The Long Farewell
Saturday, May 13 at 7:00pm
Highlighting restored, archival, and silent cinema from Il Cinema Ritrovato's annual festival in Bologna, Italy.
Introduction by Julia Chadaga (Macalester College).
About The Long Farewell (Dolgie Provody)
Russia | Directed by Kira Muratova | 1971 | 97 min | Russian | Courtesy Janus Films
Divorcee Evgeniia Vasilevna, brilliantly acted by Zinaida Sharko, has spent 15 years working at the same desk as a technical translator. She is equally stuck in the rut of her mothering role, refusing to acknowledge that her son Sasha has grown up, as in many ways she refuses to grow up herself… Muratova subjects her heroine to a steely-eyed, penetrating gaze that reveals her worst faults. But, like Valentina in Korotkie vstrechi, Evgeniia is no caricature. Sharko makes her sufficiently sympathetic for us to cringe in embarrassment when she publicly nags Sasha to clean his nails, or bribes a postal worker to let her read his letters from his father… The theme of the parent/child relationship is treated in an interesting and somewhat unusual way. The screenplay encourages youth to be tender, more attentive, more humane. Veteran director Alexander Zarkhi wrote of Evgeniia Vasilevna: “At first glance, she seems banal and unpleasant, but later we discover in her genuinely strong emotions towards her son, and a human depth.” Screenwriter Mikhail Bleiman added: “We have got too used to a film and a screenplay being ‘about’ something. And we feel a bit at a loss when faced with a screenplay that is simply about life without foregrounding a ‘problem’.”… Muratova had nearly finished the film when, on 2 March 1971, an ominous telegram from the head of Goskino summoned her to Moscow. After looking at the material she had shot the editorial board demanded major changes… Their principal demand concerned the heroine, “who still in several scenes is devoid of charm, sympathy for others, fully admirable character”… Their eight demands illustrate the bureaucrats’ obsessive concern with elements that were less than cheerful and optimistic… During the 16 years that Dolgie Provody was withheld from release it was regularly shown to students at VGIK, in Moscow, where it influenced a whole new generation of Soviet filmmakers. –Jane Taubman, Kira Muratova, I.B Tauris, New York 2005
Julia Chadaga (Macalester College) Bio: Julia Chadaga is an Associate Professor of Russian Studies at Macalester College. Her research and teaching interests include Russian literature, film, material and visual culture, and the relationship between art and crime in Russian cultural history. She has published in the journals Russian Review, Slavic Review, Slavic and East European Journal, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, and Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie [New Literary Review]. She has contributed to the edited volume Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Europe and co-edited The Svetlana Boym Reader. Her book Optical Play: Glass, Vision, and Spectacle in Russian Culture (Northwestern University Press, 2014) was shortlisted for the Historia Nova Prize for Best Book on Russian Intellectual and Cultural History.
About Il Cinema Ritrovato On Tour–Minneapolis
Il Cinema Ritrovato On Tour–Minneapolis will feature recently restored archival films at The Main Cinema from May 11–13, 2023. Presented in partnership by Archives on Screen, Twin Cities, the Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Cineteca di Bologna, the festival will screen eleven highlights from Il Cinema Ritrovato’s 2022 lineup. Il Cinema Ritrovato is an annual international film festival that exhibits new restorations and archival films in Bologna, Italy. Archives on Screen is proud to partner with Il Cinema Ritrovato and Cineteca di Bologna to curate selections from their festival for Twin Cities audiences.
About Archives on Screen, Twin Cities
Co-organized by Michelle Baroody and Maggie Hennefeld, Archives on Screen is dedicated to bringing rare, unseen archival films from around the globe to movie screens in the Twin Cities. Animated by a love of cinema and a commitment to making visible excluded images from the past, we work with international film archives and local film venues to expose students and audiences to the richness of film history. We program events that foster open dialogue and community engagement between university students and local film audiences across the Twin Cities. Our programming draws on local, national, and international film archives, and it spans the early history of silent cinema, studio feature films, experimental counter-cinemas, third cinema, amateur and non-theatrical films, short films, unfinished films, and contemporary independent filmmaking.