The Soviet philosopher Merab Mamardashvili has been called the “Georgian Socrates” and “a lighthouse of the Late Soviet intelligentsia.” His dazzling lectures in the 1970–80s in the higher institutes of Moscow and Tbilisi attracted packed, standing room only auditoriums of academics and ordinary citizens alike. With his breathtaking intellectual range and exploration of borderline subversive ideas, his lectures became a beacon of free thought to which some “went the way people go to church” (2). While careful not to challenge official ideology too directly, Mamardashvili's emphasis on such ideas as individual freedom and consciousness, the transcendent, phenomenology, and the absurdity of the human condition, intrinsically challenged Soviet-Marxist orthodoxies and led to a marginalization of his published work and a nomadic lifestyle moving between various institutions in Moscow and Tbilisi before his death in 1990. For much of his career, however, Mamardashvili taught philosophy at the two leading film schools of the Soviet Union, the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors in Moscow, where he had a significant influence on the generation of late-Soviet and post-Soviet filmmakers whom he taught. The influence and philosophical affinity between Mamardashvili and this generation of filmmakers—what the author calls “the generation of Merab”—is the subject of Alyssa DeBlasio's thoughtful and well-written book.
In contrast to most studies of Russian cinema, which typically engage in analysis of particular themes or auteurs, DeBlasio takes the novel approach of crafting an intellectual history and philosophical portrait of a generation. Film here is discussed primarily as a window into philosophical thought rather than a formal study of the medium itself. In each of the book's seven chapters, DeBlasio examines a different philosophical concern of Mamardashvili and its influence on a particular film of a former student. With the exception of Andrei Zvyagintsev, who was merely influenced by Mamardashvili's writing and legacy, all of the directors discussed studied directly under the philosopher. Chapter 1 traces connections between Aleksandr Sokurov's early film Demoted (1980) and Mamardashvili's lectures on metaphysics and consciousness. Notably, a two-minute recording of Mamardashvili lecturing plays in the background of the film. Chapter 2 explores Ivan Dykhovichnyi's The Black Monk (1988), questions of individual consciousness, and the phenomenological camera. Chapter 3 examines Dmitry Mamuliya's Another Sky (2010) through the lens of Mamardashvili's lectures on “sick consciousness” and a crisis of common language. Chapter 4 analyzes Alexei Balabanov's films The Castle (1994) and Me Too (2012) in the context of the absurd, Franz Kafka, and French existentialism. Chapter 5 presents a reading of Alexander Zeldovich's Target (2011) through the lens of Tolstoi's conception of death and a “true life” oriented toward infinity. Chapter 6 examines Vadim Abdrashitov's The Train Stopped (1982), a film that Mamardashvili discussed explicitly in his lectures, as an illustration of cinema's potential to mimic human consciousness and the process of arriving at knowledge. Finally, the Epilogue is devoted to Andrei Zvyagintsev's Loveless (2017) and Mamardashvili's ideas about the difficult “effort to become human” (164).
As DeBlasio acknowledges, the book pursues a complex objective, combining intellectual history, generational experience, and film studies, while wading into the murky waters of influence. But the result is truly generative and interesting. Particular chapters, especially those devoted to Balabanov, Zeldovich, and Abdrashitov provide penetrating new readings of the filmmakers and films along with strong philosophical excursus. For instance, DeBlasio's reading of the absurd mode of Balabanov's films via Mamardashvili, Kafka, and French existentialism is eye opening and sheds light on various hallmarks of Balabanov's oeuvre: perpetual movement without progress, frustrated transcendental strivings, and ruined sites of the sacred. In other chapters, such as those devoted to Dykhovichnyi and Mamuliya, the connections drawn feel more tenuous and the arguments less compelling. One could also find fault with the author's selection of films, some of which are epigones or lesser films of great directors. Nonetheless, The Filmmaker's Philosopher is a deep, sustained study that reads with great interest to the end. In addition to its rigorous philosophical explorations and insightful new readings of particular films, DeBlasio crafts a vivid portrait of Mamardashvili himself, with his sartorial elegance, the smoky lecture halls of late socialism, and the exhilaration of free thought. The book is a must-read for Russian film studies, but will also greatly interest students and specialists of late Soviet culture and philosophy.
Attempts to characterize the post-Soviet generation of filmmakers, with their disparate aesthetic and thematic tendencies, have not led to much agreement or clarity. But as a small adjustment of an aperture can suddenly bring an object into better focus, DeBlasio's shift of emphasis to common experience and philosophical roots provides a new understanding of this generation of filmmakers.
