A2 Unit 3 Art And The Moving Image - Soviet Cinema Presentation
This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. If you are author or own the copyright of this book, please report to us by using this DMCA report form. Report DMCA
Overview
Download & View A2 Unit 3 Art And The Moving Image - Soviet Cinema Presentation as PDF for free.
More details
- Words: 7,143
- Pages: 57
Unit 3: Art and the Moving Image Soviet Cinema
Why is studying Soviet Cinema important?
Soviet films of the 1920s did much to define the cinematic vocabulary of modern Hollywood, producing a range of effects designed to emotionally manipulate the audience. Even today modern filmmakers have at various times paid direct or indirect homage to their Russian cinematic forebears.
Historical context: Tsarist When studying film it is important to always consider the political, social and Russia historical context in which films are made. This is particularly the case with
Russia, which has a long and turbulent history. The origins of the revolution - Despite being the third biggest Empire in the world it can be suggested that the prevalence of serfdom and the conservative policies of Nicolas I and a Tsarist or monarchist system impeded the development of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant reforms, including the abolition of serfdom in 1861; these "Great Reforms" spurred industrialization. However, many socio-economic conflicts were aggravated during Alexander III’s reign and under his son, Nicholas II. Harsh conditions in factories created mass support for the revolutionary socialist movement. In January 1905, striking workers peaceably demonstrated for reforms in Saint Petersburg but were fired upon by troops, killing and wounding hundreds. The abject failure of the Tsar's military forces in the initially popular Russo-Japanese War, and the event known as "Bloody Sunday", ignited the Russian Revolution of 1905.
Revolution in Russia 1905
Historical context: Effects of War, Industrialisation, Famine.
Famine - Although the uprising was swiftly put down by the army and although Nicholas II retained much of his power, he was forced to concede major reforms, including granting the freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalization of political parties and the creation of an elected legislative assembly, the Duma; however, the hopes for basic improvements in the lives of industrial workers were unfulfilled. Droughts and famines in Russia tended to occur on a fairly regular basis, with famine occurring every 10–13 years. The 1891–92 famine killed approximately half-million people.[77] Cholera epidemics claimed more than 2 million lives.[78] WWI & The Russian Revolution - Russia entered World War I in aid of its ally Serbia and fought a war across three fronts while isolated from its allies. Russia did not want war but felt that the only alternative was German domination of Europe. Although the army was far from defeated in 1916, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, casualties (Russia suffered the highest number of both military and civilian deaths of the Entente Powers), and tales of corruption and even treason in high places, leading to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917. February Revolution & Provisional Government - A series of uprisings were organized by workers and peasants throughout the country, as well as by soldiers in the Russian army, who were mainly of peasant origin. Many of the uprisings were organized and led by democratically elected councils called Soviets. The February Revolution overthrew the Russian monarchy, which was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government. October Revolution and Lenin - The abdication marked the end of imperial rule in Russia, and Nicholas and his family were imprisoned and later executed during the Civil War. While initially receiving the support of the Soviets, the Provisional Government proved unable to resolve many problems which had led to the February Revolution. The second revolution, the October Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and created the world’s first socialist state.
Vladimir Lenin
Historical Context: Soviet Internal Conflict - Following the October Revolution, a civil war broke out Russia between the new regime and the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and
the White movement. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded hostilities with the Central Powers in World War I. Russia lost its Ukrainian, Polish and Baltic territories, and Finland by signing the treaty. The Allied powers launched a military intervention in support of anti-Communist forces and both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror.
The Soviet Union - The famine of 1921 claimed 5 million victims.[79] By the end of the Russian Civil War, some 20 million had died and the Russian economy and infrastructure were completely devastated. Following victory in the Civil War, the Russian SFSR together with three other Soviet republics formed the Soviet Union on 30 December 1922. Out of the 15 republics that constituted the Soviet Union, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the largest republic in terms of size and making up over half of the total USSR population, dominated the Soviet Union for its entire 69-year history; the USSR was often referred to, though incorrectly, as "Russia" and its people as "Russians."
Historical Context: Soviet Russia
Joseph Stalin - Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin consolidated power, becoming a dictator. He launched a command economy, rapid industrialization of the largely rural country, and collectivization of its agriculture. These moves transformed the Soviet Union from an agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in a short span of time. This transformation came with a heavy price, however. Millions of citizens died as a consequence of his harsh policies (see Gulag, Dekulakization, Population transfers in the Soviet Union, Soviet famine of 1932–1933, and Great Terror).
World War II - On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union with the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history,[83] opening the largest theater of the Second World War. Although the German army had considerable success early on, they suffered defeats after reaching the outskirts of Moscow and were dealt their first major defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943.[84] Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe in 1944–45 and captured Berlin in May, 1945. In the conflict, Soviet military and civilian death toll were 10.6 million and 15.9 million respectively,[85] accounting for about a third of all World War II casualties. The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation[86] but the Soviet Union emerged as an acknowledged superpower. The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war, including the eastern half of Germany; Stalin installed socialist governments in these satellite states. Becoming the world's second nuclear weapons power, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact alliance and entered into a struggle for global dominance with the United States, which became known as the Cold War
Early Russian Cinema 1896
First Films - The first films were shown in Russia in 1896 and within ten years domestic interest in cinema-going was so strong that it led to the beginnings of domestic production. With its origins as a novelty in stalls at fairs, cinema was seen as entertainment rather than an art form. Silent Films? – Early screenings featured a series of short films running continuously with often drunk and noisy audiences wandering in and out. Films were shot without sound, but early Russian films were based around songs that viewers could sing along with. Literary Adaptations - There were a number of historical productions and adaptations of well-known works of literature as well, since cinema was seen as working better when the audience was already familiar with the plot.
World War I
Breakthrough – The onset of WWI created a wealth of innovation and increased demand for domestic films as Imports were hindered. First Auteur - The length of productions had by this time increased, and Evgeny Bauer became the first Russian director to insist that he have overall creative control for all of his films' elements (set design, lighting, costumes, script, editing) and not just marshal the actors in the shooting process. Although firmly rooted in melodrama and often exploiting such clichés as the little country girl corrupted by the big city, Bauer's films are of much interest, rooted as they are in symbolism, Greek tragedy and the great Russian novels of the 19th century. Even today, his choice of themes seems adventurous, albeit morbid, and his sense of mise-en-scène is striking.
The Dying Swan 1917 Russian Silent Vera Karalli Evgeni Bauer Ballet
After the Revolution
Growth of Film Under Communism - The Tsarist authorities and the Orthodox Church were extremely distrustful of cinema, popular and bawdy as it was. The communists, who seized power in October 1917, knew only too well its power and were keen to tap into it. Initially though, the politicians were more concerned with consolidating their shaky power base (civil war raged in the country until 1921), and the Tsarist filmmakers were more concerned with fleeing the communists. Moreover, early Soviet film was hampered by a shortage of film stock.
‘Agit-Prop’
The first films after the revolution were "agit-prop" (agitationpropaganda) works that sought to educate a largely illiterate population about the goals of communism. With few cinemas in the areas that most needed educating, screenings took place on specially converted "agit trains" that toured the country. With the old guard of filmmaking largely in exile and a new political order in place, young emerging filmmakers sought to create a new way of looking at reality (as did those working in other art forms, such as music, poetry, architecture and fine art). The result was one of the most intense periods of creativity in cinema history.
“Americanism”
Early Soviet directors were highly influenced by the "cinemaness" of American films of the time: Keystone Kops chase scenes made in the early teens, for example, included such stunts as jumping off a bridge onto a bus passing underneath - a scene that totally transcended the possibilities of the conventional theater. D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), which had to be smuggled into the country, was also a huge influence, despite grave reservations about the director's racism. Kuleshov & Soviet Montage - In a 1922 article entitled "Americanism," pioneering director Lev Kuleshov called for filmmaking with an "organic link with contemporary life," "the maximum amount of movement," shorter scenes and therefore more rapid cutting, close-ups and attention to how individual shots worked when combined together - montage. Russian directors responded to Kuleshov with a series of works that, despite the heavy influence of American cinema, came to be known as Soviet montage.
