In The Service Of The State: The Cinema Of Alexander Dovzhenko
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: New/Excellent. - in original publisher's plastic shrink wrap, no tears or damage. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Tight and secure.
At the intersection of art and ideology stands Alexander Dovzhenko, the Ukrainian filmmaker whose visionary cinema was both celebrated by the Soviet state and constrained by it — a paradox that In the Service of the State: The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko dissects with scholarly precision. Vance Kepley Jr. chronicles the full arc of Dovzhenko's career, from his early silent masterworks such as Zvenigora and Earth to his later sound films, situating each work within the turbulent political landscape of Stalinist Russia and revealing how a director of extraordinary poetic sensibility navigated the crushing demands of socialist realism. Kepley argues that Dovzhenko's relationship with the Soviet state was neither simple collaboration nor outright resistance, but a complex and deeply personal negotiation that shaped every frame of his filmmaking. Drawing on extensive archival research, the study illuminates the tension between Dovzhenko's romantic Ukrainian nationalism and the centralising imperatives of Soviet cultural policy, presenting a portrait of an artist perpetually caught between artistic vision and political obligation. For scholars of film history, Soviet culture, or the enduring question of art under authoritarian regimes, this work remains an essential and unsettling reckoning.
Author: Vance Kepley, Jr.
Format: Hardback
Published: 1986, University of Wisconsin Press
Genre: Movies & entertainment
Condition remarks:
Condition: New/Excellent. - in original publisher's plastic shrink wrap, no tears or damage. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Tight and secure.
At the intersection of art and ideology stands Alexander Dovzhenko, the Ukrainian filmmaker whose visionary cinema was both celebrated by the Soviet state and constrained by it — a paradox that In the Service of the State: The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko dissects with scholarly precision. Vance Kepley Jr. chronicles the full arc of Dovzhenko's career, from his early silent masterworks such as Zvenigora and Earth to his later sound films, situating each work within the turbulent political landscape of Stalinist Russia and revealing how a director of extraordinary poetic sensibility navigated the crushing demands of socialist realism. Kepley argues that Dovzhenko's relationship with the Soviet state was neither simple collaboration nor outright resistance, but a complex and deeply personal negotiation that shaped every frame of his filmmaking. Drawing on extensive archival research, the study illuminates the tension between Dovzhenko's romantic Ukrainian nationalism and the centralising imperatives of Soviet cultural policy, presenting a portrait of an artist perpetually caught between artistic vision and political obligation. For scholars of film history, Soviet culture, or the enduring question of art under authoritarian regimes, this work remains an essential and unsettling reckoning.