CINEMA FORUM ON AMERICAN CINEMA – ASPECTS TO CONSIDER WHILE VIEWING THE FILM FOR LATER DEBATE: THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
A classic from the 60s, which achieved enormous success around the world, including in its own country. It earned three Oscar nominations; best film, best screenplay and best actor (Alan Arkin).
The director, Norman Jewison, is a Canadian born in 1926 who trained working on English TV. Later, he stood out in the American, and began to direct at the beginning of the 60s, through comedies; Thus, he stood out with two starring Doris Day, "Her little adventure of her" (The Thrill of It All, 1963) and "No me send flowers" (Send Me no Flowers, 1964). Later, he triumphed with "The King of the Game" (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965), which pitted the young Steve McQueen against the elderly Edward G. Robinson. Immediately afterwards, he makes "The Russians Are Coming, 1966", which is his first film as producer-director, according to the novel by Nathaniel Benchley. Later, always as a producer-director, he made such successful films as "In the Heat of the Night" (In the Heat of the Night, 1967), which won 5 Oscars and had sequels directed by other filmmakers, "The Thomas Crown Affair ” (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968), again with Steve McQueen, the musicals “Fiddler on the Roof, 1971), “Jesus Christ Superstar” (Jesus Christ Superstar, 1973) and Rollerball (Rollerball, 1975). He is currently retired, his last film was "The Statement" (2003), with Michael Caine and Tilda Swinton.
"The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming" is a family-oriented film, which ironizes about the "cold war" that since the end of the Second World War secretly confronted the United States with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the current Russia. The approach was very daring, because it openly satirises American patriotic paranoia, both through the story, with soft allegorical nuances, and through the set of characters, all bordering on caricature, but not quite so.
The characters are each more successful, brilliant in themselves and within the whole. They are outlined in just the right tone, and performed in ways that are iconic and humorous alike. Credit for this also goes to the performers, all very well chosen and directed. All in all, four stand out, so much so that they are unforgettable: Eva Maria Saint, as the typical American wife of the time, John Phillip Law, as handsome as he is angelic and naive, Brian Keith, as an honest rural sheriff in his own way, and above all Alan Arkin, like the Soviet military man who tries to be effective and reasonable at the same time. Arkin made his debut with this film, he came from the theater. Law was also not known to the American public, since he had previously worked mainly in Italy. And Saint, on the other hand, had worked with such important directors as Elia Kazan, in "The law of silence" (On the Waterfront, 1954) and Alfred Hitchcock, in "With death on his heels" ("North by NorthWest, 1958).
The rhythm is soft and gentle, and the tone combines satire, emotion, fun and sensitivity, in a mixture of moods that is very difficult to achieve in cinema. The technique is invisible, with a camera that moves just the right way, without showing off and always at the service of the tone, with a magnificent use of the widescreen format, and soft colors that give the whole a pictorial charm as subtle and restrained as the other ingredients of the film, which is a true filigree.
