Soviet cinema of late Stalinism: between propaganda and amphibology

Abstract

Late Stalinism, which extended from 1945 to 1953, censored and coerced cinema with an efficiency unknown in the USSR, directing it to cultural confrontation with the American archrival in the nascent Cold War. While the regime demanded political films that showed the problems and crimes committed by the enemy and fostered internal unity, the filmmakers sought to circumvent the guidelines to insert criticisms subtly, or the subject addressed, centered on the inversion of anti-Soviet propaganda into anti-American, produced ambiguity by itself. Marc Ferro's cinematographic cinehistory, applied to 22 films of the period, allows capturing the game of opposing interests by means of the analysis of latent messages, conscious or not.