Transcript 09.29 History and Vertov

The Soviet Union in the
1920s
Events leading to the “October Revolution”
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2/15 March February
1917 - Emperor Nicholas
II abdicates.
Provisional government
continues war with
Germany.
3/16 April Lenin returns
to Russia.
July a large
demonstration in
Petrograd is put down.
Lenin goes into hiding.
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The October Revolution and After
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25 October/7 November 1917 - The Bolsheviks, led by
Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seize power in Petrograd.
First shot fired from battleship Aurora (photo).
The provisional government is overthrown, and Prime
Minister Kerensky flees.
The Civil War (“War Communism”)
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3 March 1918 - a Bolshevik delegation led by Trotsky
signs an armistice with Germany and Russia pulls out of
the war.
17 July 1918 Nicholas and his family are executed.
From 1918 to 1920 the Bolsheviks (“Reds”) and
anticommunist forces (“Whites”) wage a war to control
Russia.
Bolsheviks tighten control of the country, nationalize all
industries.
1920 the last White forces are driven out of the Crimea.
NEP (“New Economic Policy”) 1921-1927
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To get economy going, the Bolsheviks proclaim a
new policy.
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They allow private enterprise. Controls over
culture are relaxed: artists need not necessarily
be bolsheviks, just “fellow travellers.”
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A new wealthy bourgeois class appears, to the
disgust of radical bolsheviks.
The Power Shift
In 1924 Lenin dies.
 Everyone expects that
Leon Trotsky, creator of
the Red Army, will be the
new leader.
 Instead Josef Stalin
emerges and takes
control.
 Trotsky becomes an
“unperson”: first exiled,
then finally murdered in
Mexico City in 1940.
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Preparing for Conflict
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Stalin perceives that
Trotsky’s idea of universal
revolution will not work.
Fascism is emerging as
the new political reality in
Europe: Mussolini in Italy,
Hitler in Germany.
The Soviet Union has a
largely agricultural
economy with relatively
little industry: it must
industrialize.
The first five-year plan
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1928 the first plan begins. Objective: to build
dams, canals, power stations, factories.
“Collectivization” begins: the peasants must give
up all their equipment, animals and land to
“collectives.”
Mass arrests take place of “kulaks” (rich
peasants.
Grain shipped abroad to pay for machinery.
In 1933-34 millions of peasants starve to death.
Dziga Vertov
(David/Denis Kaufman)
1896-1954
Dziga Vertov
Real name David Kaufman
 Born in Bialystok, Poland
 Pseudonym means “spinning top”,
references his Jewishness (dziga =
“dreidal” = “top” in Yiddish); also
references the turning of the movie
camera
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Vertov after Revolution
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1918 began working for Kino-Nedelia (CineWeek), editing newsreels, later working on the
film car of an agit-poezd (propaganda train)
during Civil War.
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Partners with his brother Mikhail Kaufman and
wife Elizaveta Svilova.
“Cine-Eye”
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1922 They issue The
Kinoks (Cine-Eye)
manifesto (from kino
“cinema” + oko “eye”
and okno “window”).
Photo Dziga and
Mikhail
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Kinoks Aesthetic program
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Programmatic "Manifesto”
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“Kino-glaz". Documentary truth. Films as “wallnewspapers”
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Using one's eyes (lens as an eye).
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"It is far from simple to show the truth, yet the
truth is simple." (Dziga Vertov)
Cine-Eye
"Our eyes see very little and very badly – so
people dreamed up the microscope to let them
see invisible phenomena; they invented the
telescope...now they have perfected the cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into the visible
world, to explore and record visual phenomena
so that what is happening now, which will have
to be taken account of in the future, is not
forgotten." (Dziga Vertov)
Kino-glaz / Kino-Pravda
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“Helping the poor widow”
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“The Young Pioneers”
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Kino-Pravda #1
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
An Exercise in Pure Cinema
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
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Begins with a statement of values: Against
theatre, acting, scenarios
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No intertitles (but many bits of text tell the
story)
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Continuation of "Kino-Pravda” concept
Genre and devices
Documentary in the genre of “Life of a
City”, perhaps inspired by Walter
Ruttman’s Berlin: the Symphony of a big
city (1927)
 “Retro” return to the beginnings of film
making: the Lumière Bros.
 Actually, several cities shown (Moscow,
Odessa, Kharkov)
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Devices
Much more use of tricks than Eisenstein:
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Rapid cross-cutting – “wake-up therapy”
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Manipulation of film: splicing together of
two shots
Ideological message
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Down with NEP (New Economic Policy);
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Down with bourgeois values, including feature films;
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Frequent shots of advertisement for Woman’s Awakening (Das
Erwachen des Weibes, Fred Sauer, 1928) – the kind of narrative film
Vertov hated.
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Manual labour versus service; down with bourgeois service
industries (shots of beer parlours, beauty salons, etc.);
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Lev Trotsky’s quote illustrated (vodka, church and cinema as “drugs”
used by world capitalism against the working class).
Artistic message:
“Laying bare the device”
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Film about film-making (self-reflexive).
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Begins with a shot of the movie theatre and reel
of completed film.
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Heroes are the film editor (played by DV’s wife
Elizaveta Svilova), cameraman (played by Mikhail
Kaufman, DV's brother) and the camera itself.
Constructivism
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Glorification of technology, delight in watching
machines
Camera, machines, trains, trams
A “choreography” of machines
Machines as “perfect hands” – humans become
machine-like
The camera “orders” the events to happen
"I am the machine that reveals the world to you
as only I alone am able to see it." (Dziga
Vertov)