I'm in a soviet cinema class right now, so I at least have some experience with the film side of things. We are up to the mid 1970s, so my answer will fit in with that timeframe. Also because it's a film class primarily, I have more perspective on the artistic than the political/historic.
There are films that predate the Soviet Union and were made under the tsar. Russia and then the Soviet Union developed a style that was fairly distinct from France and the United States. Sergei Eisenstein, one of the masters of filmmaking, termed the style Soviet montage. He writes about it at length in his book "Film Form." Essentially it relied on quasi related images put together much in the same way words come together to form sentences. This style is on display in the very famous "Battleship Potemkin." Montage was also used more abstractly in Dziga Vertov's "Man With a Movie Camera." In the early days of the Soviet Union, filmmakers like Vertov were able to produce movies with more freedom than they would be able to under Stalin. "Man With a Movie Camera" has a lot of images that were counter to the Soviet party line (namely nudity and homelessness), despite its underlying support for socialism. Eisenstein worked in the 30s and 40s and pressure to please Stalin was much greater. His "Battleship Potemkin" and "Alexander Nevsky" are much more plainly pro-Soviet. Still, he was quite innovative in technique and is regarded as very important director globally.
There was an obvious hiatus of artwork during the war, but afterwards came the Kruschev thaw, which allowed artists much greater freedom to produce what they wanted to, even if it wouldn't get large release domestically. The great director of this period was Andrei Tarkovsky. His first movie was a war film, Ivan's Childhood, that takes a distinctly dark look at the war and its effects on soviet citizens. His style draws heavily from eisenstein's montage, and he would go on to produce more personal and, in their own ways, subversive films like "The Mirror" and "Andrei Rublev." Not all of his films were given long runs domestically, but he was beloved at home and abroad, finding success at many European film festivals.
If you have any more questions, let me know and I might be able to answer. Most of these movies are available on YouTube if you're interested.
As a follow up question: Was the US and/or it's allies often portrayed as "the bad guys" in movies/shows, similar to movies/shows from the US during the cold war?
Hi, there have been loads of threads in here on all of these topics; I've taken a quick spin through the sub and found a few, but more searches will pull up many more, which include clips/examples/recommendations of films, songs, tv shows, cartoons, propaganda and so on in the Soviet Union specifically, as well as other Eastern Bloc countries.
Ballet
How did the the Bolshevik Revolution affect the fine arts in Russian culture? - featuring /u/TenMinuteHistory
How did ballet go from beeing an elite court dance in imperial Russa, to beeing the soviet art expression? - featuring /u/kieslowskifan
Theatre
Film | General
What were movies like in Soviet Russia during the Cold War? - featuring /u/wedgeomatic
what was 'night life' like in the USSR during the 70's and 80's? - /u/zhirinovsky takes us on a fun trip through Soviet nightlife via contemporary film clips
if you're curious, there are some resources here Dear AskHistorians, does anybody know an archive of early Soviet films online?
Film | Cold War portrayals (a popular topic in this sub!)
**** During the Cold War, did the Soviets have their own James Bond character in the media? A hero who fought the capitalist pigs of the West for the good of Mother Russia. - fantastic write-up by /u/Bufus
Did the Soviets create any movies about the horrifying prospect of nuclear war between themselves and the USA? - featuring /u/restricteddata and /u/MarcEcko
We had a "Red Dawn"; was there ever an equivalent (White Dawn?) in Soviet pop culture?
Television
What was television like for communist countries such as the Soviet Union or DDR during the Cold War? - featuring /u/Lithium2011
Animation
Music
Miscellaneous
I can come at this from my collegiate level music history courses, although perhaps an experienced music historian could get in here and correct me/give a more full explanation. It can be hard to talk about music without just saying "go listen to this".
In (classical) music, composers lived under the watchful eye of the party. Certain styles of music were outright banned, including Jazz and, later, rock. This seemed to be more about keeping out other cultures, as some composers wrote jazz-influenced pieces, like Shostakovich's Jazz Suites.
Some of the best known Soviet composers were Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, and Sergei Prokofiev. These composers wrote music sanctioned by the party, and faced the consequences if they strayed. Shostakovich, as an example, was publicly shamed in Soviet press at one point for an opera (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) that wasn't particularly well received.
The style of Soviet music draws upon Soviet patriotic ideas and folk music from Soviet controlled areas. Examples of this are Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite" (inspired by the Scythians who once inhabited the steppes) and Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" (based on Armenian folk music). Shostakovich's bombastic ending to his Symphony no. 5 could be viewed as an example of highly patriotic Soviet music. However, there is some controversy about that work, as some view it as a sarcastic slam at the party, depending on how it is performed. The book "Testimony" by Solomon Volkov is (allegedly) the memoirs of Shostakovich and portrays him as anti-Soviet. If Volkov is to be believed, Shosty was a huge troll. His Symphony No. 10, written a year after Stalin's death, is sometimes viewed as mocking the late ruler.
One edit: nationalism to Soviet patriotism, because accuracy.
