Utopian Visions: The Soviet Experience through the Arts Jan Plamper, Simon Huxtable

Week 7 Outline

Week 7 (1) Avant-garde film: ‘typicality’, montage Vertov, Kuleshov, Eisenstein

Week 7 (1) Avant-garde film: ‘typicality’, montage Vertov, Kuleshov, Eisenstein (2) Avant-garde music: Shostakovich

(1) Avant-garde film ‘Of all arts, cinema for us is the most important’. - Lenin, 1922

Agit-trains: cinema (1920)

Agit-train

Film: Institution-destroying, institution-building Nov. 1917: establishment of Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) with sub-department for film

Film: Institution-destroying, institution-building Nov. 1917: establishment of Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) with sub-department for film 1918: State Film School (Moscow) established, including experimental studios

Film: Institution-destroying, institution-building Nov. 1917: establishment of Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) with sub-department for film 1918: State Film School (Moscow) established , including experimental studios 1919: film production and distribution nationalised and placed under control of Narkompros

Film: Institution-destroying, institution-building Nov. 1917: establishment of Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) with sub-department for film 1918: State Film School (Moscow) established , including experimental studios 1919: film production and distribution nationalised and placed under control of Narkompros Problems faced: - technical: equipment (cameras, celluloid) - cultural: overwhelming influence of imported film, esp. Hollywood  ‘Americanitis’

Film production by year Number of Soviet films produced 1918 6 1919 57 1920 29 1921 12 1922 16 1923 28 1924 69 1925 80 1926 102 1927 118 1928 124 1929 92 1930 128

‘Typicality’ ‘Typicality’ (tipazhnost’) and ‘types’ (tipazhy):

‘Typicality’ ‘Typicality’ (tipazhnost’) and ‘types’ (tipazhy): ‘social and personal biography condensed into physical form’ (Eisenstein)

‘Typicality’ ‘Typicality’ (tipazhnost’) and ‘types’ (tipazhy): ‘social and personal biography condensed into physical form’ (Eisenstein) vs. Hollywood star system

‘Typicality’ ‘Typicality’ (tipazhnost’) and ‘types’ (tipazhy): ‘social and personal biography condensed into physical form’ (Eisenstein) vs. Hollywood star system amateur actors embodying typical characteristics of their class

‘Typicality’ ‘Typicality’ (tipazhnost’) and ‘types’ (tipazhy): ‘social and personal biography condensed into physical form’ (Eisenstein) vs. Hollywood star system amateur actors embodying typical characteristics of their class facial expression and demeanor = more important than acting

‘Typicality’ ‘Typicality’ (tipazhnost’) and ‘types’ (tipazhy): ‘social and personal biography condensed into physical form’ (Eisenstein) vs. Hollywood star system amateur actors embodying typical characteristics of their class facial expression and demeanor = more important than acting embedded in larger move from individual actors to masses/collectives

Examples of ‘types’ Working-class, Intelligentsia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPJ3n4g7DKk (at 6:30)

Montage breaking down of reality into bits  anti-mimetic, similar to cubo-futurism

Montage breaking down of reality into bits  anti-mimetic, similar to cubo-futurism rapid editing cuts (rather than continuity editing) and the creation of new meaning via this editing

Montage breaking down of reality into bits  anti-mimetic, similar to cubo-futurism rapid editing cuts (rather than continuity editing) and the creation of new meaning via this editing Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970): puts bits of montage (like bricks) together into meaningful sequences

Kuleshov effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdGwokj8IDo

Eisenstein’s Montage of Attractions Eisenstein (1898-1948): bits = cells, waiting to explode  bits in dialectical conflict: Eisenstein 1926: ‘Any two frames juxtaposed inevitably combine into a new concept’. Two bits put together = more than sum of their parts

Eisenstein’s Montage of Attractions Eisenstein (1898-1948): bits = cells, waiting to explode  bits in dialectical conflict: Eisenstein 1926: ‘Any two frames juxtaposed inevitably combine into a new concept’. Two bits put together = more than sum of their parts ‘Montage of attractions [=stimuli]’: acts on viewer’s emotions via different media, not just pictorial and still (as in cubo-futurism). Pathos = inner world of feelings, thoughts

Eisenstein’s montage - examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXFSBlQOe4

Sources of Eisenstein’s Montage influenced by theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940) and biomechanics

Sources of Eisenstein’s Montage influenced by theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940) and biomechanics actors and audience thought to be connected in machine-like fashion with actors as cogs; audience reactions studied. Influence of Ivan Pavlov and his reflexology.

Sources of Eisenstein’s Montage influenced by theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940) and biomechanics actors and audience thought to be connected in machine-like fashion with actors as cogs; audience reactions studied. Influence of Ivan Pavlov and his reflexology. Marx and dialectics. But also: German Weimar cinema

 vs. Stanislavsky and reliving of emotional experience (US method-acting) Daniel Day-Lewis

Meyerhold’s biomechanics 1

Meyerhold’s biomechanics 2

Eisenstein’s other tricks 1 Eisenstein also obsessed about movements, lines, circles: crowds are unorganized movements, elemental forces; soldiers/the autocracy as organized lines http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxg83VuS7cw

Eisenstein’s other tricks 2 Camera shoots heroic revolutionary crowds from below to uplift them (3:50) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k62eaN9-TLY

Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico, circa 1930-31

Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) silent films Strike (1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925), October (1927); historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938), Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958)

Zooming forward: Eisenstein in the 1930s and 40s 1937 Bezhin Meadow disaster Come-back with Alexander Nevsky (1938), his first sound film (score by Sergei Prokofiev) 1935 foto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXr0m7SaGvs

(1) Avant-garde film: Montage - Summary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYedfenQ_Mw

(2) Avant-garde music Film scores, e.g. Shostakovich for New Babylon (dir. Kozintsev/Trauberg, 1929) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA3CeysNgFQ

(2) Avant-garde music Film scores, e.g. Shostakovich for New Babylon (dir. Kozintsev/Trauberg, 1929) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA3CeysNgFQ French army attacks Paris Commune in 1871. Shostakovich score: parody of Jacques Offenbach's cancan from Orpheus in the Underworld. Throughout the movie the cancan is associated with the Parisian bourgeoisie. Counterpoint to the French revolutionary Marseillaise, which Shostakovich quotes elsewhere in the score.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) 15 symphonies etc. tortured relationship with Soviet power

Do the intrinsic characteristics of a medium render it more or less accommodating with, more or less resistant to Soviet power?