Evolution of Stunt Episodes in Fiction Films about the Great Patriotic War

Taking the same stunt episode in three film adaptations of the short story “The Dawns Are Quiet Here...”, which were made by S.I.Rostotsky (1972, USSR), M.Weining (2005, China — Russia) and R.F.Davletyarov (2015, Russia) as an example, the article studies the transformation of the film stunts in terms of their choreography.
The principal distinctive characteristics of each of these adaptations are specified. Particular emphasis is laid on the artistic value of stunt episodes as a means of creating the cinematic truth in Soviet (later Russian) films about the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945). The peculiarity of Russian stunt episodes in fiction war films is that a heroic exploit per se is a stunt. The heroism of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic war meant above all overcoming, persistence and humanism. And the utmost manifestation of these qualities achieved by plastic expressive means is a stunt. The author assumes that every film stunt must have an intrinsic artistic side to it, which precisely complies with the narrative plotline while evoking a direct association with the plastic pattern of a particular character. The corresponding body of evidence is the result of an empirical method of analyzing the object in the temporal aspect (retrospection and prognosis).
Today Russian films about the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) and their predecessors, Soviet movies — which may be considered a gold standard of the use stunts — can be looked upon as a cinematic paragon of presenting the truth about the deadliest war of the twentieth century both in historic reenactment and artistic retrospection.