, p. 5.22 Beumers, p. 6.

9

Daria Berezhkova

distribution23. A remaining problem is the small amount of national motion pictures

and their failure to compete with Hollywood cinema. In fact, in 2011 the share of

national films reached its lowest value since 2004; among the 308 films shown in

theatres, only 19% (59 films) were domestic.24

In Russia, the state still plays an important role in supporting national film,

covering about 60% of the film budget.25 The business plans are conservative, as it is

believed that the smaller the budget the faster the invested resources are returned.

Though some pictures today manage to break even, Russian film industry is still

considered financially unprofitable. The government plans to take protectionist

measures to help develop this business. One of the projects is to introduce quotas on

imported film, which will oblige cinemas to show more domestic products. This

raises concern that such measures will make Russian film less competitive.26 In the

present day, when globalization is affecting economic, political and cultural spheres

of life, it is the improvement of the film’s quality that can ensure its position on the

international market.

1.5 Moscow as a Global City

According to Fredric Jameson, globalization is one of the distinctive features of the

current time.27 Along with other postmodern cities, Moscow experiences its dramatic

effects. At the same time the capital plays a crucial part in the contemporary global

system itself. Due to the changes of the 1990s, Moscow’s position within the

international hierarchy of cities has also changed. The capital is integrating into

international economic structures, taking on the role of a bridge between Western

Europe, the rest of Russia and Asia. Contemporary Moscow can be described by the

growing separation from the national urban system and by the increase of the

international orientation. The growing number of films about Moscow bears witness

to the transformations of the past years.

23 Beumers, pp. 4-6.24 A Matveeva, ‘Cinema is Slowing Down’ (my translation), Gazeta.ru, 2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://www.gazeta.ru/business/2012/01/30/3979365.shtml>. 25 Matveeva.26 Y Yarosh, P Belavin, S Sobolev, ‘Russian Cinema’s Distribution will be Expanded’ (my translation), Kommersant, #43, 2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1891176>.27 Jameson, p. 162-163.

10

Daria Berezhkova

A report written in 2012 by A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index shows that

Moscow has the most progress on globalization since 2010.28 The Global Cities

Index measures the level of global engagement of the world’s most prominent cities

based on such dimensions as business activity, human capital, information exchange,

cultural experience, and political engagement. Rising six spots since the last survey,

Moscow is ranked number 19 on a list topped by New York, London, Paris, Tokyo

and Hong Kong.

Although Moscow, with its almost 15 million population, is becoming more

global with every year, it still lacks a stable attractive image that would raise

international interest.29 According to the results of a survey made at the Moscow

Urban Forum held in 2011, experts agree that it is time for the capital to develop a

promotional infrastructure to manage its reputation.30 Participants of the The Young

PRofy Day 2012 forum at the Moscow State University, which was dedicated to city

brands, arrived at the same conclusion.31 Russia’s capital is known primarily for Red

Square, Putin, cold weather, extreme poverty and extreme wealth. In other words,

there is a lack of a positive, contemporary and constructive image, which would help

secure Moscow’s place in the global city network.

The head of the Department of Tourism in Moscow, Igor Kozlov,

acknowledges this problem and states that the government is planning to introduce a

new city brand.32 In March 2012, an invitation to tender was put out by Moscow

officials to create a logotype for the city. According to Kozlov, the capital’s image in

the West is rather poor because it was constructed in the 1990s when there was a

surge of interest in the USSR. The image of Moscow as the capital of communism

and later the home of ‘new Russians’ is hard to shatter. Russian films, though rarely

seen by an international audience, contribute to the construction of this stereotype.

Promotional images that exist today mostly portray the Bolshoi Theater ballet, but

this classical image of Moscow is no longer as appealing.33 There are some efforts to

28 ‘Moscow 19th on list of global cities’ (my translation), The Voice of Russia Radio, 2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_04_04/70569903/>.29 E Kachkaeva, ‘Moscow Brand’ (my translation), Bolshoj Gorod, 2012, retrieved 20 April 2012, <http://www.bg.ru/stories/10670>.30 ‘Do actions speak louder than logos?’ Global Cities Blog, 2011, <http://www.globalcities.eu/blog/do-actions-speak-louder-than-logos>.31 Kachkaeva.32 Kachkaeva.33 Kachkaeva.

11

Daria Berezhkova

make Moscow a more open, international city. For example, a magazine called

Bolshoi Gorod and the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow are planning to

hang up signs on famous historical buildings. More and more companies are

appearing that base their business on selling new types of souvenirs featuring a

Moscow logotype (image 1).34 Although these projects are still very few, a positive

tendency can be seen already.

Moscow is becoming a more appealing place if not yet for tourists, then for

investors. For example, the Universal Parks & Resorts Company is planning to open

a Universal Studios theme park in the Russian capital by 2018.35 Moscow will be the

first European location of the Universal. President of the company, Michael Silver,

stresses that Russia is an attractive market with great potential for entertainment

business that, as he notes, speaks a global language.36 The project of building a

Universal Studios theme park indicates the level at which Moscow is being taken

over by globalization. It also underlines the growing interest of the Russian people

towards the American lifestyle and Hollywood. These aspects of contemporary

Russian life are evident in motion pictures and especially in Moscow film.

1.6 Background, Theories and Structure

The nature of the cinema/city relationship determines the large number of

interdisciplinary works dedicated to different aspects of the problem.37 Film is a

powerful analytical tool in the urban discourse, and a city, in turn, plays an important

role in the cinematic theory.38 In recent years a number of volumes have been

dedicated to the way that cinema and cities interact. Different approaches are used,

but the dominant idea is that film provides an accurate representation of the urban

landscape. For example, in Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli’s work, From

Moscow to Madrid. Postmodern Cities, European Cinema, the main emphasis is on

34 For more on souvenirs, see Heart of Moscow website <http://heartofmoscow.ru>.35 E Gerashenko, K Aminov, E Khvostik, ‘American Culture Park’ (my translation), Kommersant, #66, 2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://www.kommersant.ru/doc-y/1914164>.36 Gerashenko, Aminov, Khvostik.37 See Charney & Schwartz, 1996, McQuire, 1997 for modernity in film; Coates, 2000, Prakash, 2010 for utopian and dystopian cities, Brunsdon, 2007 for cinematic portraits, Gardies, 1993, Pallasmaa, 2001 for semiotic approaches, etc. 38 N AlSayyad, Cinematic Urbanism. A history of the Modern from Reel to Real, Routledge, New York, London, 2006, p.3.

12

Daria Berezhkova

the city-text: on the many ways that space is mirrored by the moving image.39 In

contrast to this, my primary focus will be not on the language of film, but on the

theories that surround the haptic quality of film and the embodied cinematic

experience.

In the next chapter I will study the ways that a changing city landscape

influences filmic space and vice versa. Here I will use the works of Sergei

Eisenstein, Walter Benjamin, Fraçois Penz and Andong Lu, Linda Krause and

Patrice Petro, Fredric Jameson, Giuliana Bruno that deal with different aspects of the

city/film relationship both in modern and in postmodern time.

The third chapter will be dedicated to the theory of the embodied cinematic

experience. I will focus on the haptic terrain of film and its influence on the

consciousness of the viewer. Here I will analyze Vivian Sobchack’s, Laura U.

Marks’, and Giuliana Bruno’s ideas on the tactile exploration of the filmic space.

In the final chapter I will apply the theory from the previous sections to the

empirical material: Russian films about Moscow made between 2002 and 2011. The

result of the work will be the overview of the current condition of the Moscow and

film relationship.

Chapter 2

The City/Film Relationship

In this chapter I will explore the theoretical questions of the city and film interaction.

In the focus of attention are the spatial characteristics of motion pictures and urban

39 Mazierska, Rascaroli, pp.1-3.13

Daria Berezhkova

space. An important accent is on the current cultural and economic conditions of the

global system of cities.

2.1 Film as a Spatial System

The tie between cinema and cities is usually explored from the standpoint of

language. Moving images are seen as signifying systems, a reflection of society.40

The reason lies in the fact that initially, film borrowed key ideas from literary

studies. In this sense, existing literature on motion pictures and the city does not

demonstrate a deep engagement with the urban space.41 Physical, social and cultural

aspects of cinema should be studied closer in order to help us understand film’s role

in the development of cities.

It cannot be denied that moving pictures takes part in the production of urban

space and have to be perceived as spatial systems rather than textual.42 In the words

of Maria Hellström Reimer, both cinema and film refer to movement, time and

technology.43 Moving images capture speed and rhythm, which are characteristic of

the urban environment. Film can express the multi-dimensional space as it deals with

the actual physical landscape. Motion pictures, according to Shiel, can convey the

complexity and diversity of the city.44 That is why cinema and the city have had a

strong bond ever since the beginning of the 20th century, the age of modernity.

2.2 New Experiences of Modernity

Charles Baudelaire was among the first to capture a new mode of experience and link

it to the city as the arena of social interaction and economic exchange.45 In his essays

the poet described a city dweller, a passionate spectator of the urban space. A

40 Shiel, p.3.41 AlSayyad, p.3.42 Shiel, p.6.43 M Hellström Reimer, ‘Urban Anagram: A Bio-political Reflection on Cinema and City Life’, in F Penz, A Lu (eds.), Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011, p. 223.44 Shiel, p. 1. 45 AlSayyad, p.1.

14

Daria Berezhkova

‘flâneur’ is somebody who feels at home anywhere in the city, who likes to see the

world and to be in the centre of it.46 The flâneur enjoys the new city of modernity and

‘marvels at the eternal beauty and the amazing harmony of life in the capital

cities...’47 Walter Benjamin’s descriptions of urban modernity are to a large extent

based on Baudelaire’s accounts of encounters in Paris in the middle of the 19 th

century.48

At the beginning of the 20th century theoreticians were concerned with the

novel experiences that growing cities brought. New means of transportation and

communication, new technologies were bound to have their effects. Some

sociologists, philosophers and artists were optimistic about the modern metropolis.

