Agadzhanova-Shutko, Nina (1889-1974).
Armenian writer whose original screenplay for Battleship Potemkin (1925) was largely ignored by Eisenstein. This led to a lawsuit over author’s rights and was often cited by those arguing for an “iron scenario,” a screenplay directors would not be allowed to change, in Soviet filmmaking. She also co-directed (with Lev Kuleshov) Two-Buldi-Two (1929) and co-wrote the screenplay for Deserter (1933, Vsevelod Pudovkin).
IMDB page
IMDB page
Agit Films
The most important genre to emerge immediately following the October Revolution. With film stock and other materials scarce, government resources available for filmmakers were mostly used to make short propaganda films. Usually two reels, although sometimes longer, they were technically crude, with simple plots, stock characters and clear pro-Bolshevik messages that could be easily understood by the masses. Notable examples include Overcrowding (1918, Alexander Panteleev), with a script by Commissar of Enlightenment A.V. Lunacharskii, and Sickle and Hammer (1921, Vladimir Gardin).
ARK
Formed in February, 1924, the Association of Revolutionary Cinematography included almost every major figure associated with the Moscow film avant-garde, including directors such as Eisenstein and Kuleshov, along with writers, actors, technicians, producers and journalists. Although not all members belonged to the Communist Party, the group’s stated goal was to create Communist culture in cinema. Its journal, Cinema Journal ARK (renamed Cinema Front in 1926) became an influential forum for film criticism and debate. ARK strongly criticized Sovkino’s policy of making apolitical commercial films and importing and distributing foreign films in order to raise money. Instead, ARK supported the Cultural Revolution that began in 1928, even though some of the campaign’s targets were ARK members. The group also renamed itself ARRK (Association of Workers in Revolutionary Cinematography) in 1928, but this claim to proletarian credentials did not prevent a series of purges between 1930 and 1932 of figures associated with “formalism” and related offenses.
Babel, Isaac (1894-1940)
Eminent Russian writer and protégé of Maxim Gorky, he is best remembered for the short story collections Red Cavalry (about his experiences as a soldier in the 1920 Soviet-Polish War), Story of My Dovecote (semi-autobiographical tales of his Jewish childhood in Odessa) and Tales of Odessa, which he adapted for the screen under the title Benya Krik (1926, Vladimir Vilner). He also collaborated on the scripts for Circus (1936, Grigori Aleksandrov), the suppressed and destroyed Bezhin Meadow (1937, Sergei M. Eisenstein) and The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938, Mark Donskoy). His name was removed from the credits of the last film after his arrest by the NKVD (state security) in 1939. Under torture, he confessed to being a member of a Trotskyite conspiracy and a spy for foreign countries. He was executed by firing squad in 1940 and his works only became available again in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death.
Isaac Babel site
IMDB page
Baranovskaia, Vera (1885-1935)
Stage-trained actress who became famous for her iconic performance in the title role of Mother (1926, Vsevelod Pudovkin). After appearing in Pudovkin’s The End of St. Petersburg (1927), she emigrated from the Soviet Union and played character parts in German, Czech and French films until her death in Paris in 1935.
IMDB page
Batalov, Nikolai (1899-1937)
After several years stage experience, he made his film debut as the Red Army veteran Gusev in Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924, Yakov Protazanov). His most important subsequent roles include the young revolutionary hero in Mother (1926, Vsevelod Pudovkin), the clueless husband in Bed and Sofa (1927, Abram Room) and the compassionate commissar in the first Soviet sound film, Path to Life (1931, Nikolai Ekk). One of the biggest Russian stars of the era, his career was cut short in the early 1930s when he contracted tuberculosis, which led to his death in 1937.
IMDB page
Bauer, Evgenii (1865-1917)
An innovative filmmaker and preeminent figure of the pre-Revolutionary Russian film industry, directing 82 films in a variety of genres between 1913 and his death following an accident in 1917. Dismissed as out of date by the Soviet avant-garde, Bauer’s work was only reevaluated following the end of the Soviet period and the discovery of well-preserved film prints in the Soviet archive. Notable films include Life in Death (1914), Daydreams (1915), After Death (1915), The Revolutionary (1917), The Dying Swan (1917) and For Happiness (1917).
Evgenii Bauer page
Early Russian Cinema page
IMDB page
Biomechanical Acting
Biomechanical acting was introduced as a theatrical performance technique by Vsevolod Meyerhold in the early 1920's. Drawing on Constructivist influences, the theatre of Meyerhold began to reflect mechanical industry in its ideas, stage design, and biomechanical acting. The process, which likened the body to the machine, “consisted of carefully controlled physical movements rather than the expression of inner emotions” (Bordwell 137). Owing a debt to the precision of industry, Meyerhold demanded his actors initiate complete control over their body to form a broad vocabulary of gestures with associative meanings. This allowed a transmission of emotion to occur while avoiding the ambiguities that could be associated with an internal and psychologically based performance (Kepley 144). Meyerhold's technique proved influential to Soviet cinema as it was adopted by the likes of Lev Kuleshov, who employed it to emphasize rhythm and energy, and Sergei Eisenstein, who studied under Meyerhold and would implements these ideas in his theatrical work, which would later influence his films.
Above are two documentaries concerning Meyerhold and Biomechanical Acting. They contain both old footage of the technique,
as well as new actors appropriating the style.
as well as new actors appropriating the style.
For More Info:
Kepley, Vance. “Mr. Kuleshov in the Land of the Modernists”. The Red Screen :Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema, ed Lawton, Anna. . London; New York: Routledge, 1992. Print.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History :An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Print.
Kepley, Vance. “Mr. Kuleshov in the Land of the Modernists”. The Red Screen :Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema, ed Lawton, Anna. . London; New York: Routledge, 1992. Print.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History :An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Print.
"Bloody Sunday" (January 9, 1905)
“Bloody Sunday” took place when unarmed striking workers protesting against Tsar Nicholas II, were fired upon by the Imperial Guard. Workers went on strike at the Putilov Industrial Plant and demanding better working conditions, which included an increase in wages and a decrease in work hours. On January 9, 1905, over 140,000 men, women and children congregated at the Palace Square in support of the workers. It was here that the demonstrators were fired upon resulting in over 100 deaths and lead to a surge of strikes across the country.
For More Info:
Schwarz, Soloman M. The Russian Revolution of 1905. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.
Verner, Andrew M., The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicolas II and the 1905 Revolution. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990.
For More Info:
Schwarz, Soloman M. The Russian Revolution of 1905. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.
Verner, Andrew M., The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicolas II and the 1905 Revolution. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Bolsheviks
From the Russian word meaning “majority”, this faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, founded by Lenin, came to power during the October Revolution in 1917. They believed that the only way to realize a successful revolution is to have a consolidated party of proficient revolutionaries. In 1952 the name Bolshevik was removed from the party’s official name. The objectives of the Bolsheviks were to build a communist society via that transformation from a socialist state to a communist state.
For More Info:
Brovkin, Vladimir N., The Bolsheviks in Russian Society. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Dan, Theodore. The Origins of Bolshevism. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Zenzinov, Vladimir. “The Bolsheviks and the Peasant”. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 4.1 (Oct., 1925), pp. 134-143.
For More Info:
Brovkin, Vladimir N., The Bolsheviks in Russian Society. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Dan, Theodore. The Origins of Bolshevism. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Zenzinov, Vladimir. “The Bolsheviks and the Peasant”. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 4.1 (Oct., 1925), pp. 134-143.