Keystone Cops
Lev Kuleshov
Kuleshov worked under Evgeny Bauer during the Tsarist period, first as a set designer and then as an actor. Although Kuleshov repudiated "the Bauer method," he consolidated the notion of the director as artist in total control and he doubtless learned much from Bauer. The Kuleshov Experiment - His first films were newsreels and enacted documentaries for the nascent Soviet state and he then went on to found "Kuleshov Collective" at the State Film School. However, shortages of film stock were chronic and agit-prop work had priority. Starved of the ability to make art films, Kuleshov went through an intense period of theorization about cinema and experimented with a form of theater that mimicked the visual language of cinema - "films without film." When he made his first film in 1924, Neobychainye prikliucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bol'shevikov (The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924) he was able to claim that it was a "verification of [his workshop's] methods." As well as being notable for its montage, Mr. West illustrates Kuleshov's interest in actors and acting, something that sets him aside from montage directors such as Eisenstein. Innovation - After a science fiction thriller, The Death Ray (Luch smerti, 1925), Kuleshov made By the Law (Po zakonu, 1926), based on a Jack London story about the Gold Rush (thus once again showing Kuleshov's interest in America). It's a film that graphically demonstrates the ends to which Kuleshov and his team of actors would go in order to make cinema. The cabin in which the action takes place was built alongside an actual Russian river in the full knowledge that it was about to flood. Kuleshov intended there to be a couple of inches of water on the cabin floor, but it rose to a couple of feet. Nevertheless, the team continued shooting, despite occasional electric shocks from the lighting cables that had to run underwater and the freezing conditions for the soaked actors. The only film currently available on video from Kuleshov's oeuvre, By the Law demonstrates his huge talent, imagination and energy.
By the Law
Vsevelod Pudovkin
Pudovkin, like his teacher Kuleshov, also cherished the role of the actor. His first film was the comic short Chess Fever (Shakhmatnaya goryachka, 1925), which seemlessly blended documentary footage of real-life Grand Master Jose Raul Capablanca (shot at a tournament in Moscow) to make it seem he is part of the story. His most famous film is Mother (Mat, 1926), based on a story by leading light of communist literature, Maxim Gorky. It follows a mother in Tsarist Russia who is unable to understand her son's opposition to the regime. Only when he is imprisoned does the need for revolution dawn on her. The final scene, with the son escaping down a river on an ice floe and the prison guards in hot pursuit, is one of the best known from Soviet silent cinema.
Mother
Vsevelod Pudovkin
The End of St Petersburg (Konets Sankt-Peterburga, 1927) was one of a string of films made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. In this version, a peasant arrives in pre-war Saint Petersburg to find work just as strikes break out across the capital. He joins the strike-breakers and turns one of the organizers in to the police, but he soon realizes he's wrong and tries, in vain, to make amends. Until, that is, some years later when revolution breaks out. Storm over Asia (Potomok Chingis-khana, 1928) was filmed on location in Mongolia and is set during the period when British rule was being destabilized by the Civil War. The wily British believe they have found the heir to Ghengis Khan and install him as a puppet leader to try and introduce stability. The ethnographically shot scenes are still notable, and this cautionary tale of ill-advised imperialism may strike some as strikingly resonant with today's global politics. Pudovkin's reputation is now less than that of his fellow montagists, perhaps because, unlike directors such as Kuleshov, Eisenstein or Dovzhenko, he never made a film that had a decidedly anti-regime subtext and was always the dedicated artist in the service of the state. Furthermore, during the Great Terror he "was not always averse to protecting his own interests at the expense of others," as Richard Taylor phrases it. Still, his films from the 1920s are undoubted masterpieces of the era and, if they look less spectacular now than they once did, it is because Pudovkin's experimentations with editing have been more evenly successful and incorportated into the mainstream of cinema vocabulary than have those of other directors from the period.
Sergei Eisenstein
No film director has had more words written about them than Sergei Eisenstein, the undisputed master of Soviet montage, and no director has written so much about film. His works are still referenced and borrowed from by modern directors such as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma, not to mention advertising. Yet none of the films he made exist in the final form in which he wanted them. The negatives to his first two features Strike (Stachka, 1924) and Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potemkin, 1925) were sold by Russia to Germany to raise hard currency, and were censored and edited there. His next two features, including October (Oktyabr, 1927), had to be radically revised in an attempt to meet official approval. Two films from the 1930s were never completed. His attempt to rehabilitate himself, Aleksandr Nevsky (1938) was shown to Stalin before it was completed and the dictator was so pleased with the unfinished work that nobody dared alter it further. Eisenstein died without finishing his final project, the Ivan the Terrible trilogy (1943-46). Like that other pioneering auteur Orson Welles (with whom he shared a passion for Shakespeare), Eisenstein left behind a long list of unrealized projects and ideas for films with his death.
Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein started in experimental theater but soon drifted towards cinema. His first film, Strike (Stachka, 1924), although in some ways still marked by his background in theater - Eisenstein would also prefer to use character "types" rather than let his actors explore the personalities of complex individuals employed some boldly cinematic techniques. The film depicts the titular industrial action, which takes place in Tsarist times, and its suppression by the police. While some of the experiments in film language fail (the dramatic sweeps and shapes to change or frame action would go in his later films), others are as vivid and memorable as anything he would do in his more famous films. Though Strike is a little more uneven than Eisenstein's later works, veteran critic Derek Malcolm considers it his best, as it shows his basic humanity far better than his later masterpieces. Eisenstein's most famous and influential film is Battleship Potemkin (1925). Although originally conceived as one of a number of films celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1905 uprisings against Tsarist rule, Battleship Potemkin was the only one of the series made. The film's plot is loosely based on the mutiny aboard the titular war vessel in response to appalling conditions and an uncaring and aloof officer class.
Battleship Potemkin
Odessa, in the film, comes out in support of the militant sailors, and the Tsarist army brutally suppresses the jubilant shoreline encouragement the infamous "Odessa Steps" sequence (in fact, a fictional invention by the film's makers rather than a historical event). The battleship then heads out to sea; in the final act, another memorable and endlessly copied sequence, the battleship faces the combined might of the imperial navy with its red flag (hand tinted on the film) fluttering proudly in the wind. The true end was rather more ignominious, with the sailors docking in Romania and being arrested and transferred to Russia. Eisenstein's conception of montage was that by understanding that the shot is the basic unit of filmmaking you could play the audience's emotions like a violin, making them feel rage or calm as the director desired. This, for Eisenstein, was the basis of a revolutionary cinema, galvinizing the masses to support the political changes in society. The film was seen as so effective at rousing the emotions against the tyranny of capitalism that it was banned in some parts of the world; in England, the film couldn't be shown until 1954.
Battleship Potemkin – Odessa Steps
October
The director's next project was also a commemorative work, marking the tenth anniversary of the October 1917 revolution in which the Bolsheviks seized power. Its original title was simply October, but for international distribution the film is also often given the title of communist journalist John Reed's account of the events, Ten Days that Shook the World. More intellectual than Battleship Potemkin, the film uses striking juxtapositions of symbols to comment on the events. The film had to be violently recut, though, in order to severely downplay the role played in the revolution by Trotsky, who had fallen out of political favor and been expelled from the Party by the time the film was finished. A similar fate would befall The Old and the New (Staroe I novoe, 1929), which was originally entitled The General Line (General'naya liniya) and was to portray the advantages of collectivized farms over individual peasant small-holdings. With the advent of sound, Eisenstein would travel abroad to investigate the new techniques. Although he was feted in Hollywood as a genius, his proposals to make a film there never led to anything concrete; if his attempts to make films under Stalin were perpetually hindered, in Hollywood they were thwarted completely. Out of luck in Hollwood, Eisenstein tried to shoot a film, ¡Qué Viva Mexico!, in and about Mexico for his first sound project. But the money ran out, and Stalin refused the director access to the footage he had shot. The film was reconstructed in 1979 from the available footage and the director's notes. When the director returned to Russian in 1932, under the orders of Stalin, he was distinctly out of favor, with his work branded as "formalist," a favorite term of abuse by the regime for directors who were more concerned with film language than talking to the masses. Although he lived for another 16 years, he would work on only three more film projects, one of which, Bezhin Meadow (Bezhin lug), was only partially completed before the footage was destroyed. His other two works are covered in the section "Sound Cinema and the Great Terror."
