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Second Section - Miscellany

Vol. 12 (2019): Estrangement

Nostalgia for the Everyday Life: the Stagnation-Era Movie Quotes

Published
2019-12-20

Abstract

This paper deals with the contemporary usage of the popular quotes from the Soviet films shot in the late 60’s and the 70’s, when the totalitarian aesthetics was strongly connected with the daily life in all its manifestations. From adaptations to the Brezhnev’s period in Ivan Vasil’evich Changes Profession to the rituality in The Irony of Fate, the comedy genre contributes to the creation of a specific cultural code and to the mythologizing of the ordinary things. High frequency and symbolic value of the ordinary situations, ironically synthesized in a few words, makes them versatile and easy to remember. So easy that their origins tend to be confused, transforming the kinotsitata in a popular culture product. Through the movie quotes the poetics of everyday life in the USSR easily fits into nostalgic discourse.