Benjamin recognized the connection between mass society, manufacturing,

mechanical reproduction and cinema.49 He believed that technology trained and

prepared the human sensorium for the arrival of film, which satisfied a need for new

‘stimuli’.50 Siegfried Kracauer, Bernard von Bretano, and Bela Bálazs tied their

aspirations with the new city. But there were others like the sociologist Georg

Simmel who saw a danger for the human psyche in the cold, anonymous, impersonal

metropolis.51

The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was a fertile time for the

development of filmmaking. A key feature of modern inventions such as arcades,

railways, department stores, and exhibition halls was their mobility.52 Before motion

pictures, the desire to stroll and observe was realized through mapping and

architecture, which had certain ‘protofilmic’ qualities.53 With the advent of cinema,

this ambition was transferred from real life onto the screen. Thus ‘…film viewing

became an imaginary form of flânerie…’54 Moving images brought back the act of

46 C Baudelaire, ‘The Painter of Modern Life’, in J Mayne (tarnsl., ed.), The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1995, p. 9.47 Baudelaire, p. 10.48 See W Benjamin, The Writer of Modern Life, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 2006.49 Shiel, p. 1.50 W Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in H Arendt (ed.), H Zohn (transl.), Illuminations, Fontana, London, 1973, p. 177.51 H Weihsmann, ‘Ciné-City Strolls: Imagery, Form, Language and Meaning of the City film’, in F Penz, A Lu (eds.), Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011, p. 25-26.52 G Bruno, Atlas of Emotion. Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film, Verso, New York, 2002, p. 17.53 Bruno, p.185.54 Bruno., p.17.

15

Daria Berezhkova

wandering around the city, as viewers became the new type of flâneurs.

2.3 Traveling through Cities

The traveling culture blossomed in the early 20th century. It is no surprise that

voyages became one of the most popular subjects in early film. ‘Panoramic view’

pictures and travelogues were a widespread genre from the start. Films like

Panorama from Times Building, New York (Wallace McCutcheon, 1905) became a

simulation of the traveling experience.55 In a way, film has been to the 20th century

what the diorama had been in the 18th or panoramic wallpaper in the 19th century.

Film allowed the viewer to travel without leaving the room, to be still and to roam

around at the same time.

One of the most popular subjects in early film was the city. Motion pictures

represented primarily urban space and addressed urban audiences. Evidence of this is

the screening of Cordeliers Square, Lyons (Louis Lumière, 1895). By the 1920s a

genre known today as the ‘city symphonies’ appeared.56 Directors were enthusiastic

about filming the spectacle of a city, its rhythm and fast movements. Among these

cinematic portraits was, for example, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Walter

Ruttmann, 1927).57 The city became a subject, a character and not just a setting in the

film. ‘Symphonies’ not only represented cities, but they also invented them,

unravelling the unknown hidden parts to the viewer.58 This is especially evident in

the film essay Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) where an image of a

new Moscow is shown to be created on an editing table. Another classic city film is

Moscow (Mikhail Kaufman, Ilya Kopalin, 1927). Here the directors combined the

use of actual physical space with the fictional metaphorical space to express the aura

of a city.59

From the very beginning tourism influenced film and transferred some of its

own features on it. Today voyaging and cinema to a large extent are leisure activities

55 Bruno, p.107.56 Weihsmann, p. 25.57 F Penz, A Lu, ‘Introduction: What is Urban Cinematics?’,in F Penz, A Lu (eds.), Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011, p. 10.58 Penz, Lu.59 Weihsmann, p. 28.

16

Daria Berezhkova

that are meant to please the spectator. The ‘tourist gaze’,60 sight-seeing, and

movement through space are common to both film and tourism. Although in motion

pictures the act of traveling is only imagined, it functions according to similar

principles. Another similar feature is the limited time range: the viewer-traveler visits

a certain space only for a short period and is expected to return to reality at some

point.61 Both of these cultural phenomena involve new experiences, unusual

situations, and exploration of unknown cultures.

2.4 Getting Lost and Being Found

Undeniably, an inherent part of the traveling experience is getting lost. Walter

Benjamin wrote about this pleasant sensation as being typical for modernity and

flânerie. According to him, not finding a way can be boring, but to lose oneself in a

city, like in a forest, is a different experience.62 Getting lost requires special skills,

another type of interaction with the city: street signs, passer-by, and roofs begin to

matter. Later on, this idea was reinterpreted by the French Situationist International

group which proposed the term ‘psychogeography’ for a study concerned with the

experience of the urban environment and its effect on the human emotions.63

Psychogeography is not concerned with concrete coordinates and maps. It studies the

mood, atmosphere, smell of a place and different aspects that influence the

experience like time or direction.

Vivian Sobchack pointed out that there are many ways of getting lost, for

example ‘wandering away from home’, ‘not knowing where you are’, and ‘not

knowing how to get where you want to go’.64 Getting lost and finding one’s way has

little to do with Euclidean geometry that scientific navigation is based on.65 The

condition of being lost cannot be explained by cartography. When spatial

60 Bruno, p.82.61 Bruno, p. 82.62 W Benjamin, A Berlin Chronicle, in M W Jennings, H Eiland (eds.), W Benjamin, Selected Writings, transl. R Livingstone, vol. 2, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 1999, p. 598.63 P Shöberg, ‘I am Here, or, the Art of Getting Lost: Patrick Keiller and the New City Symphony’, in F Penz, A Lu (eds.), Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011, p. 47.64 V Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts. Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles, London, 2004, pp. 26-35. 65 Sobchack, p. 16.

17

Daria Berezhkova

disorientation takes place, it is the lived body that is taken into account; thus the

body becomes the center of the world.66 The act of getting lost can cause frustration

and emotional stress, but it can also open up new opportunities and bring new

sensations.

Andrew Otway discusses the term ‘wayfinding’ as a part of the experience of

getting lost. The history of navigation has been based on prioritizing the visual map-

making.67 But people do not have cognitive maps in their heads; instead, they

navigate using memory and “history” of places.68 For example, in order to understand

where one is, he or she has to position him or herself according to the last movement.

Wayfinding as a form of knowledge is similar to storytelling, and yet it is more

efficient than navigation. The space around us is constantly changing and it is up to

the wayfinder to search, to feel his or her way through space using all the senses.

Wayfinding can involve different means of transportation. For example in Night on

Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991) protagonists-wayfinders explore cities in a car. In

Otway’s opinion the car and walking by foot are two means of traveling that are in

closest connection to the surrounding environment.69 Airplane and railroad distances

the traveler from the outside world. In Moscow films discussed in the fourth chapter

a variety of vehicles are used for wayfinding in the ‘real’ city.

2.5 The Real Cities

Moscow films that I will analyze in this work were shot in the real urban

environment. A tradition to make motion pictures on location goes back to the

beginning of the 20th century when decorations were quite expensive and

inconvenient. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) popularized the use of sets in film.70

Italian neorealist pictures of the late 1940s brought back the fashion on location

shooting, as they showed environments that were destroyed by war. Authentic spaces

66 Sobchack, p. 20.67 A Otway, ‘Night on Earth, Urban Wayfinding and Everyday Life’, in F Penz, A Lu (eds.), Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011, p. 169.68 Otway, p. 170.69 Otway, p. 170.70 G Nowell-Smith, ‘Cities: Real and Imagined’, in M Shiel, T Fitzmaurice (eds.), Cinema and the City. Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford, Malden, 2001, p. 99.

18

Daria Berezhkova

created unique conditions for the characters. This attitude to location shooting

influenced the French New Wave and gave a start to a new era of street filming.

Today many city films are shot in studios or created by special effects.

Directors of city films are in better control of the process of film shooting (Blade

Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982).71 In countries like the USA, where labour is expensive

and where good facilities are located, it is cheaper to make motion pictures in a

studio.72 In some cases, cities are used to portray other spaces. This is called ‘license-

plating’.73 For example in a Moscow film Heart’s Boomerang (Nikolay Khomeriki,

2011), the scenes in the subway were shot in Saint Petersburg, as Moscow subway

charges a very high price for providing space.

Nevertheless, to some directors, location shooting remains essential in the

production of a city film. In the age of globalization there is a tendency for urban

space to look homogeneous as if already produced by computer graphics. This

explains the directors’ turn to the ‘real’ cities. Helmut Weihsmann insists that the

beauty of such motion pictures as Zazie dans le Métro (Louis Malle, 1960) is in the

careful, almost documentary detailed Paris, which creates an effect of an authentic

cityscape.74 Films can help recreate a feeling of a city and its history. They are able to

document a changing topography.

In the words of Francois Penz and Andong Lu every simple, banal, and

almost invisible space can be turned into a visible significant place.75 The act of

conscious recording makes the most anonymous part of a city expressive. It is film’s

ability to capture every movement or a trivial moment of life, the ability to depict

street crowds or whirls of leaves in the wind that makes cinema inimitable.76 One of

the most remarkable descriptions of film and its power to show the real, material

world, was given by Benjamin. In his opinion cinema frees us from ‘our offices and

furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories’ by close-ups of the things

around, by slow motion, space expands, by the focus on hidden details, by exploring

familiar objects and milieus. Film bursts the prison and we can adventurously go on a

71 Nowell-Smith, p. 100.72 Nowell-Smith, p. 102.73 Nowell-Smith.74 Weihsmann, p. 39.75 Penz, Lu, p. 9.76 Hellström Reimer, p. 223.