Dziga Vertov
The work of Dziga Vertov (born Denis Kaufman) was diametrically opposed to that of Eisenstein, but is just as rewarding and challenging. Suspicious of "unreal" staged fiction, Vertov called a for a radical film language that apotheosized the camera lens (the "cine-eye") as superior to the human eye in capturing a cinematic reality. Perhaps not entirely consistently, he claimed his work as objective documentary while using extreme stylization in composition, special effects and editing. Although later eclipsed by accusations of formalism in his own country, Vertov's interest in everyday life would go on to influence cinéma vérité, Direct Cinema, the French New Wave and Dogme 95. Vertov, whose pseudonym translates as "whizzing top," started his film career in news reels, reporting from the front of the Civil War and also screening his works in the agit-trains. Trained in psycho-neurology in the field of perception, Vertov was able to use his background to experiment with montage techniques. Throughout the early 1920s, he published a slew of manifestos and theoretical papers on cinema while at the same time producing a series of features that sought to present "life caught unawares."
Dziga Vertov – Man with a Movie Camera
The culmination of this came in 1929 with his magnus opus Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom), one of a series of otherwise unrelated productions at the time that were "symphonies" to the great cities of Europe. In Vertov's case, the city was a composite one, including scenes from Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, but the point was to capture general Soviet reality not that of an individual place. As the title suggests, the film follows a filmmaker who is shooting a documentary about life in the city. Not only is the whole premise of the film exceedingly self-referential, it also contains an unusually prescient subtext that shows cinema as a medium of manipulation and casts doubt on its own veracity. Vertov went on to experiment with sound in films such as Three Songs of Lenin (Tri pesni o Lenine, 1934). The adulation of the European avant garde and a steady stream of awards protected Vertov's position at first. But it was not to last, and Vertov eventually went back to editing newsreels.
Man with a Movie Camera
Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Although Zvenigora (1928) was Dovzhenko's fourth film project, it is often labelled as his debut, so violently did it fling him from provincial obscurity to bright stardom in the firmament of Soviet montage. Dovzhenko, aside from his distinctive film language, is distinguished from his contemporaries by his painterly eye (he trained as an artist), his interest in the folklore of his native Ukraine, his attempts to reconcile modernity and tradition and his lyricism. Zvenigora's sweeping narrative encapsulates the whole of Ukrainian history, and was, as the director himself put it, "in 2000 meters of film, a whole millennium." Replete with culturally specific references and adopting an ambitious narrative structure, Zvenigora was notoriously difficult to follow for Soviet audiences at the time. Even Eisenstein's account of the Moscow premiere of Zvenigora suggests as much confusion as admiration. Perhaps it is no surprise then that nobody has yet risked springing it on the American public via a DVD release. Arsenal (1929), was also historical, commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of the battle for Kiev during the Civil War. The battle was noteworthy for a sixday siege in which Bolshevik irregulars managed to defend the city's munitions factory the "Arsenal" of the title - from the Tsarist "Whites." Although the narrative is firmly rooted in one time period, Arsenal is thematically more ambitious. Not only did the director show the Civil War victory to be a result of the commitment of ordinary people (rather than the leadership of the Party), Dovzhenko made a brutal film that refused to glorify war or revolution. Arsenal's triumphalist ending (slightly at odds with the rest of the film's tone) is a retelling of a Ukrainian folk legend about an 18th-century leader of a peasant uprising.
Dovzhenko
Arsenal sparked a storm of critical response, which the increasingly confident and respected director was able to weather. But his next feature, Earth (Zemlia, 1930), was too controversial for the director's reputation to survive intact. His supporters, however, instantly, and correctly, identified it as the masterpiece of Dovzhenko's career. The film was intended to illustrate the state's new policy of collectivization of agriculture and the end of "rural capitalism." Ukraine, as the "bread basket" of the Soviet Union, bore the brunt of this transformation. And, indeed, Earth does argue in favor of collectivism over small peasant holdings. Once again, though, the Party is entirely absent from Dovzhenko's vision, and the film is a paean to the rhythms and cycles of nature - an antithetical notion to communism's insistence on linear progression - and is lush with images of fertility and sexuality. Unlike Zvenigora and Arsenal, the plot is marked by narrative simplicity and, although the story is filled with confrontation and, eventually, murder, the film is a supreme example of poetic lyricism. Dovzhenko would continue to make films, but the increasingly oppressive political environment tamed the once-bold director. His legacy, though, would not be forgotten, and the feature film studios in Kiev would later be named after him.
Earth
Entertainment Film in the 1920’s
Montage was a major innovation that has made Russian cinema famous throughout the world. But it was not appreciated by Russian audiences at the time. The classics of montage generally got small releases and were seen by a relatively small number of people. Far more popular than these exercises in the avant garde use of film language were genre films whose first aim was to entertain, returning the cinema to its popular roots. Although frequently less than ideological, these films often found favor with the authorities as they could be exported, thus bringing the Bolsheviks much needed hard currency. One of the big coups of Soviet cinema in the early days was succeeding in wooing one of the big names of Tsarist-era cinema back to work in the country - Iakov Protazanov. Given his connections with the old guard of filmmaking, perhaps it is no surprise that Protazanov should make far more "traditional" cinema, with strong characters and storylines; he was, after all, one of the most popular and prolific directors of the time.
It's a strange twist of fate, then, that the only film of his to be available on DVD in the US is not one of his "popular" works but his semi-experimental feature Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924), the first film he made after his return. Commonly described as the first Soviet science fiction film and noted for its expressionist costume and set design, Aelita is both heralded as a precursor to Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) and sometimes dismissively written off as communist propaganda - an accusation which is completely baffling, given that the film argues that the ideals of revolutions are prone to being hijacked by tyrants. Protazanov learned his lesson from Aelita and never made such a densely plotted and avant garde film again. Yet Aelita already shows his interest in popular cinema and conventional genre forms, such as the detective story, slapstick comedy and romance, while the expressionist portions of the film, although striking, take up relatively little screen time, causing some critics to question whether it should be called a science fiction film at all.
A refreshing alternative to the giddy experimentalism of the 1920s can be found in the hilarious comedies of Boris Barnet. Two of them are available on DVD, Girl with the Hatbox (Devushka s korobkoi, 1927) and his first sound film, Outskirts (Okraina, 1933). Although light-hearted, these are also works of considerable perception and artistry. Outskirts is also the title of one of the most original Russian films of the 1990s, Petr Lutsik's satiric homage to 1920s and 30s Soviet cinema that quotes dozens of the classics, including its nod to Barnet's film.
Worth noting is that Girl with the Hatbox features the comic genius of Vladimir Fogel, an extraordinary chameleon actor who starred in some of the best comedies of the age. He can also be seen in Kuleshov's By the Law, Pudovkin's Chess Fever and Abram Room's Bed and Sofa. The ability to entertain was obviously a deceptive reflection of his personality; he committed suicide in 1929, at a time when the regime was becoming more repressive. Barnet himself also took his own life, although not until 1965.
Sound and the Great Terror
The introduction of sound in the 1930s had a huge effect on Soviet cinema, creating two great challenges. The first problem was how to reconcile sound techniques with montage, and Eisenstein quickly realized that sound could mean that cinema would return to a more theater-like presentation of action, with the sound added as mere "illustration." Rapid visual editing could not be matched by rapid editing of sound in a way that would be decipherable to the audience, and a continuous aural experience demanded a parallel visual continuity which montage could not supply (Pudovkin's sound film, Deserter [Dezertir, 1933] amply illustrates the mismatch). In short, sound cinema made Soviet montage obsolete. Not to be defeated, Eisenstein immersed himself in sound theory and proposed that sound would work best when the music undercut the image rather than reinforced it. He was able to put his ideas to the test in his film Aleksandr Nevsky (1938), which had an original score by Sergei Prokofiev.
Sound and the Great Terror
The second problem was that of the script. Sound cinema enabled film to say so much more. Whereas previously the message was carried visually, now it could be carried more directly in the dialogue. But this was a double-edged sword. As well as allowing a plainer, simpler cinema, it also meant that it was more subject to censorship. As a result, film production dropped as scripts struggled to make it past the censors, who were monitoring words now rather than abstract associations.
