Ludic Love

This chapter discusses the single movie made at Lenfilm by one of the USSR’s most important avant-garde directors, Kira Muratova. As she worked on the script, Muratova transformed a mild and sweet story about a pretty young factory worker, Lyuba, who was in love with two men at once, into a philosophical meditation on love. Yet any aspirations to deep thinking were constantly called into question by the playful nature of the representation. Music-hall effects, comedy repetition, and parodic echoes of Stalin-era official films jostle film noir and citations from new wave. Reactions at Lenfilm were wary, and the collaboration with Muratova ended at one film. But Getting to Know the Wide World remained Muratova’s favorite film even at the end of her life; though she resented the criticism that she got at Lenfilm, the frustration that it generated turned out to be creative.

Daily Encounters That Make History: History from Below and Archival Collaboration

What does a casual confrontation in a rundown shack between a landlady and her factory-worker tenant tell us about the history of gender and class relations in modern Egypt? Could a lost watch in a red-light district in the middle of the Nile Delta complicate our understanding of the history of sexuality and urbanization? Can an unexpectedly intimate embrace on a sleeping mat illuminate a link in the history of class, gender, and urbanization in modern Egypt?

Voices from the South

In his adaptation of Carlo Levi's Cristo si é fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli, 1979), Rosi continues to confront the problems of the South—emigration, cultural marginalization, poverty—while reclaiming its rich, forgotten culture. The film signals a shift of Rosi's style, later evident in the slow-paced Cronaca di una morte annunciata (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1987), an epic adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez' 1981 novel that, like Cristo, is structured as an archetypal journey back to the past. In Tre fratelli (Three Brothers, 1981), Italy's chronic political instability is reflected in the tale of a self-assured judge, an idealistic teacher, and an angry factory worker and labor organizer. Summoned home for their mother's funeral, the brothers revisit their peasant roots, confront their present, and imagine their future. The film's concluding wide shot, which unites two generations, indicates Rosi's return to ahistorical values.

Dr. Vargos. Simultaneous intra-uterine and extra-uterine fetation. (Lancet, 18 March., 94). Simultaneous intra and ectopic pregnancy

Dr. V. describes a rare case of twin pregnancy, which gave rise to contradictory diagnoses and ended in death. A cigar factory worker, mother of 3 children, complained of pain, heaviness and abnormal sensations in the right lower abdomen. The factory doctor mistook this for salpingitis.