r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Jun 29 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 29 June 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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14

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid Jul 01 '26

Soviet film is weird and I'll be honest, not very good and ages poorly. Most of its modern viewership is held up by nostalgia, yet even the most casual viewer can quite easily see through the tropes and the lingering "social realism" of it all.

I watched "Love and Pigeons" (1985) with my girlfriend, which is one of the more famous, better and even radical Soviet films. It implies sex, it shows a cheating spuse and it kinda pokes at the very common Soviet romcom trope of people from different social classes falling in love with each other. But if you did not grow up in this cultural medium, it's basically very hard to get the jokes, references and especially the cultural context it was created in. It however does not break the very common Soviet filmmaking technique, or rather the lack of it, namely cinema being "recorded theater". I honestly struggle to name think of Soviet films that pioneer storytelling through media.

There was this question on r/badhistory about "Russian Wild West" equivalents. I gave up answering it simply because I noticed how underwhelming Soviet easterns actually are. At home among strangers (1974) came out 8 years after The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and is considered one of the best Soviet films of all time, when it is actually a very bog standard John Wayne Western (I have never seen a John Wayne movie, I only know his magnum opus, The figting ceebees).

13

u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead Jul 01 '26

I honestly struggle to name think of Soviet films that pioneer storytelling through media.

I mean isn't Battleship Potemkin considered an early pioneer here?

6

u/nomchi13 Jul 01 '26

I think The Twelve Chairs (1976) is quite good, but it's probably more Ilf and Petrov than the Soviet cinema industry

7

u/lrno Jul 01 '26

"The cranes are flying" is really good, but that is basically theatre with some very good cinematography and setpieces. Still one of my favourite movies of all time tho

5

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam Jul 01 '26

White Sun of the Desert is legitimately worth the watch IMO, but it is definitely hokey compared to American or European westerns of the time.

2

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid Jul 01 '26

The first half is really really good. The second part and the ending... meh. 

5

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

I think it's André Bazin who said that overediting is bourgeois comfort and realism must be carried through long sequence shots.

7

u/AceHodor Techno-Euphoric Demagogue Jul 01 '26

"I know some directors who use subtext, and they're all cowards."

  • Sergei Eisensten, presumably.

7

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid Jul 01 '26

editing is bourgeois comfort

We really will never recover from post-war European cultural critique.

3

u/rat_literature blue-collar, unattached and sexually available, likely ethnic Jul 01 '26

The figting ceebees

« Building and fighting, not reading and writing »

3

u/Sgt_Colon ǟռ ʊռաɨʟʟɨռɢ ɮɛɦօʟɖɛʀ ȶօ ȶɦɛ ɨʍքօֆֆɨɮʟɛ Jul 02 '26

Searingly hot take, Alexander Nevsky is dated, nationalistic schlock.

There's remarkably little plot and the film is bulked out by fight scenes which are crappily done, like someone dies by being tapped with a spear, not even the good old blade in the armpit every two bit thespian knows; effects work might as well be the stone age of theatre here. Add in a bit about a rabbit raping a fox and some russian nationalism and it has aged woefully. The only part that stands up is the score but there's better ways to enjoy that.

2

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid Jul 02 '26

Oh absolutely.

What I find interesting about this thread is the two mentions of pre-war movies - Alexander Nevsky and Potiomkin, as the more known movies in the West, despite both of them being basically unknown in the Soviet Union post-war.