Social Realism and the Great terror - These major changes were exacerbated by a reorganization of the arts and the promulgation of Socialist Realism - the aesthetic doctrine that tried to bring to life Stalin's famous dictum, "Life has become more joyous, comrades, life has become happier." As Stalin increased his grip on the reins of the country (murdering the only plausible challenger to his power, Sergei Kirov, in 1934), he launched the Great Terror in which thousands of people vanished into the Soviet gulag (prison camps) in Siberia. Artistic expression became more difficult - and dangerous. Irony, expressionism and "inner soul drama" were definitely to be avoided if a filmmaker wanted to stay out of trouble.
It required a certain amount of skill to produce a film, such as Mark Donskoi's The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Detstvo Gor'kogo, 1938), that was exciting enough to please audiences and yet not contain anything politically problematic. Also highly popular in this period were Stalinist musicals, which had an uncannily similar history to Nazi musicals in Germany at the same time.
Nevertheless, the 1930s were not without brave souls who dared to challenge Stalin in film, such as Lev Kuleshov, whose The Great Consoler (Velikii uteshitel, 1933) is a complex critique of artists who refused to tell the truth about the social conditions around them, and Aleksandr Medvedkin, whose Happiness (Shchaste, 1935) is an outrageously irreverent satire, complete with one of the strangest images in of all Russian film - nuns wearing see-through tops. Medvedkin, who claimed with a straight face throughout his life that he was a committed Bolshevik, has been the subject of two documentaries by Chris Marker.
Eisenstein's Aleksandr Nevsky largely toed the Party line, thus rehabilitating him and giving him the freedom to make the audacious and sophisticated cinematic attack on Stalin in the dictator's lifetime, the epic Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozny, 1943-46). The film was originally intended to be in three parts, but Eisenstein died before the third part could be completed. But parts I and II alone stand as solid Shakespearean dramas about power and tyranny, complete with original music from Prokofiev, lavish sets and costumes and truly astounding camerawork. Part II is particularly dizzying, subjectively taking us into the causes of Ivan's brutal ruling style - his madness. Stalin had no trouble in seeing through the comparison Eisenstein was making, and the film was first recut and then banned.
After the war, Russian cinema was marked by hagiographic works that idolized the position of Stalin in Russian history. As in the early 1930s, there was a shortage of scripts that met the strict criteria of the time, and many of the films shown in cinemas had been stolen from the retreating Germans. Also looted from the invaders was color film stock, and Russia was able to make its first color films (Ivan the Terrible contains some sequences in dazzling color).
Ivan the Terrible
Essentially, though, Russian art cinema was in hibernation and, after Ivan the Terrible, it would take more than ten years for a Russian director to make a film that would be respected on the international cinema scene. In the intervening period, two important events had to happen: in 1953, Stalin died and, in 1956, Khruschev gave his "secret speech" denouncing Stalinism. It sent waves through the establishment and allowed a whole new type of cinema to be made. And, with Stalin now a bête noire, Ivan the Terrible could finally be shown to the Soviet public in 1958.
Summing Up
Tsarism, famine and Industrialisation led to Revolution The Russian Revolution led to an intense period of artistic creation by directors such as Lev Kuleshov, Vsevelod Pudovkin, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. Soviet montage was highly influential and innovative to this day Internal conflicts within the Communist party led to the rise of Lenin and Stalin and ultimately a return to dictatorship. Constraints placed on Artists and filmmakers led often to banishment, reactive works such as Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible and Social Realism (Documentary propaganda in favour of the communist party). Censorship and the introduction of sound effectively led to the end of much experimentaion in Soviet Cinema.
SOVIET MONTAGE THEORY
Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing (montage is French for "putting together"). Although Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema," and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema."
Eisenstein's theory of montage
In formal terms, this style of editing offers discontinuity in graphic qualities, violations of the 180 degree rule, and the creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless. Eisenstein describes five methods of montage in his introductory essay "Word and Image". These varieties of montage build one upon the other so the "higher" forms also include the approaches of the "simpler" varieties. In addition, the "lower" types of montage are limited to the complexity of meaning which they can communicate, and as the montage rises in complexity, so will the meaning it is able to communicate (primal emotions to intellectual ideals). It is easiest to understand these as part of a spectrum where, at one end, the image content matters very little, while at the other it determines everything about the choices and combinations of the edited film. Eisenstein's montage theories are based on the idea that montage originates in the "collision" between different shots in an illustration of the idea of thesis and antithesis. This basis allowed him to argue that montage is inherently dialectical, thus it should be considered a demonstration of Marxism and Hegelian philosophy. His collisions of shots were based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual values such as class.
Methods of montage
Metric - where the editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basIC and emotional of reactions in the audience. Metric montage example from Eisenstein's October. Rhythmic - includes cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots -- along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts -- to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds). Rhythmic montage example from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo where the protagonist and the two antagonists face off in a three-way duel Another rhythmic montage example from The Battleship Potemkin's "Odessa steps" sequence. Tonal - a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots -- not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics -- to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation. Tonal example from Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. This is the clip following the death of the revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk, a martyr for sailors and workers.
Methods of Montage
Overtonal/Associational - the overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect. Overtonal example from Pudovkin's Mother. In this clip, the men are workers walking towards a confrontation at their factory, and later in the movie, the protagonist uses ice as a means of escape.[1]. Intellectual - uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.[2] Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and Strike. In Strike, a shot of striking workers being attacked cut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered creates a film metaphor suggesting that the workers are being treated like cattle. This meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only arises when they are juxtaposed. Some contemporary examples of intellectual montage: In The Godfather, during Michael's nephew's baptism, the priest performs the sacrament of baptism while we see killings ordered by Michael take place elsewhere. The murders thus "baptize" Michael into a life of crime. At the end of Apocalypse Now the execution of Colonel Kurtz is juxtaposed with the villagers' slaughter of a water buffalo.
The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola
Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola
Dog Star Man – Stan Brakhage
Soviet Art – Early Years
Proletkult -During the Russian Revolution a movement was initiated to put all arts to service of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The instrument for this was created just days before the October Revolution, known as Proletkult, an abbreviation for "Proletarskie kulturno-prosvetitelnye organizatsii" (Proletarian Cultural and Enlightenment Organizations). A prominent theorist of this movement was Aleksandr Bogdanov. Initially Narkompros (ministry of education), which was also in charge of the arts, supported Proletkult. However the latter sought too much independence from the ruling Communist Party of Bolsheviks, gained negative attitude of Vladimir Lenin, by 1922 declined considerably, and was eventually disbanded in 1932. The ideas of Proletkult attracted the intersests of Russian avantgarde, who strived to get rid of the conventions of "bourgeois art". Among notable persons of this movement was Kazimir Malevich. However the ideas of the avantgarde eventually clashed with the newly emerged state-sponsored direction of Socialist Realism. In search of new forms of expression, the Proletkult organisation was highly eclectic in its art forms, and thus was prone to harsh criticism for inclusion of such modern directions as impressionism and cubism, since these movements existed before the revolution and hence were associated with "decadent bourgeois art". Among early experiments of Proletkult was of , the prominent theoretist being . Another group was UNOVIS, a very short-lived but influential collection of young artists lead by Kasimir Malevich in the 1920's.
Kasimir Malevich 1879 - 1935 Self portrait, 1912
Kasimir Malevich 1879 - 1935
Black Square, 1915
Influenced by Cubism Developed the concept of Suprematism an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms (in particular the square and circle) which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. ‘I felt only night within me and it was then that I conceived the new art, which I called Suprematism’.
Black Circle, 1915
Social Realism – Aleksandr Gerasimov
Officially approved art was required to follow the doctrine of Socialist Realism. Roses for Stalin (1949) One of the best known official Soviet artists was Aleksandr Gerasimov. During his career he produced a large number of heroic paintings of Stalin and other members of the Politburo. Gerasimov's painting shows a mastery of classical representational techniques.
Gerasimov's famous Lenin on the tribune, 1929–1930
Artistic Movements Summing Up
Artistic practice was controlled by the state Artists were sponsored by the state and therefore mainly worked creating propaganda European art movements such as Cubism, Abstraction, Futurism were seen as bourgeoisie. In the 1950’s after the death of Stalin artists began to experiment more with abstraction. Non-conformist art was established a move away from Socialist Realism.
