This course begins by examining silent films of Imperial Russia, when the genre of melodrama flourished. We proceed to Soviet films of the 1950s and 60s, after which we then focus on the 1970s-80s, when melodrama reemerged as a genre again. Students will learn the genre’s formal and stylistic attributes, as well as its social and political issues of the epoch. This is accompanied by readings in film theory, criticism, and history