In France and Germany, avant-garde film movements began after World War I, whereas in the USSR, the Soviet Montage movement emerged during the 1920s. As in Europe, this avant-garde arose within a commercial film industry.
Although the new government controlled the industry in the USSR after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, it was not immediately able to finance filmmaking. Except for some educational and propaganda projects, films were expected to turn a profit. The Soviet Montage movement, which began in 1925, was initially lucrative partly because several of its films made money abroad—income that helped build up the Soviet film industry.
The postrevolutionary era of the Soviet cinema can be divided into three periods. During War Communism (1918-1920), the Soviet Union was in a state of civil war and experienced great hardships, with the film industry struggling to survive. The New Economic Policy (1921-1924) was designed to bring the country out of its crisis, and the film industry slowly recovered. Finally, the period from 1925 to 1933 saw renewed government control, resulting in growth and export as production, distribution, and exhibition expanded. This period also saw the experimentation of the Montage movement. Beginning in 1928, however, the First Five-Year Plan imposed strict state controls that were to hasten the movement’s end.
World History
