Viy (1967)

This week on The Spectator Film Podcast…

Viy (1967) 4.26.19
Featuring: Austin, Maxx

Commentary track begins at 17:20

— Notes —

• Viy (1967) – There’s the link to the version of this film we watched on Youtube. Terrible transfer but, as far as we can tell, this is the most straightforward way of viewing the movie in the US.
• “The Soviet Film Today” by Steven P. Hill from Film Quarterly — Here’s an article from 1967, unfortunately locked here behind a pay wall, that discusses some of the immense changes occurring during the Soviet film industry at this time. The article is written from the outsider’s perspective looking in, so inevitably I’m sure there’s more to the story, but it still provides lots of interesting information.
• “‘Viy’: Incestuous Mother as Horror Monster” by Brigit McCone from Bitch Flicks — Here’s the article we referred to discussing the pseudo-sexual assault Khoma experiences at the hands of the witch. McCone does an excellent job of untangling the way gender and sex work in the subtext of this film, and her conclusions about Khoma’s behavior and its relation to trauma is thought-provoking. Bitch Flicks seems like an awesome site, and I’ll certainly be revisiting it in the future.
• “The Viy” by Nikolai Gogol (Translated by Claud Field) — Here’s a link to an online version of the Gogol story.