The Poetics of the Comic in Georgy Danelia's Cinema: Between the Absurd and Social Satire
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Using materials from the films "Mimino" (1977), "Kin-dza-dza!" (1986), "Afonya" (1975), "Autumn Marathon" (1979), and others, as well as archival documents (scripts, director's notes, interviews) by renowned Soviet film director Georgy Daneliya, this article explores the evolution of the poetics of cinematic comedy, from the gentle irony of his early works to the socio-philosophical grotesque of his later period. Particular attention is focused on three key levels of Daneliya's humor: verbal, visual, and socio-philosophical. The article proposes a provisional classification of the director's comic techniques within the context of the socio-economic formation of Soviet society and world cinema. G. Daneliya's signature cinematic language developed at the intersection of several cultural traditions. An analysis of archival materials, including working scripts and censorship edits for the film "Afonya," demonstrates how the director circumvented ideological restrictions by employing Aesopian language. Social satire was elegantly veiled behind seemingly innocuous everyday situations. The evolution of cinematic images in Daneliya's filmography is of particular interest, particularly in terms of the representation of stereotypical characters in his early works to complex psychological personalities. As Daneliya's working materials demonstrate, he paid particular attention to musical accompaniment and employed the staging technique of counterpointing image and sound. In his films, musical accompaniment acquires a fundamentally new quality, becoming an integral part of the production in the creation of grotesque images, situations, and semantic subtext. The research methodology includes: 1) textual analysis of scripts, taking into account the author's edits 2) comparative study of film edits 3) intertextual analysis of visual and sound solutions 4) sociological survey of contemporary viewers
Source: Культура и искусство
Author: Natal'ya Gennadievna Polyakova
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7093090105