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Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory, and Patriotism Stephen M. Norris. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. $90 cloth, $35 paper, xv, 388 pp.
The basic subject of this engaging book is Russian film in the "zero years," that is, the first decade of the twenty-first century. Following the collapse of the film industry in the 1990s, Russian filmmakers began resorting to American moviemaking techniques-big budgets, gargantuan sets, computer-based special effects, and wall-to-wall action-to create narratives focused on various aspects of the Russian and Soviet past. The result was the Russian "blockbuster," an often profitable box-office enterprise that tapped into dormant reserves of nationalist feeling while attracting the attention, and sometimes the support, of the Putin government. In other words, what begins as a story about the movies turns into a thoughtprovoking account of contemporary Russia. That story is well told by Stephen Norris, already known for his expertise in interpreting visual history.
One of the attractive features of Norris's book is his largely successful attempt to make each of the chapters a self-standing unit that often centers on a particular film or film genre while also exploring other aspects of Russia's media culture, including the multiplex and video store. An early chapter, for example, deals with The Barber of Siberia (1998), an expensive epic whose late Imperial setting allowed director Nikita Mikhalkov to craft a valentine to the pre-Soviet era at the same time...