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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.

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Soviet Cinema

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  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?

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