Cinema, Medicine, and Behavior Transformation: The Visualization of Health in Early Soviet Film

• In Event: Escaping the Discipline: Mind, Body, and Behavior in Early Soviet Biomedical and Psychological Discourses

Abstract

This paper discusses health enlightenment films, a part of the campaigns launched across the Soviet Union in the 1920s to tackle pressing public health concerns. Toporova explores shifts in the representational strategies and persuasion tactics of these films between the 1920s and the 1930s. She brings to light the new approaches to visualizing health and disease that emerged in the context of audience reception studies conducted by Soviet psychologists, the demands of Socialist Realism, and evolving strategies of behavior transformation.

Author

• Anna Toropova, U of Warwick (UK)