George Lucas talks about the Soviet film industry

[pashico]

One of the greatest movie directors of all time, Akira Kurosawa, at one point wanted to commit suicide due to his career not going well. So, what revived him? The Soviet film industry. He was given the opportunity to film a movie in the USSR and it revived his career and his passion for movies. The movie he made is one of my favourites called "Dersu Uzala" (1975) and it's a beautiful true story.

[DVXDemetrivs]

Many do not like it, but in the USSR they made many excellent films that were about ordinary people, without politics and propaganda

[zakeemax]

Soviet movies: A group of people comes with a solution of the problem through a hard work.
Unity Wins.
Hollywood: Everybody's stupid and always panic except that one main guy. The Savior Concept.

[RazorRex]

Seeing that we are in the age of sequels, remakes, reboots, cinematic universes, ETC. this clip has aged gracefully.

[dimetronome]

George Lucas also said that the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars was inspired by the Viet Cong and The Empire represents the United States, with Emperor Palpatine based on Richard Nixon.

[matheusvillela]

Bertolucci once said how chill the chinese government was about doing The Last Emperor. Their few demands weren't really contrary to what he wanted to do, and that aside he was free to do the movie he wanted. It was actually the CCP that demanded that the movie be shot in english, for commercial appeal.

[DEEZNUTS-kosi]

even in the galaxy far far away the immortal and infinite knowledge of Marx, Engels and Lenin remains!

[zibro]

☭☭☭ Uphold Chairman Luca's Thought! Comrade Lucas, hero of the proletariat! ☭☭☭

[BazukinBelyugovich]

Soviet movies are now subjected to an incredible amount of disinformative stereotyping and limited knowledge in the western world. The idea that most Soviet movies were propaganda films is an outright lie. There definitely were a number of propaganda films glorifying the state and the military, but there are probably more films about everyday life and human experience than political films. The Soviets also made beautiful comedies, romances, powerful dramas, period films, and fairy-tale stories that would make anyone's heart melt. There were also great war films that weren't outright malicious in their propaganda (again, not denying that such films didn't exist), which told incredible stories of redemption, moral stance, suffering, etc.
I can name a few great films which I admire a lot:

"The Red Snowball Tree" by Vasily Shukshin
"Office Romance" by Eldar Ryazanov
"Station for Two" by Eldar Ryazanov
"White Bim, Black Ear" by Stanislav Rostotsky
"Ascension" by Larisa Shepitko
"Love and Doves" Vladimir Menshov
"Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" by Vladimir Menshov
"War and Peace" by Sergei Bondarchuk
"The House in Which I Live" by Lev Kulidzhanov and Yakov Segel
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson" by Igor Maslennikov
"Scarlet Sails" by Alexander Ptushko
"Sadko" by Alexander Ptushko
"100 Days After Childhood" by Sergei Solovyov
"Two Comrades Were Serving" by Evgeny Karelov
"Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven" by Emil Loteanu
"Anna Pavlova" by Emil Loteanu
"Muzhiki!" by Iskra Babich
"The Cold Summer of 1953" by Aleksandr Proshkin

I'm not claiming to be a communist or a Soviet sympathizer, I just really like these films, and am saddened to see them get buried under so much false stereotyping and political bias. Please, before you say anything about Soviet movies, take some time to watch a few of them, and try also moving beyond the familiar names of Tarkovsky and Eisenstein, because to only know their films would be to have a _very_ narrow view of Soviet cinema.

[Brytons_Thoughts]

Well, he isn't wrong. Look at films like Stalker, Come and See, and Battleship Potemkin. Amazing Soviet films.

The reason why the New Hollywood era is my favourite era of Hollywood because it was the era where they had balls and were very laissez-faire.

Now Hollywood is just agenda filled plastic with complete studio control. Sad.

[ricardocantoral]

The fact that Tarkovsky was allowed to make the films he did is proof that the Soviet film industry had a much higher standard.

[haraldisdead]

The fact that he referred to the CCCP as "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

[jaygatsby]

The press went nuts over this, they had to backtrack all his words to shout full-throatedly "NO YOURE WRONG!" to try and keep up the delusion that markets foster creativity.

[ChangedMyNameFinally]

And people whine about the new Star Wars films being political

[hopperthemarxist]

Most people know next to nothing about socialism or the ussr. They have a strong bias against these countries. My advice to those people is to listen to what socialists themselves have to say. Don’t read or watch or listen to what capitalists tell you socialism means. Decide for yourself by listening to socialists themselves

[csabas.]

Basicly he says you have to make pleb-friendly movies, or no one will finance it.

[jonstupidanus]

the film industry has come to a complete halt because of what he's talking about. the films they want filmmakers to make have to fit the narrative of the current ideology. the only way to do it is to play it safe and make the movie for everyone

[mandalorian_guy]

I love how he calls Francis Ford Coppola just "Francis".

[hieunguyenrileygekko]

well Soviet movies were made as an art form and to serve the people so no financial problems, filmmakers would get enough budget for their movies, no pressure from box office

except the cencorship and the moral standard, they would have all the freedom and creativity, less politic or propaganda

[alexredfield]

This is why we have a thousand sequels and remakes every year. Lucas tried to warn us