Why is studying Soviet Cinema important?
Soviet films of the 1920s did much to define the cinematic vocabulary of modern Hollywood, producing a range of effects designed to emotionally manipulate the audience. Even today modern filmmakers have at various times paid direct or indirect homage to their Russian cinematic forebears.
Historical context: Tsarist When studying film it is important to always consider the political, social and Russia historical context in which films are made. This is particularly the case with
Russia, which has a long and turbulent history. The origins of the revolution - Despite being the third biggest Empire in the world it can be suggested that the prevalence of serfdom and the conservative policies of Nicolas I and a Tsarist or monarchist system impeded the development of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant reforms, including the abolition of serfdom in 1861; these "Great Reforms" spurred industrialization. However, many socio-economic conflicts were aggravated during Alexander III’s reign and under his son, Nicholas II. Harsh conditions in factories created mass support for the revolutionary socialist movement. In January 1905, striking workers peaceably demonstrated for reforms in Saint Petersburg but were fired upon by troops, killing and wounding hundreds. The abject failure of the Tsar's military forces in the initially popular Russo-Japanese War, and the event known as "Bloody Sunday", ignited the Russian Revolution of 1905.
Revolution in Russia 1905
Historical context: Effects of War, Industrialisation, Famine.
Famine - Although the uprising was swiftly put down by the army and although Nicholas II retained much of his power, he was forced to concede major reforms, including granting the freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalization of political parties and the creation of an elected legislative assembly, the Duma; however, the hopes for basic improvements in the lives of industrial workers were unfulfilled. Droughts and famines in Russia tended to occur on a fairly regular basis, with famine occurring every 10–13 years. The 1891–92 famine killed approximately half-million people.[77] Cholera epidemics claimed more than 2 million lives.[78] WWI & The Russian Revolution - Russia entered World War I in aid of its ally Serbia and fought a war across three fronts while isolated from its allies. Russia did not want war but felt that the only alternative was German domination of Europe. Although the army was far from defeated in 1916, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, casualties (Russia suffered the highest number of both military and civilian deaths of the Entente Powers), and tales of corruption and even treason in high places, leading to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917. February Revolution & Provisional Government - A series of uprisings were organized by workers and peasants throughout the country, as well as by soldiers in the Russian army, who were mainly of peasant origin. Many of the uprisings were organized and led by democratically elected councils called Soviets. The February Revolution overthrew the Russian monarchy, which was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government. October Revolution and Lenin - The abdication marked the end of imperial rule in Russia, and Nicholas and his family were imprisoned and later executed during the Civil War. While initially receiving the support of the Soviets, the Provisional Government proved unable to resolve many problems which had led to the February Revolution. The second revolution, the October Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and created the world’s first socialist state.
Vladimir Lenin
Historical Context: Soviet Internal Conflict - Following the October Revolution, a civil war broke out Russia between the new regime and the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and
the White movement. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded hostilities with the Central Powers in World War I. Russia lost its Ukrainian, Polish and Baltic territories, and Finland by signing the treaty. The Allied powers launched a military intervention in support of anti-Communist forces and both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror.
The Soviet Union - The famine of 1921 claimed 5 million victims.[79] By the end of the Russian Civil War, some 20 million had died and the Russian economy and infrastructure were completely devastated. Following victory in the Civil War, the Russian SFSR together with three other Soviet republics formed the Soviet Union on 30 December 1922. Out of the 15 republics that constituted the Soviet Union, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the largest republic in terms of size and making up over half of the total USSR population, dominated the Soviet Union for its entire 69-year history; the USSR was often referred to, though incorrectly, as "Russia" and its people as "Russians."
Historical Context: Soviet Russia
Joseph Stalin - Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin consolidated power, becoming a dictator. He launched a command economy, rapid industrialization of the largely rural country, and collectivization of its agriculture. These moves transformed the Soviet Union from an agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in a short span of time. This transformation came with a heavy price, however. Millions of citizens died as a consequence of his harsh policies (see Gulag, Dekulakization, Population transfers in the Soviet Union, Soviet famine of 1932–1933, and Great Terror).
World War II - On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union with the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history,[83] opening the largest theater of the Second World War. Although the German army had considerable success early on, they suffered defeats after reaching the outskirts of Moscow and were dealt their first major defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943.[84] Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe in 1944–45 and captured Berlin in May, 1945. In the conflict, Soviet military and civilian death toll were 10.6 million and 15.9 million respectively,[85] accounting for about a third of all World War II casualties. The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation[86] but the Soviet Union emerged as an acknowledged superpower. The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war, including the eastern half of Germany; Stalin installed socialist governments in these satellite states. Becoming the world's second nuclear weapons power, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact alliance and entered into a struggle for global dominance with the United States, which became known as the Cold War
Early Russian Cinema 1896
First Films - The first films were shown in Russia in 1896 and within ten years domestic interest in cinema-going was so strong that it led to the beginnings of domestic production. With its origins as a novelty in stalls at fairs, cinema was seen as entertainment rather than an art form. Silent Films? – Early screenings featured a series of short films running continuously with often drunk and noisy audiences wandering in and out. Films were shot without sound, but early Russian films were based around songs that viewers could sing along with. Literary Adaptations - There were a number of historical productions and adaptations of well-known works of literature as well, since cinema was seen as working better when the audience was already familiar with the plot.
World War I
Breakthrough – The onset of WWI created a wealth of innovation and increased demand for domestic films as Imports were hindered. First Auteur - The length of productions had by this time increased, and Evgeny Bauer became the first Russian director to insist that he have overall creative control for all of his films' elements (set design, lighting, costumes, script, editing) and not just marshal the actors in the shooting process. Although firmly rooted in melodrama and often exploiting such clichés as the little country girl corrupted by the big city, Bauer's films are of much interest, rooted as they are in symbolism, Greek tragedy and the great Russian novels of the 19th century. Even today, his choice of themes seems adventurous, albeit morbid, and his sense of mise-en-scène is striking.
The Dying Swan 1917 Russian Silent Vera Karalli Evgeni Bauer Ballet
After the Revolution
Growth of Film Under Communism - The Tsarist authorities and the Orthodox Church were extremely distrustful of cinema, popular and bawdy as it was. The communists, who seized power in October 1917, knew only too well its power and were keen to tap into it. Initially though, the politicians were more concerned with consolidating their shaky power base (civil war raged in the country until 1921), and the Tsarist filmmakers were more concerned with fleeing the communists. Moreover, early Soviet film was hampered by a shortage of film stock.
‘Agit-Prop’
The first films after the revolution were "agit-prop" (agitationpropaganda) works that sought to educate a largely illiterate population about the goals of communism. With few cinemas in the areas that most needed educating, screenings took place on specially converted "agit trains" that toured the country. With the old guard of filmmaking largely in exile and a new political order in place, young emerging filmmakers sought to create a new way of looking at reality (as did those working in other art forms, such as music, poetry, architecture and fine art). The result was one of the most intense periods of creativity in cinema history.
“Americanism”
Early Soviet directors were highly influenced by the "cinemaness" of American films of the time: Keystone Kops chase scenes made in the early teens, for example, included such stunts as jumping off a bridge onto a bus passing underneath - a scene that totally transcended the possibilities of the conventional theater. D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), which had to be smuggled into the country, was also a huge influence, despite grave reservations about the director's racism. Kuleshov & Soviet Montage - In a 1922 article entitled "Americanism," pioneering director Lev Kuleshov called for filmmaking with an "organic link with contemporary life," "the maximum amount of movement," shorter scenes and therefore more rapid cutting, close-ups and attention to how individual shots worked when combined together - montage. Russian directors responded to Kuleshov with a series of works that, despite the heavy influence of American cinema, came to be known as Soviet montage.
