žižek archive
⌘K
archive / stories / King Kong and the Palace of Soviets

King Kong and the Palace of Soviets

anecdote · Film history · retold in 3 talks
on the map →

The producers who later made King Kong visited the USSR and saw the constructivist model for the Palace of Soviets, a gigantic skyscraper with a colossal statue of Lenin on top. They said: replace Lenin with an ape and you have King Kong. The iconic image of capitalist cinema originates in Soviet constructivist ambition.

2009: 1 talk 2014: 1 talk 2015: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 3

“They saw this famous constructivist model it was never built for the Palace of Soviets, a skyscraper and on the top gigantic statue of Lenin. They said: replace Lenin with ape and you have the ultimate.”
~50:24 A Critique of Object Oriented Ontology and New Materialism2015-04-01 · 2:06:44
“replace Lenin with ape and you get-”
1:40:40 Slavoj Žižek: Architecture as a Critique of Ideology2009 · 1:46:39
“Up, exchange Lenin with ape, we get the basic image. Direct Soviet influence — that image.”
1:00:55 Discussion on the Film “The Black Cat”2014-04-08 · 1:20:42

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 1 jobsuses
political unconscious ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by
Edward Hopper2Henry Ford2Frank Gehry2kibbutz1Metropolitan Opera House1Starbucks1New Labour1Michael Hammond1
alongside works
King Kong2Tenerife Auditorium1Stalinallee (Frankfurter Allee)1South Bank Complex1Shanghai Center1Senate House1San Marco Church1Performing Architecture: Opera Houses, Theatres and Concert Halls for the Twenty-First Century1

Every retelling 3

~50:24 A Critique of Object Oriented Ontology and New Materialism2015-04-01 · 2:06:44
The producers who later made King Kong visited the USSR and saw the constructivist model for the Palace of Soviets, a gigantic skyscraper with a colossal statue of Lenin on top. They said: replace Lenin with an ape and you have King Kong. The iconic image of capitalist cinema originates in Soviet constructivist ambition., illustrating capitalism and communism,culture industry,Soviet modernity
1:40:40 Slavoj Žižek: Architecture as a Critique of Ideology2009 · 1:46:39
The claim that the producers of King Kong modeled the giant ape on the unfinished Palace of Soviets project in Moscow, where planes could land on Lenin's statue., illustrating cinema-art-culture
1:00:55 Discussion on the Film “The Black Cat”2014-04-08 · 1:20:42
The producers of King Kong visited the Soviet Union and were shown architectural plans for the never-built Palace of Soviets, a massive structure with a Lenin statue on top. They took the image, replaced Lenin with an ape, and got the basic image of King Kong atop a tower., illustrating Soviet-Hollywood mutual influence,architecture as symptom,class and monstrosity