19

Daria Berezhkova

journey.77 A different nature opens itself to the camera than to the naked eye of the

spectator.78 Although the real, ‘exorbitant’ city cannot be grasped and represented

fully, the film gives the viewer a chance to travel and explore the cinematic reality of

an urban space. 79

2.6 The Effects of Globalization

According to Mark Shiel, film can be called one of the first truly globalized

industries.80 The effect of globalization on the urban environment is tremendous. As

a result, cultures today demonstrate more ‘sameness’ than difference. Primarily they

appear to be more and more American.81 Real cities represented once in films

disappear and are replaced by generic ones. Before the film era, writers, journalists,

painters, and street photographers described and captured the images of London,

Paris, and Rome in their creative works. New York’s Greenwich Village and Fifth

Avenue were recognizable even to those who had never been there, but were familiar

with contemporary art.82 Today the tendency is that films feature uniform,

homogeneous ‘generic cities’, as architect Rem Koolhaas calls them.83

It was in the 1960s that cities in films started to become more anonymous,

unrecognizable or were reduced to clichés. At this time there was a growing

disappointment in the urban renewal that brought demolition of traditional parts of

cities. Jane Jacobs was among the first to see the destructive effects of the renewal.84

Old buildings were being replaced with faceless blocks of public housing. Before, in

the age of modernity, cities could be viewed as a panorama, but now they resembled

77 W Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, transl. H. Eiland, E. Jephcott, R. Livingstone & others, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 2008, p.37.78 Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, p. 37.79 A Abbas, ‘Cinema, the City, and the Cinematic’, in L Krause, P Petro (eds.), Global Cities. Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, London, 2003, p. 145.80 Shiel, p. 10.81 Sheil, p.11.82 M Shiel, p. 7.83 R Koolhaas, The Generic City, Sikkiens Foundation, Sassenheim, 1995, pp. 3-29.84 J Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books, New York, 1992.

20

Daria Berezhkova

a collection of fragmented images.85 Films such as Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958)

depicted these homogenized, standardized spaces.

Some researchers use Gilles Deleuze’s term ‘espace quelconque’ (‘any-space-

whatever’) to describe this phenomena.86 Deleuzian disconnected any-space-

whatever appears after World War II, during ‘the rise of situations to which one can

no longer react, of environments with which there are now only chance relations’,

and replaces ‘qualified’ space.87 The period after the war brought empty and yet

inhabited locations, such as waste grounds, warehouses, demolished and

reconstructed cities.88 Even though the French philosopher in his work Cinema 2

does not openly connect any-space-whatever with globalization and postmodernity,

scholars like Laura U. Marks and Mark Shiel see a certain bond between these

phenomena. Marks writes about the any-space-whatever of post-war film, which she

believes to be characteristic of postmodernity and postcolonialism in general.89 Shiel

views any-space-whatever as an indicator for globalization.90 Shopping malls, movie

theatres, and highways are spaces of ubiquity that are ruled by the intangible power

of global capitalism.

Another effect of globalization is the fact that today, for most people cinema

is synonymous with Hollywood. The debate about the possibility for a country to

have a homegrown cinema, national film, came between the end of colonialism in

1960s and full globalization in the 1980s.91 ‘National cinema’ was seen as a possible

opposition to Hollywood’s monopoly on the moving picture culture. Today the

debate on ‘national cinema’ has extinguished itself and only some film scholars, such

as Mark Shiel, assert that domestic production can to a certain extent resist the

homogenizing process.92 Another author, Jenniffer Jordan, in her article ‘Collective

Memory and Locality in Global Cities’ argues that though globalization is

omnipresent, it is also dynamic and flexible.93 She mentions Berlin as an example of 85 N AlSayyad, Cinematic Urbanism. A history of the Modern from Reel to Real, Routledge, New York, London, 2006, p.9.86 Deleuze, Shiel, p.11.87 Deleuze Cinema 2, p. 272.88 Deleuze Cinema 2, p. xi.89 Marks XXX90 Shiel, p. 11.91 M Shiel, Cinema and the City in History and Theory, in M Shiel, Fitzmaurice T, ed, Cinema and the City. Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford, Malden, 2001, p.12.92 Shiel, p. 12.93 J Jordan, ‘Collective Memory and Locality in Global Cities’, in L Krause, P Petro (eds.), Global Cities. Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New

21

Daria Berezhkova

a city where local traditions and landmarks are preserved and co-exist with such

evidence of globalization, as shopping malls, new office buildings and outdoor

advertisement.

Sometimes film, instead of expressing the negative attitude towards the

effects of globalization and Americanization, replaces it with the feeling of nostalgia

for the old days. Sometimes nostalgic motion pictures hide the director’s inability to

understand the past and history.94 For Fredric Jameson, ‘nostalgia films’ are

symptomatic for the postmodern style. In this age it feels like cinema is unable to

focus on the present, but instead turns to the past. Jameson sees in this an alarming

pathology of not being able to deal with history.95 The writer divides this type of

motion pictures into films that are about the past, films that reinvent the past, and

films that are set in the present, but evoke the past.96 The latter is an especially

interesting phenomenon. These motion pictures are technically not about the past, but

they express a certain ‘archaic feel’.97 Here Jameson gives an example of Body Heat

(Lawrence Kasdan, 1981). It is in such films that the postmodern tendency of the

nostalgic mood is most evident. Much like the any-space-whatever, in these films we

witness an ‘any-time-whatever’. Even if motion pictures are shot on location and

describe contemporary events, the time is sometimes blurred and it becomes

impossible to say when exactly the film was made. Cinema today can be described

by obliteration of historical space, by the dissolution of the boundaries of time and

place.98

Key-words for postmodern films are self-reflexivity and intertextuality. An

experimental approach to the narrative is characteristic not only to the modern but

also to the postmodern cinema. According to Jameson, in addition to the nostalgia

theme, another important phenomenon is pastiche, or ‘blank irony’, which is an

imitation of some style that has a neutral tone.99 Absence of the individual is also

typical for postmodern cinema. Today stylistic innovations are no longer possible, as

Jersey, London, 2003, p.31-46.94 Mazierska, Rascaroli, p.9.95 Jameson, p. 10.96 Jameson, pp. 7-10.97 Jameson, pp. 9.98 Mazierska, Rascaroli L, p.9-10.99 Jameson, pp. 5

22

Daria Berezhkova

everything unique has already been thought of.100 So artists instead are forced to use

what has been created by somebody else.

Contemporary cinema has its roots in the travelling culture of the modern

times. This explains why the themes of ‘wayfinding’ and getting lost are common in

motion pictures today. The journey through the ‘real’, authentic global city allows us

to witness how it has been affected by globalization. Postmodern film participates in

the construction of urban space and influences our perception of it. The theoretical

base of the contemporary city/film relationship will be applied to particular case

studies: motion pictures about Moscow made in 2002-2011. But first I would like to

take a closer look at the haptic terrain of film. The attention to the surface and the

material side is another common feature of postmodern cinema.

100 Jameson, pp. 5-7. 23

Daria Berezhkova

Chapter 3

The Haptic Realm of Film

Western culture traditionally privileged sight and put tactile sensation in the bottom

of the hierarchy of senses.101 In this chapter I will argue that the haptic experience of

film is also crucially important in the process of understanding cinema and the city.

3.1 The Haptic in Cinema

Ever since the famous Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (Lumière brothers, 1896) was

first shown, cinema began to rouse senses. In early film theory there has been a

certain interest in exploring the role of physical sensations in connection to the

cinematic experience.102 Different attempts were made to understand the relationship

between motion pictures and the spectator’s body. Walter Benjamin, Bela Balasz,

Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Siegfried Kracauer were intrigued by this

subject.103

According to Vivian Sobchack, although scholars have been concerned with

this topic in the past, no strong theoretical basis has been created yet. Towards the

middle of the 20th century the focus shifted from the different sensory dimensions of

film to its symbolic meaning; scholars studied the visual aspect, ‘figural’

connotation, the language, and signs of cinema. Preoccupied with semiotics,

structuralism, psychoanalysis, researchers of the 1960s and 1970s on the whole

privileged the act of seeing.104 Up until recently film theory has ignored the cinema’s

sensual address and the viewer’s corporeal-material being.105

Contemporary film theoreticians such as Giuliana Bruno, Vivian Sobchack

and Laura U. Marks recognize the role of the embodiment of the film watching

experience, and the importance of the ‘haptic’ in cinema. Bruno notes that film

emerged at the same time as the concept of the ‘haptic’ was developed by an art

historian and a curator of textiles Alois Riegl.106 His ideas in turn influenced Walter

Benjamin’s, who stressed the importance of the haptic realm. According to him, 101 Bruno, p. 251.102 Sobchack, p.54. 103 Marks, p. 171.104 Sobchack, p.59.105 Sobchack, p. 56.106 Bruno p. 247.

24

Daria Berezhkova

tactile reception was shaped by architecture but is now characteristic of other forms

of art like film.107 The haptic is usually defined as a combination of tactile and

kinesthetic functions, and by the way touch is experienced on the surface and inside

the body.108 Though vision remains a unique and privileged sense, cinema uses it in

order to ‘speak’ to the other senses. The contemporary film theory discussed in this

chapter implies that spectators can touch and be touched by texture of images, can

experience “visual aroma” of film.109 Just like sound possesses tactile and haptic

qualities because it is related to waves and movement, the rest of the senses too are

grounded in the materiality of our bodies.110

3.2 The Embodied Experience of Film

Carnal, fleshy, and objective foundations of our consciousness are in the focus of

phenomenology, a philosophical tendency that emphasizes an interpretation of

human experience that concerns perception and bodily activity.111 The human body is

a part of a social realm as it uses all its senses to explore and interact with the outside

world. Maurice Merleau-Ponty asserted that the field of perception is constantly

filled with ‘a play of colours, noises and fleeting tactile sensations’.112 Thus the lived

experience is embodied and based on practice, as it involves looking, listening,

touching, smelling and tasting. Experience is dependent on the context, and so the

surrounding atmosphere is important for perception. The body is involved in the

world on an everyday basis. Everyone and everything that we see stir certain feelings

and cause our reactions.113

According to Merleau-Ponty we are all made of ‘flesh’, which exceeds the

body in its regular sense.114 ‘Flesh’ crosses the boundaries of what is the outside and

107 W Benjamin, The Work of Art, p. 40 108 LU Marks, The Skin of the Film. Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses, Duke University Press, Durhan, London, 2000, p. 162.109 Sobchack, p. 65.110 T Elsaesser, M Hagener, Film Theory. An Introduction Through the Senses, Routledge, New York, London, 2010, p. 137.111 D Ihde, Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, 1990, p. 21.112 M Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, transl. C Smith, Routledge, London, New York, 1995, p. x.113 Merleau-Ponty, p. 55.114 M Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, transl. A Lingis, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1968, p. 84.