Keystone Cops
Lev Kuleshov
Kuleshov worked under Evgeny Bauer during the Tsarist period, first as a set designer and then as an actor. Although Kuleshov repudiated "the Bauer method," he consolidated the notion of the director as artist in total control and he doubtless learned much from Bauer. The Kuleshov Experiment - His first films were newsreels and enacted documentaries for the nascent Soviet state and he then went on to found "Kuleshov Collective" at the State Film School. However, shortages of film stock were chronic and agit-prop work had priority. Starved of the ability to make art films, Kuleshov went through an intense period of theorization about cinema and experimented with a form of theater that mimicked the visual language of cinema - "films without film." When he made his first film in 1924, Neobychainye prikliucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bol'shevikov (The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924) he was able to claim that it was a "verification of [his workshop's] methods." As well as being notable for its montage, Mr. West illustrates Kuleshov's interest in actors and acting, something that sets him aside from montage directors such as Eisenstein. Innovation - After a science fiction thriller, The Death Ray (Luch smerti, 1925), Kuleshov made By the Law (Po zakonu, 1926), based on a Jack London story about the Gold Rush (thus once again showing Kuleshov's interest in America). It's a film that graphically demonstrates the ends to which Kuleshov and his team of actors would go in order to make cinema. The cabin in which the action takes place was built alongside an actual Russian river in the full knowledge that it was about to flood. Kuleshov intended there to be a couple of inches of water on the cabin floor, but it rose to a couple of feet. Nevertheless, the team continued shooting, despite occasional electric shocks from the lighting cables that had to run underwater and the freezing conditions for the soaked actors. The only film currently available on video from Kuleshov's oeuvre, By the Law demonstrates his huge talent, imagination and energy.
By the Law
Vsevelod Pudovkin
Pudovkin, like his teacher Kuleshov, also cherished the role of the actor. His first film was the comic short Chess Fever (Shakhmatnaya goryachka, 1925), which seemlessly blended documentary footage of real-life Grand Master Jose Raul Capablanca (shot at a tournament in Moscow) to make it seem he is part of the story. His most famous film is Mother (Mat, 1926), based on a story by leading light of communist literature, Maxim Gorky. It follows a mother in Tsarist Russia who is unable to understand her son's opposition to the regime. Only when he is imprisoned does the need for revolution dawn on her. The final scene, with the son escaping down a river on an ice floe and the prison guards in hot pursuit, is one of the best known from Soviet silent cinema.
Mother
Vsevelod Pudovkin
The End of St Petersburg (Konets Sankt-Peterburga, 1927) was one of a string of films made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. In this version, a peasant arrives in pre-war Saint Petersburg to find work just as strikes break out across the capital. He joins the strike-breakers and turns one of the organizers in to the police, but he soon realizes he's wrong and tries, in vain, to make amends. Until, that is, some years later when revolution breaks out. Storm over Asia (Potomok Chingis-khana, 1928) was filmed on location in Mongolia and is set during the period when British rule was being destabilized by the Civil War. The wily British believe they have found the heir to Ghengis Khan and install him as a puppet leader to try and introduce stability. The ethnographically shot scenes are still notable, and this cautionary tale of ill-advised imperialism may strike some as strikingly resonant with today's global politics. Pudovkin's reputation is now less than that of his fellow montagists, perhaps because, unlike directors such as Kuleshov, Eisenstein or Dovzhenko, he never made a film that had a decidedly anti-regime subtext and was always the dedicated artist in the service of the state. Furthermore, during the Great Terror he "was not always averse to protecting his own interests at the expense of others," as Richard Taylor phrases it. Still, his films from the 1920s are undoubted masterpieces of the era and, if they look less spectacular now than they once did, it is because Pudovkin's experimentations with editing have been more evenly successful and incorportated into the mainstream of cinema vocabulary than have those of other directors from the period.
Sergei Eisenstein
No film director has had more words written about them than Sergei Eisenstein, the undisputed master of Soviet montage, and no director has written so much about film. His works are still referenced and borrowed from by modern directors such as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma, not to mention advertising. Yet none of the films he made exist in the final form in which he wanted them. The negatives to his first two features Strike (Stachka, 1924) and Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potemkin, 1925) were sold by Russia to Germany to raise hard currency, and were censored and edited there. His next two features, including October (Oktyabr, 1927), had to be radically revised in an attempt to meet official approval. Two films from the 1930s were never completed. His attempt to rehabilitate himself, Aleksandr Nevsky (1938) was shown to Stalin before it was completed and the dictator was so pleased with the unfinished work that nobody dared alter it further. Eisenstein died without finishing his final project, the Ivan the Terrible trilogy (1943-46). Like that other pioneering auteur Orson Welles (with whom he shared a passion for Shakespeare), Eisenstein left behind a long list of unrealized projects and ideas for films with his death.
Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein started in experimental theater but soon drifted towards cinema. His first film, Strike (Stachka, 1924), although in some ways still marked by his background in theater - Eisenstein would also prefer to use character "types" rather than let his actors explore the personalities of complex individuals employed some boldly cinematic techniques. The film depicts the titular industrial action, which takes place in Tsarist times, and its suppression by the police. While some of the experiments in film language fail (the dramatic sweeps and shapes to change or frame action would go in his later films), others are as vivid and memorable as anything he would do in his more famous films. Though Strike is a little more uneven than Eisenstein's later works, veteran critic Derek Malcolm considers it his best, as it shows his basic humanity far better than his later masterpieces. Eisenstein's most famous and influential film is Battleship Potemkin (1925). Although originally conceived as one of a number of films celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1905 uprisings against Tsarist rule, Battleship Potemkin was the only one of the series made. The film's plot is loosely based on the mutiny aboard the titular war vessel in response to appalling conditions and an uncaring and aloof officer class.
Battleship Potemkin
Odessa, in the film, comes out in support of the militant sailors, and the Tsarist army brutally suppresses the jubilant shoreline encouragement the infamous "Odessa Steps" sequence (in fact, a fictional invention by the film's makers rather than a historical event). The battleship then heads out to sea; in the final act, another memorable and endlessly copied sequence, the battleship faces the combined might of the imperial navy with its red flag (hand tinted on the film) fluttering proudly in the wind. The true end was rather more ignominious, with the sailors docking in Romania and being arrested and transferred to Russia. Eisenstein's conception of montage was that by understanding that the shot is the basic unit of filmmaking you could play the audience's emotions like a violin, making them feel rage or calm as the director desired. This, for Eisenstein, was the basis of a revolutionary cinema, galvinizing the masses to support the political changes in society. The film was seen as so effective at rousing the emotions against the tyranny of capitalism that it was banned in some parts of the world; in England, the film couldn't be shown until 1954.
Battleship Potemkin – Odessa Steps
October
The director's next project was also a commemorative work, marking the tenth anniversary of the October 1917 revolution in which the Bolsheviks seized power. Its original title was simply October, but for international distribution the film is also often given the title of communist journalist John Reed's account of the events, Ten Days that Shook the World. More intellectual than Battleship Potemkin, the film uses striking juxtapositions of symbols to comment on the events. The film had to be violently recut, though, in order to severely downplay the role played in the revolution by Trotsky, who had fallen out of political favor and been expelled from the Party by the time the film was finished. A similar fate would befall The Old and the New (Staroe I novoe, 1929), which was originally entitled The General Line (General'naya liniya) and was to portray the advantages of collectivized farms over individual peasant small-holdings. With the advent of sound, Eisenstein would travel abroad to investigate the new techniques. Although he was feted in Hollywood as a genius, his proposals to make a film there never led to anything concrete; if his attempts to make films under Stalin were perpetually hindered, in Hollywood they were thwarted completely. Out of luck in Hollwood, Eisenstein tried to shoot a film, ¡Qué Viva Mexico!, in and about Mexico for his first sound project. But the money ran out, and Stalin refused the director access to the footage he had shot. The film was reconstructed in 1979 from the available footage and the director's notes. When the director returned to Russian in 1932, under the orders of Stalin, he was distinctly out of favor, with his work branded as "formalist," a favorite term of abuse by the regime for directors who were more concerned with film language than talking to the masses. Although he lived for another 16 years, he would work on only three more film projects, one of which, Bezhin Meadow (Bezhin lug), was only partially completed before the footage was destroyed. His other two works are covered in the section "Sound Cinema and the Great Terror."
