This week on Cold War Cinema, we look at Boris Barnet’s Poet (sometimes refered to as The Poet), a 1956 feature about the role of art and literature in war and revolution.

Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein for a broad-ranging conversation about the film and the politics of form and style. Throughout, we consider:

• The challenges of context-dependent domestic filmmaking and international spectatorship

• How film narrative and aesthetic modes like Socialist Realism participate in the construction of national myths, imaginaries, and ideologies

• Barnet’s dynamic use of framing, blocking, color, and light to advance Poet’s plot and politics

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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode:

Paul recommends A History of Russian Cinema by Birgit Beumers.

Tony recommends, The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of Haitian Revolution by Julius S. Scott. Tony emphatically does not recommend Literature and Revolution by Leon Trotsky.

Jason recommends Miklós Janscó’s 1967 Hungarian war film, The Red and the White.

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Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com.

To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema.

For more from your hosts:

• Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.

• Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas.

• Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com

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Logo by Jason Christian

Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt).

Happy listening!