OK, so I don't know much about Soviet Cinema outright but I DO know a fair bit about Indian Cinema, which became hugely popular in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Indian cinema of that time had incorporated many socialist messages, which to modern eyes look crudely drawn but fell in the favour of Soviet audiences. It was in particular Raj Kapoor, one of the classic Bollywood directors, who became a huge star, as an actor as well as director - because of his looks (he had extremely fair skin and blue eyes) and his socialist films, he was able to make the crossover to the Soviet audience. His film 'Awaara' (1951) in particular was a major hit, it portrayed the working class man as a victim of his circumstances. Raj Kapoor visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1954 with a group of delegates from the Indian film industry, then again in 1956, both times making a tour of several Soviet republics (Georgia and Azerbaijan, among others). He returned to the Soviet Union several times after that, even making a movie called 'Mera Naam Joker' (1970) featuring Russian circus artistes and a Russian ballerina in the main role.
In fact, much earlier, an Indo-Soviet film was produced called 'Pardesi: Journey Beyond the Three Seas' (1958), based on the same work of literature, which not only had several major Indian stars but also featured as lead actor Oleg Strizhenov, a hugely popular Soviet star. And there was also 'Mother India' (1958) which was a kind of socialist parable.
The Moscow Art Theatre, which was created in 1897, so about 20 years before the October revolution, had a profound influence on western theatre. There Constantin Stanislavski helped develop what would be known as The System for actors, which can be seen as a predecessor to the American Method acting.
Unfortunately, The MAT started hitting serious obstacles with the rise of Lenin to power. The Soviets essentially saw Stanislavski's work as part of the old Russian regime, and Stanislavski had to move away from his avant-garde work which did not seem "traditionalist" enough. By the 1930s the theatre changed name entirely, and moved towards much more propaganda like productions which glorified revolutionary Russia due to political pressure from Stalin.
Russia went from being at the forefront of theatre expression, to a static, political theatre in a matter of two decades.
Source: Gorchakov, Nikolai. The Theatre in Soviet Russia. Columbia University Press, New York, 1957.
This is actually quite an extensive question, as you might imagine and had some differences in the different Soviet republics. As such many of which had their own national Soviet films, filmed on location, with local actors and often in the local language.
My knowledge only stems from the Latvian SSR (Further as Latvia), if that is not extensive enough, I apologize and this answer can be deleted.
Movies were a big part of the entertainment life throughout the Soviet times. In Latvia the Riga Film Studio, established in 1948, was the main producer of content, as such it managed to put out up to 12 movies a year. In 1960 a large studio lot was built to accommodate the possibility for the whole production to take place there, becoming the largest one in Northern Europe. As movies themselves went, they often sparred genres that were historical (pre 19th century), a large number of comedies, detective, crime etc. As you would imagine a large number of them were censored, but even at that there were instances where Latvian flags were sneaked into the final product, mostly citing historical accuracy ("Ceplis", 1972). Movies that were made in the local context were very popular as the actresses and directors were notable and accessible in the local theaters, in the local language and carried mostly the local scenery [of which some movies are also popular today, even in the post-Soviet society]. But rarely these movies made their way out of the corresponding SSR.
When it comes to Soviet wide movies, these were "decade blockbusters" that trickled down to each republic as an event to behold. From my knowledge, these were largely comedies and thrillers. Some even grew into franchises, such as the "Adventures of Shurik" which you might compare to Mr. Bean. These movies were mostly without any political context, rather just an attempt of actually excel in some artistic forms that could transcend throughout the Soviet Union (Although still made with censorship in mind). Where credit is due, there have been also some spectacular adaptions, such as the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which included some notable acting, good location scouting (Riga Old City among others) and a good screenplay, and was even noticed outside the Soviet Union. But even at this some censorship was required, as Holmes never used Cocaine and the war wasn't in Afghanistan, as in not to draw parallels withe Soviet invasion.
But altogether Soviet cinema was still an occasion as it was in the West, either it be an evening with your girlfriend, running-off after school to see the new block-buster with your friends and a glass of sugar water or watching Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром! (Irony of Life or as it Goes [unfortunately my translation, I only have Russian and Latvian sources]) on New Years Eve with your family. Many of which are still remembered today fondly either due to nostalgia ( as it rarely contained a large amount of propaganda) or due to the quality of film itself.
Follow up and probably a bit trivial (but related) question:
My impression of the latter half of the Soviet Union's history (Post Khrushchev) was, more than anything else, boring.
The first half obviously had to deal with a lot of war and famine and purges, etc, but then by Brezhnev's time my understanding is that this was mostly over with and the main thing people had to deal with is that life was very dull.
Whatever entertainment was specifically like, there was never quite enough of it, nor enough opportunities to simply keep oneself occupied outside of work. This apparently was how the USSR developed its reputation for rampant alcoholism, since for many people there just wasn't all that much else to do but sit and drink.
How true is all this?
Hello everyone!
This question is really interesting and I am so happy that it has garnered some attention and will hopefully receive even more upvotes and readers.
Unfortunately, it has also received answers that did not comply with our rules. I am writing this here to remind everyone that with our rules we ask that answers in this subreddit be in-depth and comprehensive, and highly suggest that comments include citations for the information.
That means that simply linking a youtube video of a Soviet cartoon for example and going "like this" is not what we here consider a sufficient answer. People come to this sub and ask their questions here because they want in-depth and comprehensive answers.
So please before posting, consider the following:
I don't want to get the remove sickle and ban hammer out, comrades because that'd be entertaining for nobody.
Thank you!
An added question regarding movies in USSR
I have heard stories in India that the Bollywood star of 50s and 60s "Raj Kapoor" was a household name in the USSR. Was bollywood so popular in the Soviet Union?
