Technical base of soviet cinema in the period of “stagnation”

Abstract

The article is devoted to such technical aspects of Soviet cinema as cinema spreading, film, movie taking and film equipment. We consider the activities of NIKFI [National Research film and photo institute] in the 1970s. One of the major problems in cinema spreading is a deep-rooted lag of the cinema network from the audience needs. There was not only few cinemas, but also there was less technical equipment which often left much to be desired. In addition, large one-hall cinemas, which always prevailed in the USSR, significantly narrowed the choice of repertoire. In the late 1970’s – early 1980’s in the Soviet Union there was dramatically reduced cinema building, while the number of urban residents continued to grow. Status of rural cinema network also left much to be desired: it was often increased at the expense of the reorganization of rooms poorly adapted for this purpose into cinemas. The technical base of the Soviet film industry has always been its Achilles heel. In our country, there was always a certain gap between the level of scientific research and their practical realization. The reason is that all the forces were at the defense industry. A huge number of people (even in “peaceful” factories there were often secret workshops) employs on the “defense industry”. So in many fields we had advanced science (because the “defense industry” science always moves forward) and backward production. The perversity of this approach negatively affected the efficiency of NIKFI. Laboratories operating according to the plans approved by Institute of State cinema were busy with works which were not directly related to the cinematography; as the result, every year the Soviet Cinema equipment remained more and more behind the world standards, equipment dilapidated and were gradually replaced by foreign novelties. Especially serious lag observed in a number of areas cinema techniques: in the projection, the developing and copying equipment, new types of imaging optics, carrier transport. The most difficult situation was in the production and development of new varieties of film. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the problem of the quality laid on the problem of the quantity. Soviet film industry began to have trouble with positive film, which resulted in a forced reduction in circulation of new films.

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