Vladimir Gardin (1877-1965)
_
First gaining fame as a stage actor, he began directing and acting in films in 1913. Following the Revolution, he founded the Russian State University of Cinematography (now known as VGIK), the oldest film school in the world. During the 1920s, he focused on directing, and his work includes prominent agit films Sickle and Hammer (1921) and Locksmith and Chancellor (1923), as well as the hugely popular, if less political, The Bear’s Wedding (1926). He directed his last film in 1928, but continued acting in films until 1950.
IMDB page
First gaining fame as a stage actor, he began directing and acting in films in 1913. Following the Revolution, he founded the Russian State University of Cinematography (now known as VGIK), the oldest film school in the world. During the 1920s, he focused on directing, and his work includes prominent agit films Sickle and Hammer (1921) and Locksmith and Chancellor (1923), as well as the hugely popular, if less political, The Bear’s Wedding (1926). He directed his last film in 1928, but continued acting in films until 1950.
IMDB page
Georgian Films
Salt for Svanetia (1930)
The first film with a Georgian theme featuring Georgian performers was Arsen Dzhordzhiashveli (1921, Ivan Perestiani). Throughout the 1920s, several films were produced every year in Georgia, reaching a peak of 13 Georgian productions for 1929. Most of these came from the Georgian production company Goskinprom Gruzii, including one of the decade’s most popular films across the Soviet Union, the children’s adventure story Little Red Devils (1922, Ivan Perestiani). Prominent figures to emerge from the Georgian industry of this period were actor-director Mikhail Chiaureli, director Mikhail Kalatazov and the Soviet Union’s most popular star of the era, Nato Vachnadze. Among the notable Georgian films were Three Lives (1923, Ivan Perestiani), Abrek Zaur (1926, Boris Mikhin), Eliso (1928, Nikolai Shengeleyo), Saba (1929, Mikhail Chiaureli) and Salt for Svanetia (1930, Mikhail Kalatazov).
Gerasimov, Sergei (1906-1985)
Joining FEKS as a teenager, he played villains in FEKS films such as The Overcoat (1926) and New Babylon (1929). He went on to a long career as writer, director and teacher. As a director, the most successful of his 32 films was And Quiet Flows the Don (1957). He also taught acting for several decades and many of his pupils became prominent in the Russian film industry. The Russian State University of Cinematography, the world’s oldest film school founded in 1919, was renamed the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (or VGIK) in his honour in 1986.
IMDB page
Gorky, Maxim (1868-1936)
Born Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, he adopted the pseudonym Gorky (meaning “bitter”) while working as a journalist. He became famous in Russia and around the world after the publication of his book Essays and Stories (1898) and the play he is most remembered for, The Lower Depths (1902), which has been filmed several times. Among his many other works, his 1907 novel The Mother became the source, loosely adapted, of Vsevelod Pudovkin’s 1926 film of the same name. His autobiography was the inspiration for the celebrated trilogy of films directed by Mark Donskoy: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky, My Apprenticeship and My Universities (1938-40). A strong critic of the Tsarist regime, he was arrested several times, became a personal friend of Lenin as early as 1902 and spent the years 1906-1913 in exile in Capri. An active supporter of the Revolution, he soon became disillusioned and went back to Italy in 1921. He returned again to the Soviet Union in 1932 and wrote several pieces glorifying the Stalinist regime. Nevertheless, he was placed under house arrest in 1934 and died in 1936 under questionable circumstances. Stalin was a pallbearer at his funeral.
Maxim Gorky sites:
http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc73.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/index.htm
IMDB page
Goskino
Created in 1922, the Central State Photo-Cinema Enterprise was given a monopoly on distribution of films, the profits from which were supposed to be used to finance the production of Soviet films. Having few locally produced films to show, little in the way of money or materials to make new ones, and faced with popular indifference to Soviet cinema, Goskino resorted to a controversial policy of importing large numbers of foreign films. In 1924, its distribution powers were given to the newly founded Sovkino, but continued as a production company until 1926. Despite its struggles, it managed to produce several significant films in its short history, including Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda films (1922-1924), The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924, Lev Kuleshov), Strike (1925, Sergei M. Eisenstein), Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei M. Eisenstein) and By the Law (1926, Lev Kuleshov).
Goskino films, 1924-1926
Great Purge (1936-1938)
During the period known as the Great Purge, Stalin eliminated his enemies, opponents and critics through a series of show trials, often held after the accused had undergone torture, deportations to concentration camps and executions. The Ukraine in particular suffered heavily as Stalin ordered the murder of the heads of Ukrainian Soviet government, along with kulaks, religious leaders, anti-communist sympathizers, Red Army officers and even members of Stalin’s own NKVD. Those not executed were sent to labor camps with numbers ranging from 3-12 million. In November 1938, the "Arrests, Prosecutor Supervision and Course of Investigation" decree was signed, bringing an end to this period of intense persecution, if not to the practices used by the government.
