What Is That Song? : Aleksej Balabanov's Brother and Rock as Film Music in Russian Cinema

This dissertation examines the role of rock songs as film music in Russian cinema and how one important film, Aleksej Balabanov’s Brother (Brat, 1997), reshaped film music conventions in the 1990s. The study is divided into two sections: the first is a historical examination of more than twenty films made between the late 1920s and the early 1990s, the second focuses on Brother and its use of music. The research questions are 1) How is music used in Brother? 2) How were rock songs used in Russian cinema prior to Brother? 3) What are the similarities and the differences between the two uses? The methodology of the research is based on film music narratology combined with traditional Russian formalist and structural-semiotic views of art-texts as structures. Central concepts are Claudia Gorbman’s (1987) diegetic and non-diegetic music and Guido Heldt’s (2013) theoretization on film music, authorship and subjectivity. The study shows that the use of rock songs in Soviet-era Russian films goes through three stages. First they are used as exceptions to the main musical idiom and presented as diegetic performances connected with youth, nowness, dance and humor. Then, in the youth films of Dinara Asanova, rock songs gradually become a more dominant part of the musical strategies. Finally, during perestroika underground rock songs are used as the main idiom and rock gains new connotations of the intelligentsia and the avant-garde, but the songs are still mainly connected to realistic motivation. Brother differs from its predecessors as it combines a rock compilation score with gangster action instead of focusing only on youth or high art thematics. The analysis uncovers that the rock songs represent the voice of the author, but they are ambivalent in their relationship to the diegesis. A struggle emerges between the author-narrator and the main character over the music and this can be read as a self-reflective commentary on the development of the use of rock in Russian cinema. The overall path of rock songs in Russian films can be seen as the evolution of a device, in Jurij Tyn’janov’s (1977 [1927]) terms, in which the element (rock) changes its function and other elements move in to fulfill its previous functions. Brother’s music track acts as a link in the evolutionary chain of Russian film music’s development toward post-classical compilation and composite scores.

Grantor dc:publisher

Helsingin yliopisto

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Österberg, Ira

Statement dc:rights

• Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.
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• Publikationen är skyddad av upphovsrätten. Den får läsas och skrivas ut för personligt bruk. Användning i kommersiellt syfte är förbjuden.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10138/234141

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/234141