Dziga Vertov
The work of Dziga Vertov (born Denis Kaufman) was diametrically opposed to that of Eisenstein, but is just as rewarding and challenging. Suspicious of "unreal" staged fiction, Vertov called a for a radical film language that apotheosized the camera lens (the "cine-eye") as superior to the human eye in capturing a cinematic reality. Perhaps not entirely consistently, he claimed his work as objective documentary while using extreme stylization in composition, special effects and editing. Although later eclipsed by accusations of formalism in his own country, Vertov's interest in everyday life would go on to influence cinéma vérité, Direct Cinema, the French New Wave and Dogme 95. Vertov, whose pseudonym translates as "whizzing top," started his film career in news reels, reporting from the front of the Civil War and also screening his works in the agit-trains. Trained in psycho-neurology in the field of perception, Vertov was able to use his background to experiment with montage techniques. Throughout the early 1920s, he published a slew of manifestos and theoretical papers on cinema while at the same time producing a series of features that sought to present "life caught unawares."
Dziga Vertov – Man with a Movie Camera
The culmination of this came in 1929 with his magnus opus Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom), one of a series of otherwise unrelated productions at the time that were "symphonies" to the great cities of Europe. In Vertov's case, the city was a composite one, including scenes from Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, but the point was to capture general Soviet reality not that of an individual place. As the title suggests, the film follows a filmmaker who is shooting a documentary about life in the city. Not only is the whole premise of the film exceedingly self-referential, it also contains an unusually prescient subtext that shows cinema as a medium of manipulation and casts doubt on its own veracity. Vertov went on to experiment with sound in films such as Three Songs of Lenin (Tri pesni o Lenine, 1934). The adulation of the European avant garde and a steady stream of awards protected Vertov's position at first. But it was not to last, and Vertov eventually went back to editing newsreels.
Man with a Movie Camera
Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Although Zvenigora (1928) was Dovzhenko's fourth film project, it is often labelled as his debut, so violently did it fling him from provincial obscurity to bright stardom in the firmament of Soviet montage. Dovzhenko, aside from his distinctive film language, is distinguished from his contemporaries by his painterly eye (he trained as an artist), his interest in the folklore of his native Ukraine, his attempts to reconcile modernity and tradition and his lyricism. Zvenigora's sweeping narrative encapsulates the whole of Ukrainian history, and was, as the director himself put it, "in 2000 meters of film, a whole millennium." Replete with culturally specific references and adopting an ambitious narrative structure, Zvenigora was notoriously difficult to follow for Soviet audiences at the time. Even Eisenstein's account of the Moscow premiere of Zvenigora suggests as much confusion as admiration. Perhaps it is no surprise then that nobody has yet risked springing it on the American public via a DVD release. Arsenal (1929), was also historical, commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of the battle for Kiev during the Civil War. The battle was noteworthy for a sixday siege in which Bolshevik irregulars managed to defend the city's munitions factory the "Arsenal" of the title - from the Tsarist "Whites." Although the narrative is firmly rooted in one time period, Arsenal is thematically more ambitious. Not only did the director show the Civil War victory to be a result of the commitment of ordinary people (rather than the leadership of the Party), Dovzhenko made a brutal film that refused to glorify war or revolution. Arsenal's triumphalist ending (slightly at odds with the rest of the film's tone) is a retelling of a Ukrainian folk legend about an 18th-century leader of a peasant uprising.
Dovzhenko
Arsenal sparked a storm of critical response, which the increasingly confident and respected director was able to weather. But his next feature, Earth (Zemlia, 1930), was too controversial for the director's reputation to survive intact. His supporters, however, instantly, and correctly, identified it as the masterpiece of Dovzhenko's career. The film was intended to illustrate the state's new policy of collectivization of agriculture and the end of "rural capitalism." Ukraine, as the "bread basket" of the Soviet Union, bore the brunt of this transformation. And, indeed, Earth does argue in favor of collectivism over small peasant holdings. Once again, though, the Party is entirely absent from Dovzhenko's vision, and the film is a paean to the rhythms and cycles of nature - an antithetical notion to communism's insistence on linear progression - and is lush with images of fertility and sexuality. Unlike Zvenigora and Arsenal, the plot is marked by narrative simplicity and, although the story is filled with confrontation and, eventually, murder, the film is a supreme example of poetic lyricism. Dovzhenko would continue to make films, but the increasingly oppressive political environment tamed the once-bold director. His legacy, though, would not be forgotten, and the feature film studios in Kiev would later be named after him.
Earth
Entertainment Film in the 1920’s
Montage was a major innovation that has made Russian cinema famous throughout the world. But it was not appreciated by Russian audiences at the time. The classics of montage generally got small releases and were seen by a relatively small number of people. Far more popular than these exercises in the avant garde use of film language were genre films whose first aim was to entertain, returning the cinema to its popular roots. Although frequently less than ideological, these films often found favor with the authorities as they could be exported, thus bringing the Bolsheviks much needed hard currency. One of the big coups of Soviet cinema in the early days was succeeding in wooing one of the big names of Tsarist-era cinema back to work in the country - Iakov Protazanov. Given his connections with the old guard of filmmaking, perhaps it is no surprise that Protazanov should make far more "traditional" cinema, with strong characters and storylines; he was, after all, one of the most popular and prolific directors of the time.
It's a strange twist of fate, then, that the only film of his to be available on DVD in the US is not one of his "popular" works but his semi-experimental feature Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924), the first film he made after his return. Commonly described as the first Soviet science fiction film and noted for its expressionist costume and set design, Aelita is both heralded as a precursor to Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) and sometimes dismissively written off as communist propaganda - an accusation which is completely baffling, given that the film argues that the ideals of revolutions are prone to being hijacked by tyrants. Protazanov learned his lesson from Aelita and never made such a densely plotted and avant garde film again. Yet Aelita already shows his interest in popular cinema and conventional genre forms, such as the detective story, slapstick comedy and romance, while the expressionist portions of the film, although striking, take up relatively little screen time, causing some critics to question whether it should be called a science fiction film at all.
A refreshing alternative to the giddy experimentalism of the 1920s can be found in the hilarious comedies of Boris Barnet. Two of them are available on DVD, Girl with the Hatbox (Devushka s korobkoi, 1927) and his first sound film, Outskirts (Okraina, 1933). Although light-hearted, these are also works of considerable perception and artistry. Outskirts is also the title of one of the most original Russian films of the 1990s, Petr Lutsik's satiric homage to 1920s and 30s Soviet cinema that quotes dozens of the classics, including its nod to Barnet's film.
Worth noting is that Girl with the Hatbox features the comic genius of Vladimir Fogel, an extraordinary chameleon actor who starred in some of the best comedies of the age. He can also be seen in Kuleshov's By the Law, Pudovkin's Chess Fever and Abram Room's Bed and Sofa. The ability to entertain was obviously a deceptive reflection of his personality; he committed suicide in 1929, at a time when the regime was becoming more repressive. Barnet himself also took his own life, although not until 1965.
Sound and the Great Terror
The introduction of sound in the 1930s had a huge effect on Soviet cinema, creating two great challenges. The first problem was how to reconcile sound techniques with montage, and Eisenstein quickly realized that sound could mean that cinema would return to a more theater-like presentation of action, with the sound added as mere "illustration." Rapid visual editing could not be matched by rapid editing of sound in a way that would be decipherable to the audience, and a continuous aural experience demanded a parallel visual continuity which montage could not supply (Pudovkin's sound film, Deserter [Dezertir, 1933] amply illustrates the mismatch). In short, sound cinema made Soviet montage obsolete. Not to be defeated, Eisenstein immersed himself in sound theory and proposed that sound would work best when the music undercut the image rather than reinforced it. He was able to put his ideas to the test in his film Aleksandr Nevsky (1938), which had an original score by Sergei Prokofiev.
Sound and the Great Terror
The second problem was that of the script. Sound cinema enabled film to say so much more. Whereas previously the message was carried visually, now it could be carried more directly in the dialogue. But this was a double-edged sword. As well as allowing a plainer, simpler cinema, it also meant that it was more subject to censorship. As a result, film production dropped as scripts struggled to make it past the censors, who were monitoring words now rather than abstract associations.
