A Room and a Half (Film), and the Art of Cinematic Life Writing

• In Event: Liberating Russian Authors from the Soviet Cultural Canon in the 21st Century

Abstract

The paper will examine A Room and a Half (2009) directed by Andrei Khrzhanovskii that offers a reflective journey into the formative years of Josef Brodsky. By focusing on the poly-stylistic features of the work, the paper will link Khrzhanovsky’s image of Brodsky to the framework of poetic cinema (in Viktor Shklovsky’s sense of the term). Apart from exploring the conceptual platform of Brodsky’s oeuvre, the film, arguably, stretches the limits of biographical discourse into the broader areas encompassing such themes as generational issues, the reflective and reproductive power of memory, familial bonds, and existential choices.

Author

• Olga Yuri Sobolev, London School of Economics and Political Science / U of London (UK)