Authors

Discussion

Soviet Latvian Film director Gunārs Piesis (1931–1996) was studying at VGIK between 1955–1962 and thus was educated as one of the first young film professionals from Soviet Latvia. Having returned home, he confronted the power of local Soviet institutions, which restricted and suppressed his creative intentions. After the devastating reviews of his debut film Gray Willows Bloom (“Kārkli pelēkie zied”, 1961), Piesis had to turn to documentary and began to write a diary, that reveals both – doubts about the creative process and cravings for recognition and intimacy with friends and same-sex intimate partners. The diary is a testimony to the emotional outbursts that take effect over the years, documenting a personality that accumulates various negative affects that were facilitated by the suppression of artistic freedom by the political establishment. These affects contribute to conflicts with colleagues, isolation, passivity, inability to work, delusions of persecution, and, finally, depression that takes hold throughout his life. Piesis, often described by his contemporaries as intolerant, despotic, and hysterical may have lived with bipolar disorder, exacerbated by the aforementioned conditions. In this paper, his diary will be analyzed as “the interpersonal traffic of feeling” (Stern) that is at the same time a parallel document to Soviet Latvian film history, as they both end with the death of the author.