25

Daria Berezhkova

what is the inside, what is visible and what is invisible. ‘Flesh’ can be considered

both a part of the body and a part of the thought. It is something that joins the self

and the world together. This results in us experiencing our body as subject and object

simultaneously.115 We can see and be seen at the same time, we can touch and be

touched. We feel our weight, gravity, and the relation of our bodies to the physical

environment. Because of this, the body becomes a background for all knowledge,

thoughts, emotions, and actions.116

Vivian Sobchack has developed her own cinematic theory based on the ideas

of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. To her, the sensory embodiment of the

film experience is crucial. Sobchack argues that it is bodily sensations that trigger

thought and are responsible for conscious sense when we are in the cinema.117 Carnal

knowledge comes previous to actual thought and this is why sometimes even before

realizing with our minds what we see on the screen, we understand it with our

bodies. There is a cultural assumption that cinema is constituted by two-dimensional

geometry, and its function is objective symbolic representation.118 But film can be

perceived as multidimensional, thanks to the sensorial spectrum of the spectator’s

body.119 This allows us to see and understand film not only with our eyes, but

experience it from head to toe.

When a spectator is watching a film, all senses are mobilized.120 The viewer

experiences not only the motion picture, but also his or her own lived body. Thus the

spectator is both ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ the film and this interaction with the image

makes the border between objectivity and subjectivity fade away.121 In this

communication between the spectator’s body and the moving image arises meaning.

3.3 The ‘Cinesthetic Subject’

In order to explain the nature of the body in the film watching experience Sobchack

introduces the term ‘cinesthetic subject’.122 The cinesthetic subject is a lived body

115 S Biernoff, ‘Carnal Relations: Embodied Sight in Merleau-Ponty, Roger Bacon and St Francis’, Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 4:39, pp. 39-52, 2005, p.48.116 Biernoff, p.49.117 Sobchack, p. 1.118 Sobchack, p. 59.119 Sobchack, p. 60.120 Sobchack, p. 80.121 Sobchack, p. 67.122 Sobchack, p. 67.

26

Daria Berezhkova

and the film viewer at the same time. This neologism is comprised of two notions:

synaesthesia and coenaesthesia. The first term describes an experience in which the

stimulation of one sense causes a perception in another. As a result an involuntary

transfer of feeling between senses occurs.123 The second concept describes how equal

senses are set in a hierarchy depending on history and culture. Sobchack claims that

all people are in nature more or less synaesthetes. In the cinema senses trigger one

another and exchange their roles.124 The going back and forth from sense to sense

happens subconsciously. For example, if we see a juicy pear on the screen we can

sometimes feel our mouth watering, not even acknowledging it.

Though in the film watching experience all of the senses are mobilized, they

do not work the same way as during the actual process of touching or smelling. The

cinema experience is a different sort of sensual fulfillment, or, more specifically, un-

fulfillment. There are two kinds of experiences in the cinema: the ‘real’ (or literal)

and the ‘as if real’ (or figural).125 One of them has to do with the actual body of the

spectator and the other with his or her conscious sense. In this case, a certain

reversibility between body and consciousness occurs.126 The spectator cannot actually

touch what is shown on screen so he or she compensates the lack of the sensation by

projecting the experience on him or herself.127

During the film watching experience the sensory hierarchy is sometimes

rearranged, leaving the optic function behind. The fact that in cinema the sensual

fulfillment is partial only enhances the experience. It is intensified by the constant

‘rebound’ of senses from the screen to the body.128 The spectator can see what is

happening on the screen, and at the same time feels his or her own body reacting to

the images.

3.4 Haptic Visuality and Haptic Memories

To Laura U. Marks as well as to Giuliana Bruno and Vivian Sobchack, cinema is not

just a source of signs. The scholar elaborates the term ‘haptic visuality’ which is

based on the idea that eyes can function like organs of touch.129 If the optical 123 Sobchack, p. 68.124 Sobchack, p. 67.125 Sobchack, p. 58.126 Sobchack, p. 74.127 Sobchack, p. 76.128 Sobchack, p. 76.129 Marks, p. 162.

27

Daria Berezhkova

perception privileges the representational quality of the image, the haptic perception

privileges the material presence. Marks compares the act of brushing against

somebody else’s skin to the act of touching “against the skin of a film”, and she

stresses on cinema’s multisensory experience.130 In film the tactile image forces the

viewer to indulge in itself and not in the narrative.131 The spectator interacts with the

haptic cinema with the intelligence of the whole perceiving body.132

Marks perceives haptic visuality literally. Tactile images are representations

of objects that cannot be distinguished and recognized. In such cases the viewer does

not see a particular object, but instead the screen as a whole.133 Filmmakers can use

many techniques to achieve a haptic character of the visuals. A change in focus,

grainy pictures, under- and overexposure helps to obtain this effect. Not only the

visuals, but even the sound can be haptic, given that the spectator-listener cannot

distinguish the source of it. This attention to the surface of an image, which does not

necessarily contribute to the narration, is characteristic of postmodern film, as it has

been discussed in the previous chapter.

Marks also focuses on cinema’s ability to evoke memories. Some of them are

encoded audio-visually, but others are hidden from the sight and can only be

delivered by the haptic ability of film. Thanks to the camera’s technological

qualities, motion pictures become witnesses of certain objects and can transfer their

presence to the viewer. Using a Deleuzian term ‘recollection-image’ as a starting

point, Marks calls them ‘recollection-objects’.134 They are full of condensed history

which can remind the spectators of their own past experiences.135 As Marcel Proust

put it in his Swann’s Way:

The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of

intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object

will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on

chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.136

130 Marks, p. xii. 131 Marks, p. 163.132 Marks, p. 190.133 Marks, p. 172.134 G Deleuze, Cinema 2. The Time-image, trans. H. Tomlinson & R. Galeta, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989, pp. 47-50.135 Marks, pp. 81-84.136 M Proust, Swann’s Way, vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past, transl. C K Scott Moncrieff, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 2010, retrieved 19 May 2012,

28

Daria Berezhkova

By carrying a trace of the material object, film allows the viewer to access the

materiality of the original scene. Marks characterizes the act of watching a film as a

mimetic experience: when we see a bodily similarity with the images on screen, we

can relate to them and experience similar sensations. What allows this identification

is again our memory. Memories are ‘trapped’ in the body and later activated by

sensations triggered by film.137 We do not actually smell or touch the image on

screen, as Sobchack also pointed out. In cinema a synaesthetic experience occurs:

images evoke memories, and they in turn evoke bodily senses. Due to the fact that

previous experiences of all the spectators are not the same, each of them enjoys a

different level of interaction with the film. The more one can engage with the

sensuous memories called upon by cinema, the more synaesthetic and intense the

experience becomes.138

3.5 ‘Site-Seeing’

Discussing the haptic experience of film brings us back to the ideas of traversing

space. The spectator follows the characters on screen and along with them becomes a

traveler. Giuliana Bruno criticizes some of the previous scholarly writings that focus

mainly on the ‘filmic gaze’ neglecting the haptic capacity of the moving image.139 In

Bruno’s opinion most research that deals with the optic qualities of film is connected

to the Lacanian, ‘male’ gaze. According to these theories the spectator is a mere

voyeur. To challenge this position Bruno introduces the term ‘voyageur’.140

According to her, film simulates the traveling experience, which in turn is stimulated

by bodily sensations.141

Unlike the voyeur, the voyageur acquires knowledge by the means of

traveling and not only by observing. The moving image can be perceived as an act of

physical appropriation and discovery of a certain space, an act of getting to know a

<http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/marcel/p96s/index.html>.137 Marks, p. 26.138 Marks, p. 213.139 Bruno, p.15.140 Bruno, p.16.141 G Bruno, p.107.

29

Daria Berezhkova

place.142 The viewer’s activity is ‘site-seeing’ as opposed to sight-seeing.143 In this

sense cinema’s key tools are motion and texture. The spectator apprehends and

inhabits sites through them. The voyageur explores filmic space by crossing the

haptic terrain and wandering around in the spatio-corporeal dimension of the moving

image.144 This requires a full-body involvement and the use of all senses. The

spectator is a visitor, a tourist in film. He or she follows the protagonist on a haptic

journey. The images seen become a part of the viewer and can touch his or her life.

Bruno sees motion, voyaging and dwelling in time and in multi-dimensional space as

the origins of emotion in the film watching experience.145

According to Bruno, contact, exploration and communication are haptic

activities. They involve the knowledge of surface, geometry, material, and

location.146 In turn, surface, geometry, material, and location are the dimensions of

cinema. Bruno stresses that film puts physical bodies to motion and therefore is

corporeal.147 In her opinion, haptic space of cinema is primarily habitable, a place for

dwelling. Different locations presented in film are there for the viewer to discover

and explore.148

According to Giuliana Bruno the experience of watching a film is close to the

feeling that one experienced while walking through gardens in the 18 th and the 19th

centuries. Picturesque aesthetics influenced not only fine art and literature but also

motion pictures. The specificity of these French and Italian gardens was the fact that

they were made for the spectator to enjoy. Strolling through the garden, observing

others, resting in the alcoves brought aesthetic pleasure.149 This picturesque vision

was haptic: eyes could almost touch the landscape. The eye became ‘epidermic’, like

skin, and sight became like a sense of touch.150

When the spectator explores space in film, he or she feels it tangibly. The

process of inhabiting a place involves not only seeing, but also touching it. With the

142 J Lake, ‘Red Road (2006) and Emerging Narratives of “Sub-veillance”’, Continuum, 24:2, 2004, retrieved 29 November 2011, < http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304310903294721>, p. 237.143 Bruno, p.15.144 Bruno, p.16.145 Bruno, p. 207.146 Bruno, p. 254.147 Bruno, p.148.148 Bruno, p.65.149 Bruno, p.201.150 Bruno, p.201.