Social Realism and the Great terror - These major changes were exacerbated by a reorganization of the arts and the promulgation of Socialist Realism - the aesthetic doctrine that tried to bring to life Stalin's famous dictum, "Life has become more joyous, comrades, life has become happier." As Stalin increased his grip on the reins of the country (murdering the only plausible challenger to his power, Sergei Kirov, in 1934), he launched the Great Terror in which thousands of people vanished into the Soviet gulag (prison camps) in Siberia. Artistic expression became more difficult - and dangerous. Irony, expressionism and "inner soul drama" were definitely to be avoided if a filmmaker wanted to stay out of trouble.
It required a certain amount of skill to produce a film, such as Mark Donskoi's The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Detstvo Gor'kogo, 1938), that was exciting enough to please audiences and yet not contain anything politically problematic. Also highly popular in this period were Stalinist musicals, which had an uncannily similar history to Nazi musicals in Germany at the same time.
Nevertheless, the 1930s were not without brave souls who dared to challenge Stalin in film, such as Lev Kuleshov, whose The Great Consoler (Velikii uteshitel, 1933) is a complex critique of artists who refused to tell the truth about the social conditions around them, and Aleksandr Medvedkin, whose Happiness (Shchaste, 1935) is an outrageously irreverent satire, complete with one of the strangest images in of all Russian film - nuns wearing see-through tops. Medvedkin, who claimed with a straight face throughout his life that he was a committed Bolshevik, has been the subject of two documentaries by Chris Marker.
Eisenstein's Aleksandr Nevsky largely toed the Party line, thus rehabilitating him and giving him the freedom to make the audacious and sophisticated cinematic attack on Stalin in the dictator's lifetime, the epic Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozny, 1943-46). The film was originally intended to be in three parts, but Eisenstein died before the third part could be completed. But parts I and II alone stand as solid Shakespearean dramas about power and tyranny, complete with original music from Prokofiev, lavish sets and costumes and truly astounding camerawork. Part II is particularly dizzying, subjectively taking us into the causes of Ivan's brutal ruling style - his madness. Stalin had no trouble in seeing through the comparison Eisenstein was making, and the film was first recut and then banned.
After the war, Russian cinema was marked by hagiographic works that idolized the position of Stalin in Russian history. As in the early 1930s, there was a shortage of scripts that met the strict criteria of the time, and many of the films shown in cinemas had been stolen from the retreating Germans. Also looted from the invaders was color film stock, and Russia was able to make its first color films (Ivan the Terrible contains some sequences in dazzling color).
Ivan the Terrible
Essentially, though, Russian art cinema was in hibernation and, after Ivan the Terrible, it would take more than ten years for a Russian director to make a film that would be respected on the international cinema scene. In the intervening period, two important events had to happen: in 1953, Stalin died and, in 1956, Khruschev gave his "secret speech" denouncing Stalinism. It sent waves through the establishment and allowed a whole new type of cinema to be made. And, with Stalin now a bête noire, Ivan the Terrible could finally be shown to the Soviet public in 1958.
Summing Up
Tsarism, famine and Industrialisation led to Revolution The Russian Revolution led to an intense period of artistic creation by directors such as Lev Kuleshov, Vsevelod Pudovkin, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. Soviet montage was highly influential and innovative to this day Internal conflicts within the Communist party led to the rise of Lenin and Stalin and ultimately a return to dictatorship. Constraints placed on Artists and filmmakers led often to banishment, reactive works such as Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible and Social Realism (Documentary propaganda in favour of the communist party). Censorship and the introduction of sound effectively led to the end of much experimentaion in Soviet Cinema.
SOVIET MONTAGE THEORY
Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing (montage is French for "putting together"). Although Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema," and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema."
Eisenstein's theory of montage
In formal terms, this style of editing offers discontinuity in graphic qualities, violations of the 180 degree rule, and the creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless. Eisenstein describes five methods of montage in his introductory essay "Word and Image". These varieties of montage build one upon the other so the "higher" forms also include the approaches of the "simpler" varieties. In addition, the "lower" types of montage are limited to the complexity of meaning which they can communicate, and as the montage rises in complexity, so will the meaning it is able to communicate (primal emotions to intellectual ideals). It is easiest to understand these as part of a spectrum where, at one end, the image content matters very little, while at the other it determines everything about the choices and combinations of the edited film. Eisenstein's montage theories are based on the idea that montage originates in the "collision" between different shots in an illustration of the idea of thesis and antithesis. This basis allowed him to argue that montage is inherently dialectical, thus it should be considered a demonstration of Marxism and Hegelian philosophy. His collisions of shots were based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual values such as class.
Methods of montage
Metric - where the editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basIC and emotional of reactions in the audience. Metric montage example from Eisenstein's October. Rhythmic - includes cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots -- along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts -- to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds). Rhythmic montage example from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo where the protagonist and the two antagonists face off in a three-way duel Another rhythmic montage example from The Battleship Potemkin's "Odessa steps" sequence. Tonal - a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots -- not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics -- to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation. Tonal example from Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. This is the clip following the death of the revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk, a martyr for sailors and workers.
Methods of Montage
Overtonal/Associational - the overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect. Overtonal example from Pudovkin's Mother. In this clip, the men are workers walking towards a confrontation at their factory, and later in the movie, the protagonist uses ice as a means of escape.[1]. Intellectual - uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.[2] Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and Strike. In Strike, a shot of striking workers being attacked cut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered creates a film metaphor suggesting that the workers are being treated like cattle. This meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only arises when they are juxtaposed. Some contemporary examples of intellectual montage: In The Godfather, during Michael's nephew's baptism, the priest performs the sacrament of baptism while we see killings ordered by Michael take place elsewhere. The murders thus "baptize" Michael into a life of crime. At the end of Apocalypse Now the execution of Colonel Kurtz is juxtaposed with the villagers' slaughter of a water buffalo.
The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola
Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola
Dog Star Man – Stan Brakhage
Soviet Art – Early Years
Proletkult -During the Russian Revolution a movement was initiated to put all arts to service of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The instrument for this was created just days before the October Revolution, known as Proletkult, an abbreviation for "Proletarskie kulturno-prosvetitelnye organizatsii" (Proletarian Cultural and Enlightenment Organizations). A prominent theorist of this movement was Aleksandr Bogdanov. Initially Narkompros (ministry of education), which was also in charge of the arts, supported Proletkult. However the latter sought too much independence from the ruling Communist Party of Bolsheviks, gained negative attitude of Vladimir Lenin, by 1922 declined considerably, and was eventually disbanded in 1932. The ideas of Proletkult attracted the intersests of Russian avantgarde, who strived to get rid of the conventions of "bourgeois art". Among notable persons of this movement was Kazimir Malevich. However the ideas of the avantgarde eventually clashed with the newly emerged state-sponsored direction of Socialist Realism. In search of new forms of expression, the Proletkult organisation was highly eclectic in its art forms, and thus was prone to harsh criticism for inclusion of such modern directions as impressionism and cubism, since these movements existed before the revolution and hence were associated with "decadent bourgeois art". Among early experiments of Proletkult was of , the prominent theoretist being . Another group was UNOVIS, a very short-lived but influential collection of young artists lead by Kasimir Malevich in the 1920's.
Kasimir Malevich 1879 - 1935 Self portrait, 1912
Kasimir Malevich 1879 - 1935
Black Square, 1915
Influenced by Cubism Developed the concept of Suprematism an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms (in particular the square and circle) which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. ‘I felt only night within me and it was then that I conceived the new art, which I called Suprematism’.
Black Circle, 1915
Social Realism – Aleksandr Gerasimov
Officially approved art was required to follow the doctrine of Socialist Realism. Roses for Stalin (1949) One of the best known official Soviet artists was Aleksandr Gerasimov. During his career he produced a large number of heroic paintings of Stalin and other members of the Politburo. Gerasimov's painting shows a mastery of classical representational techniques.
Gerasimov's famous Lenin on the tribune, 1929–1930
Artistic Movements Summing Up
Artistic practice was controlled by the state Artists were sponsored by the state and therefore mainly worked creating propaganda European art movements such as Cubism, Abstraction, Futurism were seen as bourgeoisie. In the 1950’s after the death of Stalin artists began to experiment more with abstraction. Non-conformist art was established a move away from Socialist Realism.
Related Documents
A2 Unit 3 Art And Moving Images
June 2020 6
A2 Unit 3 Hypertext
June 2020 11More Documents from ""
As Art Video Production Editing
June 2020 7
