Skip to main content

Sovexportfilms, 1975

Found these posters of two Russian films in an old film magazine.

Hot Snow

 
also known as 'The Sannikov Land'
Labels:

Comments

  1. Vinayak RazdanDec 27, 2010, 7:41:00 PM

    "Our American childhood in Bombay happened during the Cold War, when one part of the world was under the canopy of Brezhnev’s enormous eyebrows. We were in that part of the world. Although India is a democracy, it was certainly a political and strategic ally of Russia; Russia gave us an idea of moral and economic rectitude, while America provided us with a sort of illicit entertainment. As for Soviet entertainment, there were the astonishing films. We went to watch Sovexport films for two reasons. The first was that Russian films emerged from a more consciously artistic tradition of cinema than anything to be found in Hollywood. The other reason was less high-minded: our political friendship led to an odd indulgence on the part of the National Board of Film Censors, and the nudity in bad Sovexport films went largely uncut. The cuts in Hollywood films were clumsily, even insultingly, made—a woman might be unbuttoning her blouse; she seemed to suffer a brief spasm or convulsion; then she was seen to be buttoning her blouse. We, in the Seventies, studied that spasm closely but hopelessly. Nakedness in American movies was kept from us by a wall of propriety harder to penetrate than the Iron Curtain."

    'What We Think of America' by Amit Chaudhuri for Granta77 (2002)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ravi HandaDec 29, 2010, 2:43:00 AM

    I am often amazed at two things:
    1. Where the hell do you find this stuff from.
    2. Why do so little people know about you.

    I guess you will have an answer for the first one.. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Vinayak RazdanDec 29, 2010, 11:27:00 AM

    Ravi,
    first thing first. This is India's No.1 blog since 1857. A1. First class blog. Everybody knows about it :)

    About the second query. I source them from all kind of places old magazines, ebay, old books and from stuff sent in by some really generous and wonderful friends.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.
175 comments
Read more

Indian Cigarette Vintage Ads

He put a cigarette in his mouth and, as a matter of silent routine, offered one to Gwyn, who said ‘No thanks.”Richard looked at him.”I packed it in.”"You what?”"I stopped. Three days ago. Cold. That’s it. You just make the life choice.” Richard looked up and inhaled needfully. He gazed at his cigarette. He didn’t really want to smoke it. He wanted to eat it. Almost the only thing that he still liked about Gwyn was that he still smoked…Paradoxically, he no longer wanted to give up smoking: what he wanted to do was take up smoking. Not so much to fill the little gaps between cigarettes with cigarettes (there wouldn’t be time, anyway) or to smoke two cigarettes at once. It was more that he felt the desire to smoke a cigarette even when he was smoking a cigarette. The need was and wasn’t being met… While it would always be true and fair to say that Richard felt like a cigarette, it would now be doubly true and fair to say it. He felt like a cigarette. And he felt like a cig...
21 comments
Read more

Kishore Kumar, Yodel-ay-ee-oooo Songs, A List

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t...
18 comments
Read more