Soviet Movies: Various - Kino-nedelya 31-35 AKA Kino-Week 31-35 (1919)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Various - Kino-nedelya 31-35 AKA Kino-Week 31-35 (1919)

Kino-nedelya was directed by Dziga Vertov, Vladimir Gardin, Lev Kuleshov and others

Quote:
In 1918 Mikhail Koltstov, who headed the Moscow Film Committee's newsreel section, hired Vertov as his assistant. Among Vertov's colleagues was Lev Kuleshov, who was conducting his now legendary experiments in montage, as well as Edouard Tissé, Eisenstein's future cameraman was Lev Kuleshov, who was conducting his now legendary experiments in montage, as well as Edouard Tissé, Eisenstein's future cameraman. Vertov began to edit documentary footage and soon was appointed editor of
Kinonedelya, the first Soviet weekly newsreel

Quote:
After the October Revolution, the Pathe and Gaumont newsreels and the newsreels of the Skoblev Committee were replaced by Kinoedelia (kinoweekly), issued by the All-Russian Photo-Cinema Department. Kinonedelia differed from the newsreels which preceded it perhaps only in tht its subtitles were "Soviet." The subject mtter remained the same, the same old parades and funerals. These were precisely the years when, still unfamiliar witht the techniques of cinema, I began to work in cinema. By that time, despite its youth, cinema had already established unshakeable cliches, outside of which you were not allowed to work. My first experiments in assembling chance film clippings into more or less "harmonious" montage groups belong to this period. It seemed to me then that one such experiment was a complete success, and for the firsty time I began to doubt the necessity of a literary connection between individual visual elements spliced together. I had to halt the experiment temporarily to work on a picture for the anniversary of the October Revolution. This work served as the point of departure for Kinopravda. It was precisely during this period of experiment that weveral of us who had lost faith in the possibilities of "artistic" cinema and had faith in our own strength, sketched the first draft of the manifesto that later caused such comotion and brought our cinema-apostles so many unpleasant moments.

№31
Funeral comrade Yashvili that was killed on the south front