the landscape background: a reading of landscape in russian and soviet cinema from the concept of background as aesthetic category

The idea of background (horizon) is consubstantial to the birth of landscape in the Western World – a concept inherited by cinema since its inception. Considering that notion, this paper attempts to approach the representation of nature in Russian and Soviet cinema. The main idea is that the background works as an aesthetic category in itself, from which it is possible to diachronically and historically analyze this cinema. From a methodological point of view, this article is based on the double distinction established by Maurizia Natali between the figure and the background, and the background's background. Temporally speaking, it is focused on the potentialities of the idea of background until the consolidation of Socialist Realism, in the mid 1930s of the last century.