30

Daria Berezhkova

arrival of cinema images became even more haptic. Ever since then, motion pictures

have been giving both sensual and intellectual pleasure.151 Traveling by means of

watching film is a form of knowledge that is different from, for example, knowledge

gained by reading books. Voyaging requires the ‘student’ to be present, to experience

places hands-on, with all senses.152 This is the foundation for the haptic bond

between film and traveling.

The analyses of the haptic theories bring us to a conclusion that cinema is not

only an image, a sign, but also a lived space. The materiality of the city, its vibration

and tempo can be expressed in film. The motion picture is perceived with the whole

body and the spectator becomes a ‘voyageur’ who can traverse space and even time

after experiencing a ‘haptic memory’. Taking the theoretical basis of this chapter into

account, I move on to the next section. Here I will explore the different journeys

through Moscow that await the spectator. The city/cinema relationship will be

studied from the point of view of the current postmodern reality. The focus will be

on the material surface and the haptic visuality of the case studies.

Chapter 4

Moscow in Film

The six motion pictures that I will discuss in this chapter were made between the

years 2002 and 2011 in Moscow. These films are very different and show many

facets of the city life. Some of them were made by renowned filmmakers, others by

151 Bruno, p.173.152 Bruno, p.191.

31

Daria Berezhkova

young directors. Selected motion pictures range from those that were successful on

the international market, to those that were shown only in a few theatres in Russia.

Among them are romantic comedies as well as dramas, mainstream blockbusters as

well as low-budget independent pictures. Nevertheless, all these films have one

common character: Moscow. The city becomes a protagonist that influences the

course of events, determines the narrative vector and creates a unique filmic city

space. The selected works are in one way or another characteristic of contemporary

Russian cinema. The diversity of the analyzed films will hopefully give an

interesting overlook on the current city/film relationship in Moscow. Carrying on

some of the traditions of the Soviet cinematography, the selected motion pictures

take part in the construction of the contemporary postmodern global city.

4.1 Case Study: Six Moscow Films

In the analyses below I will use the following films to analyze certain aspects of

contemporary Moscow film. One of them is Moscow, I Love You! (various directors,

2010). It is a collection of short films about the city. This work was made to

resemble such popular motion pictures as Paris, je t’aime (various directors, 2006)

and New York, I Love You (various directors, 2009). Such works are sometimes

called ‘anthology’153 or ‘omnibus’154 films. These terms describe short motion

pictures compiled in a single feature-length film, made by several directors sharing

one theme.155 The organizer of the Russian anthology Egor Konchalovsky calls it an

‘auteur’ project aimed to show the directors’ personal attitude to the capital156. A

motion picture called Tycoon (Pavel Lungin, 2002) was an heir to the cinematic

tradition of the 1990s, when one of the most popular subjects in cinema was the the

life of mobsters and businessmen157. Pavel Lungin’s motion pictures are

characterized by Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli as ‘models of postcommunist

153 S Deshpande, ‘Anthology Film. The Future is Now: Film Producer as Creative Director’, Wide Screen, vol. 2, Issue 2, 2010, pp. 1-3, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://widescreenjournal.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/86/131>.154 M Betz, ‘Film History, Film Genre, and Their Discontents: The Case of the Omnibus Film’, The Moving Image: Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, 2001, pp. 56-87. 155 Deshpande, p. 2.156 A Yakubovskaya, ‘Egor Konchalovsky on the almanac ‘Moscow, I love you’’, 2008, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.rudata.ru>. 157 See other films by Pavel Lungin, such as Taksi-Blyuz (1990), Luna Park (1992).

32

Daria Berezhkova

Russian cinematic production’ and as typical city films, where many urban problems

are disclosed.158

Another Sky (Dmitri Mamulia, 2010) is a motion picture that was seen only

by about 400 people in Russia. The revenue of the film amounted to just over 1000

dollars.159 Nevertheless, this motion picture was shown at the Stockholm Film

Festival. Another example of a low-budget film is More zhelanij (Shota Gamisonia,

2010). It is a short motion picture by a young director, which reflects his

autobiographical attitude towards the city. Lovey-Dovey (Alexandr Strizhenov, 2007)

is a romantic comedy that earned more than 11 million dollars and was seen by over

2 million Russians. The film was so successful that later two sequels were made.

Another comedy, Lucky Trouble (Levan Gabriadze, 2011), starring Milla Jovovich,

was one of the most successful pictures of 2011. It managed to break even, which is

considered to be a positive outcome for a Russian film. This work received

international recognition, as it was shown in some countries in Africa, Eastern

Europe, the Middle East, and in North America.160 The producer Timur

Bekmambetov has commented that Lucky Trouble is the first film in Russian history

with a major Hollywood star as a protagonist161.

By analyzing different aspects of these motion pictures, I wish to determine

some tendencies in Moscow’s contemporary city/film relationship. I am interested in

particular qualities of the haptic experience of traveling through cinematic urban

environment. The focus will be on the exploration of landmarks, personal and public

space, on the purposes of vehicles in film.

4.2 A Tourist’s Site: Iconic Locations

Like many other postmodern global cities, Moscow is recognizable in film primarily

as a result of its famous landmarks. Even those who have never been to this capital

will probably recognize it when they see images of the Red Square in cinema.

158 Mazierska, Rascaroli, p.137-159.159 Kinopoisk Database, Drugoe nebo, 2010, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/1/film/468288>.160 ‘Russian Film in Berlin and Cannes’, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://lostfilm.info/filmnews/1656853>.161 A Real Summer Comedy, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.rudata.ru>.

33

Daria Berezhkova

Giuliana Bruno uses a notion ‘tourist gaze’ to describe the film watching

experience.162 This term is especially appropriate in the discussion of iconic locations

in city films. The spectator, like a tourist, is invited to explore Moscow’s famous

monuments, squares and buildings. For those who have been to the capital these

landmarks can become ‘recollection-objects’163, which will stir different memories

and evoke feelings.

Famous Moscow landmarks have been featured in some early film. For

example, the Bolshoi theatre was shown in the 1929 motion picture Man with a

Movie Camera (image 2). Many significant city locations are depicted in the

anthology Moscow, I Love You! This film is composed of 18 five-minute novellas

about the city. One of them, Object #1 (Murat Ibragimbekov), shows two industrial

climbers cleaning famous Soviet and contemporary Russian landmarks. They start

with the Gagarin monument and finish with the Kremlin towers. While they are

working, the viewer is able to observe these monuments closely, from different

angles. In the final scene, made with the help of computer graphics, we witness how

one of the climbers opens and walks through a door, placed in a star of the Kremlin

tower (image 3). Thus the characters of this city film discover new aspects of iconic

locations and can even enter them.

Among other landmarks used in film are the seven Stalin’s Sisters

skyscrapers. The apartments in these prestigious, sought-after houses are expensive,

but for the successful (or simply lucky protagonists) of Moscow, I Love You! the

dream of an average Muscovite becomes reality. The male character in The

Skyscraper (Georgy Paradzhanov) has just been abandoned by his wife. To occupy

himself, he buys a telescope and starts peeking into the windows of the house

opposite to his, which happens to be one of the Stalin’s Sisters. The protagonist spots

a man in one of the apartments that is trying to commit suicide and eventually saves

his life. In this film, thanks to the powers of the telescope, the luxurious interior

suddenly becomes available to the character’s (and the viewer’s) eye.

Many city films capture another landmark, the Moscow subway, in one way

or another. In an iconic film of the Thaw era, Walking the Streets of Moscow (Georgy

Daneliya, 1964), the subway becomes almost a dwelling place for the characters.

162 Bruno, p. 82.163 Marks, pp. 81-84.

34

Daria Berezhkova

Contemporary Russian cinema carries on the Soviet tradition. The letter ‘M’ in the

Moscow, I Love You! title has a similar font as the logotype of the metro itself. The

subway in the capital, unlike the locations mentioned above, is accessible by millions

of people every day. The only time it is closed to the public is at night. The episode

Study in Light Colors (Vasily Chiginsky) from Moscow, I Love You! allows the

spectator to experience the night time metro. This film is about a subway worker who

cleans the stations in the after-hours. This unusual side of Moscow is open to the

protagonist, but at the same time she is deprived of the most customary daytime city

landscapes. To make up for it, the cleaner draws pictures of sunlit Moscow streets.

The viewer is able to travel through night-time metro and to observe the works of the

protagonist.

In contemporary Russian film the spectator has a chance to see new angles

and close-ups of familiar landmarks. In an episode from Moscow, I Love You! called

Valerik (Georgy Paradzhanov), the monument to Yuri Dolgorukij (the founder of

Moscow) is shown in detail (image 4). We can see the veins on Dolgorukij’s raised

hand. Such zoomed in views give a different, more haptic experience of the

cinematic image. As Sergei Eisenstein said:

…with the help of the close-up (the enlarged detail), the spectator plunges

into the most intimate matters on the screen: a flinching eye-lash, a trembling

hand, fingertips touching the lace at a wrist.164

It can be added that film allows the viewer to ‘plunge into’ not only the details of

human bodies, but also into the details of buildings, monuments, sculptures and other

parts of the city landscape. In the words of Laura U. Marks, it is ‘haptic visuality’

that comes into play when the material side of the image is in the focus of attention.

Private, previously unexplored corners and angles become available and can be

experienced haptically in film. This helps provide for a closer interaction between the

viewer and the city.

Some landmarks of the urban environment are inaccessible because of their

size and geographic position (the Yuri Dolgorukij monument), some are available to

a small amount of residents (Stalin’s Sisters), and others can be traversed only during

the day (Moscow metro). But film breaks down these barriers and allows the 164 S Eisenstein, ‘A Close-Up View’, in J Leyda (ed.), Film Essays with a Lecture, Dobson Books Ltd., London, 1968, p. 150.

35

Daria Berezhkova

spectator to see what is hidden in real life. Iconic locations can become nostalgic

‘recollection-objects’ as they are connected with Moscow’s history and the past of its

inhabitants. The viewer like a meticulous tourist travels through the city’s

unapproachable, most intimate parts, exploring small physical details. The spectator

can visit not only the objects of cultural heritage, but also the private and public lived

spaces.

