1 / 18

Soviet Cinema

Soviet Cinema . Context Revision. “You must remember that, of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important” - Lenin. Key Films. 1926: Mother – Vsevelod Pudovkin. 1925-27: Strike , Battleship Potemkin, October – Sergei Eisenstein. 1929: Man With a Movie Camera – Dziga Vertov.

sheryl
Download Presentation

Soviet Cinema

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Soviet Cinema Context Revision

  2. “You must remember that, of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important” - Lenin

  3. Key Films 1926:Mother – VsevelodPudovkin

  4. 1925-27: Strike, Battleship Potemkin, October – Sergei Eisenstein

  5. 1929: Man With a Movie Camera – DzigaVertov

  6. Soviet Russia The Basic Context • The Communist revolution in 1917 • Many of the films are set in pre-communist times, specifically to show that life under Tsar Nicholas II had been oppressive • Films set in contemporary Soviet times had to portray life as positive • Cinematic experimentation was intended to separate communist cinema from ‘bourgeois film’ • The film industry was nationalised • Constructivism – art has a purpose

  7. Film as propaganda – ideological message Agit-train

  8. Aelita, Queen of Mars – crude propaganda

  9. Leading the spectator to assume spatial or temporal continuity from the shots of separate elements The Kuleshov effect The filmmaker built up a space and time that did not exist.

  10. Applying context to a scene from Mother – the Kuleshov effect

  11. Political context and film form Bold images of communist martyrdom – propaganda value to domestic and international audiences

  12. Construction of film as Soviet in form Symbolism – the Tsar presides over the court scene The Father/Mother/Son as symbolic of old/current/future Russia

  13. More symbolism Breaking ice – a ‘Soviet spring’ The mother’s journey from drudge to martyr

  14. Constructivism • Art has a purpose in society • Influence of Alexander Rodchenko and photomontage • The ‘Russian cutting’ as it was known in Hollywood gave a distinctly Soviet character to the films

  15. Ideology in film form Sergei Eisenstein’s rules of montage: • Intellectual: how editing generates ‘meaning’ from juxtaposition • Metric: editing tempo • Rhythmic: compositional contrasts (movement, e.g. order/chaos) • Tonal: compositional contrasts (image, e.g. intersecting lines across the edit) • Overtonal: the emotional pull of the above three

  16. Also in Eisenstein • The shocking image • Typage • Performance style difference in proletariat/bourgeois characters • Location shooting • Dynamic cinematography • Negative portrayal of religion

  17. DzigaVertov’s Kino-Pravda • Ideology of documentary over fiction • Dismissal of narrative, performance, etc • Focus on the act of shooting the film itself as ‘truthful’

  18. What is the relationship between visual style and the subject matter of the films you havestudied?

More Related