Mosfilm Studio Backlot

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Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Toby Dammit » Sun Sep 06, 2009 11:03 pm

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I've recently been digitising some of my photo archive. The scanner I bought to do this has turned out to be utterly wreched with colour negatives, as you'll know if you've seen my Great Glen Way post, but using paint Shop Pro is rather better with black and white. Here's a selection of shots I took on a visit to Mosfilm Studios, in south Moscow. They were probably shot in January or February 1994, certainly in the winter of 1993-1994. At that time the Russian economy was in freefall with frightening inflation, putting a halt on anything as frivolous as film making.

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An air of gloom hung over the place, and out in the backlot I found this huge, abandoned film set. Like a frozen equivalent of Pompeii some of it was buried under months of snow with a few intriguing structures still visible.

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Was this Venice or Saint Petersburg (which up till the year before had still been called Leningrad), cities who's architecture owes more to Constantinople and the Orient than ancient Greece and Rome? One distincly Roman looking building didn't seem to belong to rest and may have been used for another film, and to this day I haven't seen the movie any of these building were so expensivly constructed for.

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Some were strong enough to go inside where there were rooms which must have once housed interior sets with views of the towers, bridges and canals.

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The delapidation was such that clearly they had stood here for a couple of winters at least, a relic from the last days of Soviet movie production.

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At the time I wandered round the backlot quite blithely but looking back now it was a bit of a stupid thing to do. Nobody knew I was there, the place was utterly abandoned and there were several deep pits that I could have tumbled down, and those were just the ones I could see in the snow which was easily six foot deep in places. A night trapped down one of those and I'd have been a goner and probably not found until the thaw began in March... Still, some of them have since been exhibited as part of my portfolio of my time in Moscow TOMORROW CITY.

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The Mosfilm Studios logo was a small model of Vera Mukhina's massive, satinless steel skinned sculpture WORKER AND COLLECTIVE FARM GIRL, built for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, just as The Terror was juddering into life. It would go head to head with Nazi sculptures by Albert Speer in the opposit German Pavilion in a battle of totalitarian art vs. art vulgarity which would conclude in 1945.

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The sculpure was later shifted to a bleak corner of VDNKh (the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy), a large Moscow park, and I walked past it nearly every day for 9 months on my way to and from VGIK where I was studying cinematography. A few years ago the sculpture was taken down for restoration, a project which seems to have no end, having already several times run out of the will or money to complete.

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All black and white photos are copyright by John Rankin, AKA Toby Dammit, yaddayaddayadda
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Doorstop » Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:53 am

What a fantastic set of photographs and an equally interestive and illuminating narrative .. Please Sir! May we have some more? 8)
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Shardonnay » Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:55 am

Stunning thanks for sharing this :)
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Vinegar Tom » Tue Sep 08, 2009 10:33 pm

To quote Oliver Twist " geez more".
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby dazza » Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:17 am

That's absolutely Сублиме. What a fascinating and unique explore. Have you thought of submitting it to the English/Russia site? I can get lost for hours on that website. Loving the Мосфильм ident as well.
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Toby Dammit » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:51 am

Well I thought I'd posted all my backlot pics and I would have to leave you wanting more, but I found a couple I'd missed shot on that same day and here they are.

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And this pic, which I'd never printed or scanned before proved that it's supposed to be Venice. Those strange funnel style chimnies are unique to the Veneto. And I'm afraid those really are all my backlot pics. I certainly got lucky with the light that afternoon.

Here's another shot of the Mosfilm statue, though my crappy scanner has ruined the composition somewhat, cutting off the top of the frame.

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Thanks for the kind words. When I've got my archive sorted a bit more I'll post some more TOMORROW CITY work in the future, some of which was exhibited at the GFT back in 1995.

Hadn't seen that site before Dazza, cheers.
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Toby Dammit » Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:10 pm

A couple of colour ones of the big statue from the spring of 1994.

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I'd dismissed these as "too touristy", but since the great lump and it's plinth have gone AWL I'm glad I snapped 'em.
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Lucky Poet » Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:59 pm

"Too touristy"? An object lesson, is that - when it's gone it's gone, and any photos are good. Must have taken some effort to demolish the thing though.

A fascinating series of photos. And I'm glad you didn't fall down a hole and die :)
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby My Kitten » Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:48 pm

wow, those are great. I do like a bit of old ruskie monumentals.
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Doorstop » Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:58 am

Thanks for the second helpings Toby sir .. an absolute delight. And LP is spot on with the "catch it, it may not be there forever" sentiment.

Brilliant stuff.
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby cheesemonster » Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:26 pm

dazzababes wrote:That's absolutely Сублиме. What a fascinating and unique explore. Have you thought of submitting it to the English/Russia site? I can get lost for hours on that website. Loving the Мосфильм ident as well.

Only just saw this thread today and wasted my entire lunchtime on EnglishRussia. I had forgotten how entertaining it is :D
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Re: Mosfilm Studio Backlot

Postby Toby Dammit » Sun Sep 12, 2010 10:30 pm

I recently found a great couple of pics of Vera Mukhina's sculpture as it originally stood at the Paris World Fair, facing it's Nazi rival.

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Another lasting work of art also made its debut at the Fair; Picasso's GUERNICA was the star exhibit at the Spanish Pavilion.

I also discovered that a couple of months after my original post here, the Soviet sculpture finally re-appeared in public at the end of November last year, following six years in limbo.

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It's back in VDNK on what looks like a reproduction of the original Soviet Pavilion too. A great set of pics here showing its restoration:

http://www.picsroll.com/2009/11/worker- ... oscow.html
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