4.3 A Local’s Site: Inhabited Places

For most Muscovites, much like for the inhabitants of other global cities, iconic

locations such as the Red Square play a secondary role. Instead they inhabit and visit

diverse public and private spaces like offices, hospitals, cinemas, and apartments.

The houses where they dwell can be spacious lofts in central Moscow, or crammed

worker’s barracks on the outskirts. Sometimes films give a realistic presentation of a

Muscovite’s life, sometimes they embody their aspirations. For example, the

episodes with famous skyscrapers in Moscow, I Love You express the desires of the

inhabitants, rather than reality. To the majority of Muscovites, Stalin’s Sisters are

mythological touristic locations and not home.

Some films allow their protagonists and spectators to approach the more

‘presentable’ and impressive parts of Moscow, such as the city centre. As Mazierska

and Rascaroli assert, the historical centre has always played an important part in

European cities.165 In postmodern conditions, it becomes a place of fragmentation.

The center turns into a cosmopolitan area where more and more immigrants

assemble, while the locals tend to move into the suburbs. All this can be said about

Moscow. And yet the city centre still remains in focus of most films. In many cases it

is a dwelling place of successful businessmen (in Tycoon), well-connected middle

class (in Lovey-Dovey), or “native” Muscovites that have inherited family apartments

(Valerik). Their apartments might not always be properly renovated, but they still

provide the luxury of living in the center.

Both in real life and in film, there is a certain ‘landscape hierarchy’ when it

comes to living in the city. Those who have recently come to Moscow, or who

cannot afford to live centrally, dwell in the residential areas of the city and the slums 165Mazierska, Rascaroli, p. 18.

36

Daria Berezhkova

(Another Sky). Those who are better off occupy skyscrapers and historical houses.

Another tendency for successful Muscovites is to move to the prestigious cottages

outside of Moscow on the Rublev highway (where current president Vladimir Putin

also resides).

We can track the change in dwelling preferences of a character, Platon

Makovsky, in Tycoon. This film is about the protagonist’s ascent from a regular

research associate to a businessman-multimillionaire. He builds his career on

schemes and frauds, but gradually becomes one of the most influential people in the

country. Every step of Makovsky’s way up is reflected in his household and his

office. In the beginning he lives in a humble small apartment, later he moves to ever

more spacious flats, and finally he acquires his own mansion in the centre of

Moscow. Some of his business is located in a contemporary skyscraper, and some is

taken care of in Kremlin’s cabinets. At one point Makovsky purchases a luxurious

mansion outside of the capital (these episodes were shot in Arkhangelskoe, a 19 th

century mansion, now a museum). Owning several flats in central Moscow and a

house near-by is a clear sign of wealth and status. During one of the parties at the

mansion, the guests are entertained by gypsy singers and elephants, which were the

exotic and necessary elements of noble parties of the 19th century. Most of

Makovsky’s leisure activities take place in the same spaces that were used by 19th

century noble gentlemen: Sandunovskie bani baths, Moscow racetrack, steam boats

on the Moscow-Volga channel. Thus, as shown by film, the highest peak of success

for a contemporary businessman is to have the same lifestyle and to live in the same

houses as the nobles did a hundred years ago.

Some contemporary city films depict people who come to Moscow from

other towns or countries. The capital becomes a traveling destination, a goal of their

pursuit. Usually films about the life of immigrants and migrants show a different side

of Moscow, a city’s backstage. In the film Another Sky, the protagonist Ali, a peasant

from Central Asia, comes to Moscow with his son in search of his run-away wife.

Here the capital is portrayed as a hostile environment for those who are less

privileged. Ali spends his time roaming around the city without any results. He and

his young son are forced to take up different jobs to earn money. The son is

eventually killed on the timber-work plant. Soon after the tragedy, Ali finds his wife.

37

Daria Berezhkova

The spaces shown in Another Sky are different from those in Tycoon, though

both of the films are partially set in central Moscow. In Another Sky there are almost

no skyscrapers or historical mansions. Ali travels through faceless, half empty, grey

spaces: hospitals, police stations, homeless shelters, morgues, and barracks of illegal

immigrants (image 5). Ali’s Moscow is a typical any-space-whatever, a ‘shanty

town’.166 In fact, if not for the opening scene where Moscow’s train station is shown,

it would probably be impossible to say where exactly the events take place. Chinese

prostitutes occupy a brothel that Ali visits, immigrants from Central Asia work in the

parlour where he finds his wife. The capital has become a cosmopolitan space where

different nationalities and languages mix. In Another Sky, local attributes of Moscow

that distinguish it from other cities are erased.

Another type of any-space-whatever is shown in the comedy Lovey-Dovey.

This motion picture is about a married couple that decides to go to a psychiatrist after

yet another family quarrel. The doctor turns out to be a magician, who puts a spell on

the two. The husband and wife exchange bodies and eventually learn to understand

each other better, which saves their relationship. The protagonists of this film are

successful middle class people in their 30s: the wife is a curator at the Center for

Contemporary Art, the husband is a lawyer at the Moscow City Court. Both of these

places exist in real life as the film was partly shot on location. But the rest of the

daily life of the two characters happens in an ambiguous any-space-whatever:

shopping centers, karate clubs, and spa salons. The office of a lawyer in this film has

white walls, a bulky leather couch, a large wooden table and mini golf equipment

(image 6). There are no extra details or decorations that would give away the fact

that this office is situated in Moscow. This might have been a work place of an

American businessman in a Hollywood film. Many locations in Lovey-Dove look

like they could exist in other global cities. Such any-space-whatever are spots that

recur across all over, but aren’t specific to any certain nation.167

As Walter Benjamin said:

…film is the prism in which the spaces of the immediate environment – the

spaces in which people live, pursue their avocations, and enjoy their leisure –

166 D Martin-Jones, Deleuze and World Cinemas, Continuum International Publishing Group, London, New York, 2011, p. 143.167 Martin-Jones.

38

Daria Berezhkova

are laid open before their eyes in a comprehensible, meaningful, and

passionate way.168

Moscow film allows the viewer to be a local of the city and to take a journey through

the secret passages and rooms of public and private spaces. The viewer can go ‘site-

seeing’169 through the different unexplored levels of city life, from historical

mansions to the slums, from standardized offices to the Kremlin cabinets. In

contemporary film, Moscow becomes a space of fragmentation and cosmopolitism.

The contrasts of the postmodern urban life can be expressed in city films due to the

all pervading ability of the camera.

4.4 Ways to Get Around: Vehicles

In most city films, at one point or another, characters undertake journeys through

Moscow. As Andrew Otway pointed out, an efficient way of finding oneself in town

is by walking or driving as opposed to using a map.170 In Moscow cinema, the

automobile becomes the necessary vehicle for almost anyone in the city. In

contemporary Moscow film, vehicles are mostly used as tools for ‘wayfinding’.171

For example, in Another Sky, Ali searches for his wife while driving a car at night.

Besides its wayfinding capabilities, vehicles can become a part of a

character’s city life. In the short film The Queen (Alla Surikova) in Moscow, I Love

you! the protagonist drives around the city in a small blue car. A whole life takes

place within that vehicle: she drinks a morning coffee, argues with the drivers of

passing cars, drops off her son, bribes a policeman, puts on makeup and gets dressed

(image 7). The woman uses the red light and traffic jams as an opportunity to take

care of herself. The protagonist manages to adjust her life to the rhythm of the city

and its roads. The vehicle becomes a place of her habitat. Sometimes, the means of

transportation can play a crucial role in the life of the characters. For example, a car

or motorcycle accident can bring two people together. In a film from the anthology

Moscow, I Love You! called Letter To Grandmother (Georgy Natanson), the 168 Bruno, p. 329.169 Bruno, p.15.170 A Otway, ‘Night on Earth, Urban Wayfinding and Everyday Life’, in F Penz, A Lu (eds.), Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011, p. 169.171 Otway.

39

Daria Berezhkova

protagonist, a South Korean girl gets hit by a man on a motorcycle. After the

accident the couple falls in love and spends time driving around the city. The Russian

man shows the immigrant girl famous locations, starting from the Red Square and

eventually taking her to the sightseeing platform on Vorobyovy mountains, a famous

gathering place of the Moscow motorcyclists in the summer.

In the film Lucky Trouble, a car is also used as a tool for sightseeing. This is a

story about Nadia, a rich woman from Moscow (played by Milla Jovovich), who falls

in love with Slava Kolotilov, a school teacher from a small town. They also meet

after an accident (Nadia hits Slava on her BMW). Their relationship develops as they

drive around the city. Only this time it is the rich woman’s turn to show Moscow to

the out-of-towner. The couple travels alongside some of the famous landmarks.

Notably, they pass numerous amounts of commercial posters and neon signs, which

promote different goods (for example, home appliances). Apart from being mere

product placements, these advertisements are integrated into the narrative and

acquire a new meaning. Each of the commercial images is transformed by some sign,

a picture, or graffiti. This way Slava uses the advertisements to confess his love to

Nadia. Thus the vehicle in this film is used as a means to see the city views that are

comprised of landmarks, commercial images and graffiti: typical components of a

postmodern city.

Finally, transport in film plays an important role in determining a social

position of the characters. They become objects of status just like apartments and

mansions. Jean Baudrillard asserted that objects in society are ‘profoundly

hierarchical’.172 The pursuit of a social standing is built on the differences of objects

and Moscow film proves this point. Successful people are often portrayed driving

expensive black cars (Lucky Trouble). Those who come to Moscow for work are

shown using public transportation. Usually people in search of a better life arrive in

Moscow by train (Another Sky). They also leave by train if they fail to achieve what

they wanted (Tycoon).

Unlike cars and motorcycles, public vehicles, such as trams, trolleys and mini

busses, are actually used as a means of transportation, ‘wayfinding’, and not as

instruments for sight-seeing. This breaks with the tradition of the Soviet cinema,

172 J Baudrillard, The Consumer Society. Myths and Structures, transl. C Turner, Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, 2004, p. 90.

