Inside the Film Factory. New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

281 Pages·11.257 MB·English

by  Taylor Richard, Christie Ian. (editors)

Inside the Film Factory
SOVIET CINEMA
General editors: Richard Taylor, University College of Swansea Ian Christie
The Film Factory
Russian and Soviet cinema in documents 1896—1939
ed. Richard Taylor and Ian Christie
INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY
New approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema
ed. Richard Taylor and Ian Christie
EISENSTEIN REDISCOVERED
ed. Ian Christie and Richard Taylor
Stalinism and Soviet Cinema
ed Richard Taylor and Derek Spring
Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception
Yuri Tsivian
Inside the Film Factory
New approaches to Russian and
Soviet cinema
Edited by
Richard Taylor and Ian Christie
London and New York
First published 1991
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
The collection as a whole © 1991 Routledge; individual chapters
© 1991 the respective contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Inside the film factory: new approaches to Russian and Soviet cinema.
1. Soviet cinema films, history
I. Taylor, Richard II. Christie, Ian
791.430947
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Inside the film factory: new approaches to Russian and Soviet cinema/edited by
Ian Christie and Richard Taylor.
p. cm.–(Soviet cinema series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Motion pictures–Soviet Union. 2. Motion pictures–Political aspects–
Soviet Union. I. Christie, Ian. II. Taylor, Richard. III. Series.
PN1993.5.R9157 1991
791.43′0947—dc20 90—40795
CIP
ISBN 0-203-99278-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-04951-2 (Print Edition)
for
Naum Kleiman
without whom no tour
Inside the Film Factory
would be complete
At work shooting a film; photograph of an unidentified production from Yevgeni Petrov’s
book, What the Cinema Actor Needs to Know (Moscow: 1926).
Contents
Illustrations ix
Notes on contributors x
Notes on contributions xii
General editors’ preface xiv
Acknowledgements xvi
Note on transliteration and translation xviii
Introduction: Entering the film factory 1
Richard Taylor and Ian Christie
1 Early Russian cinema: some observations 7
Yuri Tsivian
2 Kuleshov’s experiments and the new anthropology of the 31
actor
Mikhail Yampolsky
3 Intolerance and the Soviets: a historical investigation 51
Vance Kepley, Jr
4 The origins of Soviet cinema: a study in industry 61
development
Vance Kepley, Jr
5 Down to earth: Aelita relocated 81
Ian Christie
6 The return of the native: Yakov Protazanov and Soviet 103
cinema
Denise J.Youngblood
7 A face to the shtetl: Soviet Yiddish cinema, 1924—36 123
J.Hoberman
8 A fickle man, or portrait of Boris Barnet as a Soviet 149
director
Bernard Eisenschitz
viii
9 Interview with Alexander Medvedkin 163
10 Making sense of early Soviet sound 175
Ian Christie
11 Ideology as mass entertainment: Boris Shumyatsky and 193
Soviet cinema in the 1930s
Richard Taylor
Notes 217
Index 253
Illustrations
Frontispiece: Shooting a film
1 Poster for Stenka Razin 15
2 Boris Godunov 22
3 ‘Action score’ for a Kuleshov Workshop étude 34
4 Kuleshov Workshop performance 43
5 Intolerance 55
6 The Bear’s Wedding 72
7 ‘Koloss’ cinema foyer 79
8 Aelita 84
9 Aelita 89
10 Aelita 96
11 Satan Triumphant 108
12 His Call 115
13 The Tailor from Torzhok 115
14 Without a Dowry 121
15 Jewish Luck 125
16 Through Tears 132
17 The Return of Nathan Becker 140
18 The Girl With the Hat-Box 153
19 The Old Jockey 156
20 Happiness 171
21 Komsomol–Patron of Electrification 184
22 The Deserter 188
23 Soundproofing the first Soviet sound studio 199
24 The Happy Guys 210
25 Chapayev 213