Historical films
Wings of a Serf (1926)
_
Period costume films, the mainstay of the pre-Revolutionary Russian cinema, was one of the few genres to carry over into the 1920s. They were both the most reliable draw for domestic audiences and the easiest type of film to export to foreign markets, but were often criticized on ideological grounds. While they were associated with mainstream commercial fare, figures from the avant-garde also made them. For example, one of the most popular historical films, Wings of a Serf (1926, Yuri Tarich) had a script by critic Viktor Shklovsky and was edited by Esfir Shub.
Period costume films, the mainstay of the pre-Revolutionary Russian cinema, was one of the few genres to carry over into the 1920s. They were both the most reliable draw for domestic audiences and the easiest type of film to export to foreign markets, but were often criticized on ideological grounds. While they were associated with mainstream commercial fare, figures from the avant-garde also made them. For example, one of the most popular historical films, Wings of a Serf (1926, Yuri Tarich) had a script by critic Viktor Shklovsky and was edited by Esfir Shub.
Ideal Observer
The “ideal observer” or “invisible observer” was an idea refined by Pudovkin which indicates the camera lens representing the eyes of an implicit observer (Bordwell Narration 9). As this observer is immobile within space and time, their view, as transmitted through the camera lens, becomes the ideal way to capture the implicit details of a scene. As Pudovkin states, the camera position should be “positioned so that everything that passes before it is visible in the clearest and most expressive form possible” (Pudovkin 112). The image is therefore considered truthful, as the camera has successfully captured its essence. This accentuates Pudovkin's emphasis of the apparatus, stating a screen image can only take shape “when the cameraman is an organic part of the production collective and participates in the film-making process from start to finish” (Pudovkin 114). Furthermore, the editing of a scene through ideal perspectives offers spectators a “controlled, perfectly legible view of actions” (Pudovkin Continuity Style). Unlike the montage theories of Eisenstein and Vertov, Pudovkin gave prominence to the idea of narrative continuity and so this “legible view of actions” of great concern.. Pudovkin's films therefore relied on continuity editing to evoke this ideal spectator in order to facilitate and ensure the reception of narrative information.
The scene, from Pudovkin's Mother, demonstrates his use of continuity editing. Watch as the camera jumps around, attaining the necessary reactions and eye line matches to appropriately reveal the scene.
For More Info:
Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Print.
Kepley Jr., Vance “Pudovkin and the Continuity Style: Problems of Space and Narration”. Discourse: Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 17.3. Chadwyck-Healey, Inc, Project MUSE, and Thomson Gale. (Spring 1995)Print. Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich, Richard Taylor, and Evgeni Filippov. Selected Essays., 2006. Print.
Igor Ilyinsky (1901-1987)
Beloved comic actor who was a member of Vsevelod Meyerhold's Moscow Theatre for 14 years (1920-34), during which time he became famous throughout the Soviet Union for his performances as a bumbling would-be sleuth in Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924, Yakov Protazanov) and a provincial tailor who wins the lottery in The Tailor from Torzhok (1925, Yakov Protazanov). He also had notable appearances in the hit films Miss Mend (1926, Boris Barnet), The Case of the Three Million (1926, Yakov Protazanov) and A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927, Sergei Komarov). His broad comic style, strongly influenced by biomechanics, at first seemed poorly suited to the era of socialist realism and he focused on the theatre, where he was the lead actor of Moscow's Maly Theatre from 1938 until his death in 1987. However, the performance he is most fondly remembered for came during the 1930s: the bureaucrat Byvalov in the phenomanally popular musical comedy Volga Volga (1938, Grigori Aleksandrov). Reputedly Stalin's favourite film, it won Ilyinsky a Stalin Prize and possibly saved him from sharing the fate of his mentor Meyerhold. Despite this success, Ilyinsky appeared only occasionally in films, his most popular later role was as yet another comic bureaucrat in the musical comedy Carnival Night (1956, Eldar Ryazanov).
IMDB page
Intellectual Montage
Intellectual montage is perhaps Eisenstein's greatest contribution to theories of Soviet montage. Based on Marx's theory of dialectical materialism, intellectual montage concerns the symbolic meaning produced through the juxtaposition of two diegetically oppositional shots. The importance of this montage for Eisenstein lay in its ability not, unlike other forms of montage, to induce emotional response, but rather to communicate the “expression of ideologically pointed theses” (Eisenstein 62).
Intellectual montage is therefore the opportunity for film to transcend its entertainment trappings and expand into the realm of politicized rhetoric. Examples of intellectual montage are numerous in the films of Eisenstein, but is most easily identifiable in Strike. The montage of the striking workers being killed is intercut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered. The associational link between these two diegetically oppositional images is the act of slaughter which allows the spectator to relate on a complex level to the ideological ramification of oppressed workers which results in a powerful emotional intensification of the scene (Eisenstein 57). Pudovkin, noting the potential of this device, remarks that it manages to “introduce an abstract concept into the viewer's consciousness through montage without resorting to [an intertitle] (Pudovkin 63). Another example is the Gods sequence from October which features images of religion iconography juxtaposed against each other as well as traditional mythic and military imagery.