40

Daria Berezhkova

where public transport like trackless trolleys was romanticized (image 8). In those

days such vehicles could be used for exploring the city. Thus in Moscow film, some

vehicles can be used to transport people from one place to another, while others serve

as a flâneur’s tool for observation.

Ways to Get Around: Without Vehicles

Like a panorama of the 19th century, film gives the viewer an opportunity to explore

the urban landscape. Different landmarks, personal and public spaces can be

investigated by the characters and the spectators of the film. Some city journeys can

be taken with the help of vehicles, while others do not require movement at all. Films

provide a guided city tour experience where the spectator is a tourist and the

protagonist is a guide. In Moscow, I Love you! an actual Moscow map is used to help

the viewer navigate through its 18 short films. Before each new episode begins, a

map with a certain landmark is shown to indicate the part of the city where the events

will take place.

Observing panoramic vistas of the capital is one type of a city tour that a

spectator can take without having to move. Much like in real life, the urban

landscape can unravel itself in front of the viewer’s eyes by itself. The Oscar-

winning Moscow Does not Believe in Tears starts and ends with a bird’s eye view on

Moscow (image 9). Some of the films in the Moscow, I Love you! anthology repeat

this stylistic technique. One of the places where a panorama of Moscow can be best

observed from is the Vorobyovy mountains’ sight-seeing platform (image 10).173

Viewing Moscow landscape from the Vorobyovy mountains is a universal,

democratic method of exploring the city both for the spectator and the characters.

This view can be enjoyed by almost anyone, regardless of their background or social

position, during the day and during the night.

Another type of a city tour can be seen in More zhelanij. Observing the city

views is the main preoccupation of the two young men in this work. The protagonists

linger in the street corners of the city, which are miraculously turned into a resort

town. They make plans to go down to the sea, but instead continue looking at the

passing people and drinking wine. In this motion picture, Moscow space is created 173 Tycoon, Moscow I Love You!, and More zhelanij are among fims that feature this view.

41

Daria Berezhkova

based on the actual childhood memories and experiences of the director. Using

Fredric Jameson’s terms, this film can be called nostalgic.174 More specifically, this is

the type of a nostalgic picture that is set in the present but evokes memories of the

past.175 It is ambiguous when the events take place; the time here can be called ‘any-

time-whatever’. In More Zhelanij the city itself becomes a ‘recollection-object’.

Here, the memory of Moscow is combined with the memory of the Black sea

that so many people who grew up in the Soviet Union share. The film was for the

most part shot on a few blocks in the Kitaj-gorod area in central Moscow. In the

motion picture there is no traffic and no people on the narrow, winding streets with

old houses. The people who do appear are friendly to each other. Anyone who has

been to Moscow perhaps knows that this district is almost always very busy with

traffic. Thus the urban space in the film is far from the real Moscow; it is a memory

of a city, or a vision of how it should be.176

In one scene, when the protagonists enjoy Moscow’s panoramic view from

the Vorobyovy mountains, two haptic memories are combined (image 10). The

skyscrapers and famous landmarks can be seen from afar and at the same time the

sound of the breaking waves and the seagulls can be heard. The tall light green grass

resembles sedge grass that grows by the sea. The city tour that becomes available in

this film is a journey through the dream-like Moscow constructed from the memory

of the director and possibly the memories of those who have had a similar experience

of the city. This tour is more significant to those who can identify with the characters

and their feelings.

The protagonists of More zhelanij know the way to the sea, but simply do not

wish to follow it. They have already found what they were looking for in Moscow

and have no desire to walk further. Characters in the short film In the Center of

GUM, Near the Fountain (Ekaterina Dvigubskaya) from the Moscow, I Love You!

anthology have also reached their destination. This novella takes place in Moscow’s

most popular historical shopping mall GUM (State Department Store), which is

located on the Red Square. The film begins with the mall’s radio announcing that all

174 F Jameson, pp 123-135. 175 Jameson, pp. 7-10.176 ‘Home Theatre: Sea of Desire’ (my translation), Royal cheese, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.royalcheese.ru/city/94-domashnij-kinoteatr-more-zhelanij.html>.

42

Daria Berezhkova

those who are lost should meet each other in the centre of the store, near the fountain.

In the course of the film two couples reunite at the there. All we know about the

couples is that one of them had lost the sight of each other in a far away town. The

other, an older couple, was also separated a long time ago. The loved ones finally

reunite, overcoming time and distance. All this is possible in the centre of GUM,

situated in the center of Moscow, which in turn can be considered the ‘center’ of

Russia. Thus, Moscow is shown as a hub where those who are lost can literally and

figuratively be found. In many of the discussed films the idea of Moscow as a

meeting place, a final stop of the travelers’ journey prevails. When the protagonists

arrive to this destination, they have no need to explore and move about.

In Moscow city film some tours around the city can be arranged using

different vehicles. At other times the character and the spectator does not need to be

in motion in order to make a journey: the views of the city can unravel themselves

from a bird’s eye view. Films are also able to evoke haptic memories. In these cases

the spectator is invited to travel not only through space, but also through time.

The case studies examined above show that Moscow cinema provides a

unique experience of voyaging through urban space. The spectator can visit the most

inaccessible ‘exotic’ locations, see the ordinary inhabited places of the Muscovites

and even take a trip down to their past. These motion pictures help understand the

contemporary city/film relationship in Moscow. On the one hand cinema represents

the texture of an urban space realistically, and on the other hand, creates a feeling of

a fragile, ethereal, dream-like city.

Conclusion

This thesis asserts that motion pictures take part in constructing cities, creating a

certain atmosphere, a ‘feeling’ of urban space, which cannot be tracked down and put

on a map. As the discussion in the paper has shown, film is a spatial reality rather

than a textual. Cinema borrows its key principles from architecture and the travelling

culture. This is why there is a tight connection and an interaction between film and

the city. Today the spectator is considered to be a contemporary flâneur, a

‘voyageur’, that engages in city journeys such as ‘site-seeing’ and ‘wayfinding’.

43

Daria Berezhkova

One of the important qualities of postmodern film highlighted in this thesis is

the physical, tactile side of the moving image. As our perception of the motion

picture is embodied, the literal, concrete meaning of film becomes crucial. The

‘cinesthetic subject’ can experience cinema’s ‘haptic visuality’ with the entire

spectrum of senses. This is why it is important to pay attention to the material fabric

of film: the small details, the colours, the textures. Motion pictures can depict

‘recollection-objects’ that may evoke ‘haptic memories’ in some of the viewers.

The spectator of the contemporary Moscow film participates in a haptic

journey. Due to its historical and economic specificities Moscow cinema is a unique

type of city film. After the changes in the political system in the 1990s, Russian

cinema was affected by the Western cultural and economic values on the one side,

and by the homogenizing effects of globalization on the other. Today motion pictures

set in Moscow show a cosmopolitan and fragmentized space that is saturated with

advertisements and graffiti. More and more films depict the lives not only of the

‘native’ Muscovites, but also of the migrants. The environment of the urban dwellers

is becoming ‘generic’. It is the ‘any-space-whatever’ typical for a global city.

As a reaction to the consequences of globalization, films turn to the

‘nostalgic’ theme. In the new circumstances of the free market economy some of the

traditions of Soviet cinematography, accumulated in the past 100 years, still remain.

A yearning for the nostalgic past can be felt in those city films that refuse to portray

the present conditions. As a result, the time described in such works is an ambiguous

‘any-time-whatever’. Most of the motion pictures still focus on portraying the life of

the centre with its historical buildings and iconic locations. Films do not yet

acknowledge the important role of the suburbs in contemporary city life. Instead,

most Moscow moving pictures feature the mythological landmarks that are believed

to preserve the aura, the spirit of the city. Another tradition is kept by the Moscow

cinematograph: the tradition of depicting the capital as the centre of the country,

where one goes in search of love and success. This way Moscow city film preserves

some of the local flavour while being heavily influenced by the processes of

globalization.

The experience of watching Moscow film resembles the experience of going

on a tour, guided by a local. The spectator can follow the protagonist and explore

iconic locations as well as the inhabited private and public spaces. City film allows 44

Daria Berezhkova

the viewer not only to discover new unexplored sites, but also to get a close-up look

and see unusual angles of familiar places. The most intimate locations which are

inaccessible in real life become available to the protagonist and the spectator.

Prestigious neighbourhoods in the historical parts of the city, slums in the outskirts,

offices in the business districts can be easily traversed in film.

The contemporary city space can be explored with the help of different

vehicles. The most common means of transportation is a car. The automobile has

become an inherent part of the city experience. The car is a tool for ‘wayfinding’,

‘site-seeing’, it can even become a space of dwelling. But driving is not the only way

of travelling through a city. It is possible to accomplish a journey through space

without making a move, simply by observing panoramic views. City journeys can

involve traversing not only space, but also time. Haptic memories that are evoked by

‘recollection-objects’ can provide the viewer with an experience of the past. Thus

film can help the spectator to discover unknown locations, unattainable corners of

familiar spots and to re-live forgotten sensations.

Cinema can be used for exploring the ‘authentic’ urban environment. Besides

that moving pictures take part in the creation of the contemporary postmodern space.

Not only do they mirror the ‘real’ places, they can also help construct the

mythological, ephemeral, dream-like city, woven from the memories, hopes and

aspirations of the city dwellers.

Bibliography

Books

AlSayyad, N, Cinematic Urbanism. A history of the Modern from Reel to Real, Routledge, New York, London, 2006.

Baudelaire, C, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, transl. J. Mayne, 2nd edn, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1995.

Baudrillard, J, The Consumer Society. Myths and Structures, transl. C Turner, Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, 2004.

45

Daria Berezhkova

Benjamin, W, A Berlin Chronicle, in M W Jennings, H Eiland (eds.), W Benjamin, Selected Writings, transl. R Livingstone, vol. 2, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 1999.

Benjamin, W, Charles Baudelaire: a Lyrical Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, transl. H. Zohn, NLB, London, 1973.

Benjamin, W, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in H Arendt (ed.), H Zohn (transl.), Illuminations, Fontana, London, 1973.

Benjamin, W, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, transl. H. Eiland, E. Jephcott, R. Livingstone & others, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 2008.

