An Anxious Love Affair: The Presence and Absence of Italian Neorealism in Soviet Film Culture

ABSTRACT:This article explores the complex response to Italian neorealism and the various roles the movement assumed in Soviet culture, particularly during the Khrushchev thaw (1956–64). I propose that neorealism threatened the primacy of socialist realism, functioned to reinforce the position of the Soviet Union as the global authority on realism, activated rehabilitation discourse of the 1920s avant-garde, and illuminated the role film criticism had in knowledge production around neorealist cinema. In particular, the article focuses on the notion of curious absence, referring to the films that were viewed at rare screenings, such as special events, leaving momentary traces in a range of discourses that informed the local vibrant film culture of the 1950s and early 1960s.