Intellectual montage is therefore the opportunity for film to transcend its entertainment trappings and expand into the realm of politicized rhetoric. Examples of intellectual montage are numerous in the films of Eisenstein, but is most easily identifiable in Strike. The montage of the striking workers being killed is intercut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered. The associational link between these two diegetically oppositional images is the act of slaughter which allows the spectator to relate on a complex level to the ideological ramification of oppressed workers which results in a powerful emotional intensification of the scene (Eisenstein 57). Pudovkin, noting the potential of this device, remarks that it manages to “introduce an abstract concept into the viewer's consciousness through montage without resorting to [an intertitle] (Pudovkin 63). Another example is the Gods sequence from October which features images of religion iconography juxtaposed against each other as well as traditional mythic and military imagery.
The Gods Sequence from October.
The Slaughter Sequence from Strike.
For More Info:
Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form [and]the Film Sense; Two Complete and Unabridged Works. New York: Meridian Books, 1957. Print.
Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich, Richard Taylor, and Evgeni Filippov. Selected Essays., 2006. Print.
Khokhlova, Aleksandra (1897-1985).
Founding member of the film collective led by her husband, Lev Kuleshov. A gifted actress, her unconventional looks contributed to her appearing in only eight films, all but one directed by her husband. These included memorable turns as the “countess” in The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924) and as Mrs. Nelson in By the Law (1926). Besides acting, she was assistant director on several of Kuleshov’s films and directed three of her own between 1930 and 1943.
IMDB page
Kinoglaz/Kino-Eye/Kinopravda
Dziga Vertov, in the early 1920's, developed the movement and theory of kinoglaz (or kino-eye) which espoused the belief of the superior capabilities of the film camera to the human eye. The camera, Vertov claimed, was more adept at capturing the minute details of life and thus better to report the absolute truth. Kinoglaz was also the name of a feature film created by Vertov in 1925. Kinopravda (or film-truth) was a series of news reels, created by Vertov in 1922, which depicted current events as well as ordinary life under the tenets of kinoglaz. Kinoglaz Online, meanwhile, is a critically acclaimed web resource for early Soviet film, created by a crackerjack team of highly intelligent renegades.
For More Info
Vertov, Dziga, and Annette Michelson. Kino-Eye :The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1984. Print.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History :An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Print.
Komarov, Sergei (1891-1957)
A member of the Kuleshov film collective, he made his film acting debut in the agit film Sickle and Hammer (1921, Vladimir Gardin) and went on to play character parts, usually as villains, in a series of important films, including Kuleshov’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924), The Death Ray (1925) and By the Law (1926). Other notable performances were in Chess Fever (1925, Vsevelod Pudovkin), Miss Mend (1926, Boris Barnet), The End of St. Petersburg (1927, Vsevelod Pudovkin), the House on Trubnaya (1928, Boris Barnet), Outskirts (1933, Boris Barnet) and Deserter (1933, Vsevelod Pudovkin). He also directed one of the era’s most popular comedies, A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927). He only directed once more, but continued to act in films through the mid-1950s.
IMDB page
Kozintsev, Grigori (1905-1973) and Trauberg, Leonid (1902-1990)
Ukrainian-born filmmaking team who co-directed 14 films between 1924 and 1945. While still teenagers they were co-founders, along with Sergei Yutkevitch, of the theatre (and later film) collective FEKS, or Workshop of the Eccentric Actor. They continued and extended their avant-garde theatre practices in their film work, and made two of the most memorably stylized films of the period, The Overcoat (1926) and New Babylon (1929). They both directed a handful of solo films after their creative partnership ended, including (by Kozintsev) well-regarded adaptations of Hamlet (1964) and King Lear (1971).
Kozintsev IMDB page
Trauberg IMDB page
Kulaks
_Term used to refer to landowners who owned private farms due to Tsarist
era land reforms, or in practice any moderately better off farmers who
resisted the collectivization of agriculture. They were targeted by the
Bolshevik regime as hoarders and class enemies of both peasants and
urban workers. During the late 1920s and 30s, they often appeared as
villains in Soviet films, their defeats by technology onscreen in films
such as Old and New (1929, Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov) and Earth (1930, Aleksandr Dovzhenko) was paralleled by their liquidation as a social group through mass deportations, executions and famine.
Kuleshov Effect
A series of experiments performed by Lev Kuleshov while working at the State Film School yielded the editing technique known as the Kuleshov Effect; in which a series of shots is connected to form spacial or temporal continuity. The experiment, based on the belief that each piece of film has two strengths: it's own and it its relation to others, (Leyda 175), consisted of the same shot of the actor Mozhukhin intercut with images ranging from a bowl of soup to a coffin. Audiences would then infer the appropriate response, hunger towards the soup, or sadness towards the coffin, despite Mozhukhin's identical reaction to each object and the spacial arbitrariness of the images. The effect would become synonymous with the montage movement, as it declared editing's ability to elicit emotional response. (Bordwell 132)
For More Info:
Leyda, Jay. Kino :A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. New York: Collier Books, 1973; 1960. Print.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History :An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Print.
For More Info:
Leyda, Jay. Kino :A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. New York: Collier Books, 1973; 1960. Print.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History :An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Print.
In the accompanying clip, Alfred Hitchcock explains the Kuleshov Effect with the help of a girl in a bikini.