MovieChat Forums > Leningrad (2011) Discussion > Why don't the Russians make their own WW...

Why don't the Russians make their own WWII movies?


I read so much griping about the lack of World War II movies that give more credit to the Soviet war effort in defeating the Wehrmacht.

I'm serious...why haven't the Russians made more movies about World War II from their perspective? I know there are a few, but far too few. I can only speculate that the war was so traumatic that even though overwhelmingly victorious, the Russians have no real desire to live it out again on film. No one wants to see movies about their own homeland being overrun and devastated with millions killed, no matter if the outcome was ultimately victory.

For those who gripe about Western propaganda largely crediting WWII's victory to the Western Allies, blame Hollywood, not the history books. I stayed awake in high school history class, unlike a lot of fellow students. Western history books do give large credit to the Russians. The facts are indisputable. The Germans invested 70% of their war effort into the Eastern Front and Eastern Europe. The Eastern Front is where the Wehrmacht suffered its most casualties until the Western Allies launched the Battle of Germany in early 1945.

Could the Russians have won World War II all by themselves without the West?
Historians think it most likely, but would have taken longer. It could have been a negotiated surrender for the Germans to evacuate Russia and return to Germany. It's speculation.

Was the Soviet Union secretly planning to invade Eastern then Western Europe before the Nazis took the first punch?
Interesting theory. I first heard about this theory back in the early 80s from a person studying Russian history who claimed Stalin was planning such an invasion in 1944 had the peace held with Germany. Then came a book authored by a Russian in the late 90s which claimed Stalin was preparing to do just that. The author's rationale was based partly on that Stalin had deployed all his military forces on the Western borders in offensive positions, not defensive ones, which is why all the Russians were caught out in the open when Germany attacked in the summer of 1941. Hitler knew that the Soviet Union could only get stronger in time and sooner so Hitler had to quickly strike the first blow even though the Wehrmacht was not totally prepared.

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Communist massmurdering machine deserves no respect or recognition. Neither do the nazi scientists for getting yanks to the moon.

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[deleted]

Hello Jeffyoung1,

Russians do not make so many WWII movies because there is no money in cinema there today. In Soviet period cinema was a huge societal phenomenon -there was 50,000 movie theatres (compared to USA for example 15,000). Now in Russia there is only 2,000 theatres, and not more than 10% of people go to movies, in part because most of them are releases of American blockbusters, and many of Russian ones are just garbage.

The Soviet film business was destroyed in late 1980s and Russian cannot recover since.

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The movie is a Russian made movie. The Russians and before that the Soviets made countless WW ll era movies but most never made it to the west since they were in Russian.
As far as your second point, maybe or maybe not. But considering how poorly the Soviets did first on Finland then in the opening years of the war, the Germans could have easily beat back any attack. The Soviets made most of their weapons, but almost all their trucks and even about half their locomotives were Lend Lease so w/o the allies they never would have been able to go mobile.

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Russia and the Soviet Union have produced hundreds and hundreds of movies and tv series about WW2. If anything there are too many, and not enough of them are worth watching.

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There movies may not be that good. But labor and materials are cheap over there as well as safety regs are looser, they have great crowd huge unit scenes in them

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

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I live in Russia, I know what the films are like. The majority of them have way too much melodrama.

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They aren't great films, but you have to admit they look more realistic than any stuff made in the west

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They do and they're out there and some are very good. BTW this one is produced, written and directed by a guy named Aleksandr Buravsky, which must say something.🐭

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