The Voice of Technology and the End of Soviet Silent Film: Grigorii Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg's Alone

Lilya Kaganovsky

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Looking closely at Grigorii Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg’s film Odna (Alone, 1931), this article elaborates the ways in which the new technology of synchronized sound altered the relationship between Soviet cinema and its viewer. Doing away with ‘internal speech’ and putting in its place a voice that issued directly from the screen, the new sound technology hailed the spectator directly, casting the Soviet subject in the role of its addressee. This article considers the role that technology plays both inside and outside the film, formulating specifically how sound technology comes to represent the voice of power that produces the film’s heroine as a Soviet subject, and tracing the ways in which anxiety about technology and the operations of the State underpin Kozintsev and Trauberg’s last silent avant-garde and first Soviet sound film.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)265-281
Number of pages17
JournalStudies in Russian and Soviet Cinema
Volume1
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1 2007

Keywords

  • Althusser
  • Avant-garde
  • Eikhenbaum
  • FEKS
  • Gender
  • Sound film

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Communication
  • Visual Arts and Performing Arts

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