Benjamin, W, The Writer of Modern Life. Essays on Charles Baudelaire, trans. H Eiland, E Jephcott, R Livingstone & H Zohn, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 2006.

Betz, M, ‘Film History, Film Genre, and Their Discontents: The Case of the Omnibus Film’, The Moving Image: Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, 2001.

Beumers, B, The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, Wallflower Press, London, New York, 2007.

Biernoff, S, ‘Carnal Relations: Embodied Sight in Merleau-Ponty, Roger Bacon and St Francis’, Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 4:39, pp. 39-52, 2005.

Bogue, R, Deleuze on Cinema, Routledge, New York, London, 2003.

Bruno, G, Atlas of Emotion. Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film, Verso, New York, 2002.

Deleuze, G, Cinema 2. The Time-image, trans. H. Tomlinson & R. Galeta, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989.

Eisenstein, S, ‘A Close-Up View’, in J Leyda (ed.), Film Essays with a Lecture, Dobson Books Ltd., London, 1968.

Eisenstein, S, ‘Montage and Architecture’, Assemblage, no. 10, 1989.

Elsaesser, T, M Hagener, Film Theory. An Introduction Through the Senses, Routledge, New York, London, 2010.

Flaxman, G, The Brain is the Screen. Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 2000.

Friedberg, A, Window Shopping. Cinema and the Postmodern, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1994.

Ihde, D, Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, 1990.

Jameson, F, The Cultural Turn. Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998, Verso, London, New York, 1998.

46

Daria Berezhkova

Koolhaas, R, The Generic City, Sikkiens Foundation, Sassenheim, 1995.

Krause, L, P Petro, Global Cities. Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, London, 2003.

Le Corbusier, ‘Villa Savoye a Poissy, 1929-31’, in W Boesiger (ed.), Le Corbusier, P Jeanneret. Oeuvre complete de 1929-1934, vol. 2, Les éditions d’architecture Zurich, Zurich, 1964.

Marks, LU, The Skin of the Film. Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses, Duke University Press, Durhan, London, 2000.

Martin-Jones, D, Deleuze and World Cinemas, Continuum International Publishing Group, London, New York, 2011.

Mazierska, E, L Rascaroli, From Moscow to Madrid: Postmodern Cities, European Cinema, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. London, New York, 2003.

Merleau-Ponty, M, Phenomenology of Perception, transl. C. Smith, Routledge, London, New York, 1995.

Penz, F, A Lu, Urban Cinematics. Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image, Intellect Ltd, Bristol, Chicago, 2011.

Sassen, S, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001.

Shiel, M, T Fitzmaurice, Cinema and the City. Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford, Malden, 2001.

Sobchack, V, Carnal Thoughts. Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles, London, 2004.

Sobchack, V, The Address of the Eye. A Phenomenology of Film Experience, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992.

Internet resources

Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, retrieved 19 May 2012, <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html>.

Deshpande S, ‘Anthology Film. The Future is Now: Film Producer as Creative Director’, Wide Screen, vol. 2, Issue 2, 2010, pp. 1-3, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://widescreenjournal.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/86/131>.

‘Do actions speak louder than logos?’ Global Cities Blog, 2011, <http://www.globalcities.eu/blog/do-actions-speak-louder-than-logos>.

Heart of Moscow website, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://heartofmoscow.ru>.

47

Daria Berezhkova

E Gerashenko, K Aminov, E Khvostik, ‘American Culture Park’ (my translation), Kommersant, #66, 2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://www.kommersant.ru/doc-y/1914164>.

‘Home Theatre: Sea of Desire’ (my translation), Royal cheese, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.royalcheese.ru/city/94-domashnij-kinoteatr-more-zhelanij.html>.

Kachkaeva, E, ‘Moscow Brand’ (my translation), Bolshoj Gorod, 2012, retrieved 20 April 2012, <http://www.bg.ru/stories/10670>.

Kinopoisk Database, Drugoe nebo, 2010, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/1/film/468288>.

Lake, J, ‘Red Road (2006) and Emerging Narratives of “Sub-veillance”’, Continuum, 24:2, 2004, retrieved 29 November 2011, < http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304310903294721>.

Lury, K, D Massey, ‘Making Connections’, Screen, no. 40(3), 1999, pp. 229-238, retrieved 4 April 2012, <http://screen.oxford.org>.

Matveeva, A, ‘Cinema is Slowing Down’ (my translation), Gazeta.ru, 30.01.2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://www.gazeta.ru/business/2012/01/30/3979365.shtml>.

‘Moscow 19th on list of global cities’ (my translation), The Voice of Russia Radio, 04.08.2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_04_04/70569903/>.

Proust, M, Swann’s Way, vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past, transl. C K Scott Moncrieff, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 2010, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/marcel/p96s/index.html>.

‘Real Summer Comedy’, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.rudata.ru>.

‘Russian Film in Berlin and Cannes’, 2012, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://lostfilm.info/filmnews/1656853>.

United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision Population Database, retrieved 26 April 2012, <http://esa.un.org/unup/p2k0data.asp>.

Yakubovskaya, A, ‘Egor Konchalovsky on the almanac ‘Moscow, I love you’’, 2008, retrieved 19 May 2012, <http://www.rudata.ru>.

Yarosh, Y, P Belavin & S Sobolev, S‘Russian Cinema’s Distribution will be Expanded’ (my translation), Kommersant, #43, 2012, retrieved 16 April 2012, <http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1891176>.

Yurlova, S, ‘Mythology of Moscow’, Izvestia Uralskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, no. 55 (15), 2008, pp. 64-70, retrieved 20 May 2012, <http://proceedings.usu.ru/?base=mag/0055%2801_15>.

48

Daria Berezhkova

Filmography

Another Sky (Drugoe nebo). Dir. Dmitri Mamulia. Russia. 2010.

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat). Dir. Lumière brothers. France. 1896.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt). Dir. Walter Ruttmann. Germany. 1927.

Beware of the Car (Beregis avtomobilia). Dir. Eldar Ryazanov. Soviet Union. 1966.

49

Daria Berezhkova

Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. USA/Hong Kong. 1982.

Body Heat. Dir. Lawrence Kasdan. USA. 1981.

Cordeliers Square, Lyons (Place des Cordeliers à Lyons). Dir. Louis Lumière. France. 1895.

Cranes are Flying, The (Letyat zhuravli). Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov. Soviet Union. 1957.

Heart’s Boomerang (Serdca bumerang). Dir. Nikolay Khomeriki. Russia. 2011.

I am Twenty (Mne dvadcat’ let), Dir. Marlen Hutsiev. Soviet Union. 1965.

Jolly Fellows (Vesyolye Rebyata). Dir. Grigori Alexandrov. Soviet Union. 1934.

July Rain (Iyulskiy dozhd). Dir. Marlen Khutsiyev. Soviet Union. 1966.

Lovey-Dovey (Lyubov-morkov). Dir. Alexandr Strizhenov. Russia. 2007.

Lucky Trouble (Vykrutasy). Dir. Levan Gabriadze. Russia. 2011.

Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kino-apparatom). Dir. Dziga Vertov. Soviet Union. 1929.

Metropolis. Dir. Fritz Lang. Geramny. 1927.

Mon Oncle. Dir. Jacques Tati. France/Italy. 1958.

More zhelanij. Dir. Shota Gamisonia. Russia. 2010.

Moscow (Moskva). Dir. Mikhail Kaufman, Ilya Kopalin. Soviet Union. 1927.

Moscow Does not Believe in Tears (Moskva slezam ne verit). Dir. Vladimir Menshov. Soviet Union. 1980.

Moscow, I Love You! (Moskva, ya lyublyu tebya!). Dir. Nana Dzhordzhadze, Oleg Fomin, Artyom Mikhalkov, Georgi Natanson, Ivan Okhlobystin, Georgi Paradzhanov, Andrei Razenkov, Vera Storozheva, Elina Suni, Alla Surikova. Russia. 2010.

Night on Earth. Dir. Jim Jarmusch. France/UK/Germany/USA/Japan. 1991.

Night Watch (Nochnoj dozor). Dir. Timur Bekmambetov. Russia. 2004.

New York, I Love You. Dir. Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Randall Balsmeyer, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang,  Shekhar Kapur, Joshua Marston, Mira Nair, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner. USA. 2009.

Panorama from Times Building, New York. Dir. Wallace McCutcheon. USA. 1905.

Paris, je t’aime. Dir. Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles,

50

Daria Berezhkova

Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant. France/Liechtenstein/Switzerland/Germany. 2006.

Tycoon (Oligarkh). Russia/France/Germany. Dir. Pavel Lungin. Russia. 2002.

Walking the Streets of Moscow (Ya shagayu po Moskve). Dir. Georgy Daneliya. Soviet Union. 1964.

Zazie dans le Métro. Dir. Louis Malle. France/Italy. 1960.

51

Daria Berezhkova

Image Appendix

Image 1: A Moscow souvenir from an online store Heart of Moscow <http://heartofmoscow.ru>.

Image 2: The Bolshoi Theatre in Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929).

52

Daria Berezhkova

Image 3: The Kremlin star in Object #1 (Moscow, I Love You! Murat Ibragimbekov, 2010)

Image 4: Zoom-in of the Yuri Dolgorukij monument in Valerik (Moscow, I Love You! Georgy Paradzhanov, 2010).

53

Daria Berezhkova

Image 5: Any-space-whatever, in Another Sky (Dmitri Mamulia, 2010).

Image 6: Office mini-golf in Lovey-Dovey (Alexandr Strizhenov, 2007).

54

Daria Berezhkova

Image 7: Getting dressed in a car, The Queen (Moscow, I Love You! Alla Surikova, 2010).

Image 8: Romantic trolleys in July Rain (Marlen Khutsiyev, 1966).

55

Daria Berezhkova

Image 9: Typical panorama view as the opening scene of Moscow Does not Believe in Tears (Vladimir Menshov, 1980).

Image 10: Vorobyovy mountains’ panoramic vista of Moscow in More Zhelanij (Shota Gamisonia, 2010).

56