Ambivalence and Identity in Russian Jewish Cinema

Abstract

This chapter offers close readings of films that enact conflicting attitudes towards Jews by Russians, contextualizing dilemmas of Jewish identity in post-perestroika Russia. Historically, the representation of Jews in Soviet national cinema has been a litmus test for the Jewish position in Russian culture. Jews have been variously, and paradoxically, stereotyped: they could simultaneously symbolize backwardness or progressiveness; they could stand for emasculated weakness or virile leadership; they could be seen, in short, as heroes or anti-heroes. For scholars of contemporary Jewish cultures, film therefore provides eloquent material for research on identities and their construction and reconstruction. Indeed, cinema is a potent medium in which identities are produced. Rather than being a ‘second-order mirror held up to reflect what already exists’, it is ‘a form of representation which is able to constitute us as new kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from which to speak’. Moreover, because of their profound influence on society and culture, films constitute a source of the visual memory transmitted to future generations.

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