Kino pravda
"I don't know, who's opposed to whom. It's difficult, to
stand up against the cinema,
that is acted. It represents 98 percent of our world
production. We simply feel, that the cinema's chief
function is the recording of documents, of facts, the
recording of life, of historical processes. Acted cinema is a
replacement for theater, it is theater restored.
A compromise tendency still exists, directed toward the
fusion or blending of the two.
We take a stand against all that."
- History of the
Kinoks, 1929,
Dziga Vertov
1. In 1922, the year that Nanook of the North was released, Vertov started
the Kino-Pravda series.
2. Positioned diametrically opposite what the kinoks ("cinema-eye men"
rather than "cinematographers.") thought of as "staged" film.
3. Kino-Pravda was also a reaction to overtly "acted" films that Vertov
despised. They wanted to capture "real life," which they believed could
only be achieved through the objectivity of Kino-Eye.
4. At approximately the same time, during his marriage to his long-time
collaborator Elizaveta Svilova, David Kaufman changed his name from
original to Dziga Vértov. He chose Vértov because it is derived from the
verb, meaning ‘to-spin’ as a film camera or projector would. Dziga is not
a Russian name. It was chosen because David believed, that the word,
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when said in repetition, sounded like a winding film spool - jiga.. jiga..
jiga.. jiga.. jiga.. jiga.. jiga.. jiga..
5. In 1922, Vertov and his wife had gathered a following of young
filmmakers. The group called itself the Kinoks and with Vertov as their
charismatic leader, they published an enormous amount of film theory.
6. IMP. - Much of these early writings served as the basis of the syllabi of
any introductory film history course - Russian, Western or otherwise.
And these theory stand today as having laid out the groundwork, the
rules and parameters of documentary film.
Man with the movie camera (1929)
1. The plot of such a militant non-fiction film is difficult to pinpoint, though
the film does follow a clear structure. We see a cameraman’s actions as
he moves through a day in an urban setting with breaks and cut-aways
to machines and factory workers as well as the process of filmmaking
itself.
2. There is very little geographic continuity. Sequences were filmed in
Moscow, Odessa and Kiev and images are repeated in various
juxtaposition.
3. The film includes images and sequences that convey elements of life;
namely marriage, divorce, birth, death, work, rest and play. The
seemingly mundane activities of ordinary workers becomes symbolic of a
new order of film and of Soviet society. Many segments of the film utilize
superimposition or extremely manipulated film spools for either
metaphor or teach the masses about the possibilities of film.
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4. I metaphor - One of the clearest and longest thread through the movie is
the theme of ‘Awakening’. The first third of the movie presents a city
waking up juxtaposed with a 10:45 -
11:45
woman completing her morning routine. We see direct metaphor
through the women’s toilet
and the literal washing of the city. This metaphor is quite an obvious
juxtaposition though it is indicative of a technique Vertov uses
throughout the film. He shows us multiple images of the streets and of
the woman awakening to ensure retrospective meaning.
5. II metaphor - The idea of purging or cleaning is weighted throughout
Vertov’s work both in relation to a purge of traditional or narrative
theatre and film as well as the purges of the New Order in favor of the
Communist life.
6. III metaphor - Immediately following the washing scene, the lens literally
changes in and out of focus while the flowers appear cleared and 11:49 -
blurred. The lens shifts focus and the flowers become clear; 12:11
creating an instant understanding of how the physical apparatus work.
This short transition is
another example of Vertov showing-off the camera’s abilities to construct
a new manner of sight.
7. IV metaphor - This type of pedagogical demonstration appears again
when Vertov creates a representation of film itself. His wife, Elizaveta 22:58 -
24:47
Svilova,
appears editing film segments directly followed by the images she cuts,
in order to show a Soviet viewer exactly what film is and what it can do.
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8. Throughout the film, images link film to Soviet industrial production.
Vertov was extremely outspoken about the ineffectiveness and the
disorganization of the government’s film production and distribution
company. He openly voiced his frustration with the agency’s lack of
funding regularization or organized method of production.
9. He published internationally, for example in Cahiers du Cinémà, and
quite possibly spoke about the need to improve Soviét filmmaking during
his public talks in Western Europe.
10. Soviét films were circulated abroad to some extent to present the west
what Russia is capable of artistically under a communist regime.
11. Vértov’s work was not sent abroad with any regularity but often through
secret channels and make-shift theatres in the basements of interested
critics abroad.
12. Vértov public action later got him into trouble and beginning in the late
1920s, he was granted fewer and fewer projects outside of short badly
circulated newsreels.
13. IMP. - Decades following his death, his work would have a renaissance in
the French Nouvelle Vàgue movement and his influence can be seen in
the works of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and countless
filmmakers today.
14. During the early 1930s however, Vértov and his cohorts of first
generation filmmakers experienced dramatic changes to an already
problematic Cinéma industry.
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15. Sovkino, set-up in 1924, a national state-run cinéma industry, which took
over the existing Goskino (the first film company based in Moscow).
Sovkino was relatively stable industry and oversaw positive and ever
increasing statistics of cinématic output in Russia from 1924 to 1928.
16. During these years, more cinemas were built each year and more
domestic films were completed. Funding was problematic and Sovkino
has set impossibly high projections for the quantity of Soviet
productions.
17. However, under Sovkino, the golden age of Soviet film founded a short
lived footing and produced avant-garde, energetic and experimental
films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqApFJwwHc&t=586s
'Kino-Ciné: The Role of Cinema in the Artistic, Cultural, and Historical Relationship between Moscow and Paris,
1917-1939'
Eva Bezverkhny
pt. 4 to pt.
18. Working mainly during the 1920s, Vertov promoted the concept of "kino-
pravda", or "film-truth", through his newsreel series. His driving vision
was to capture fragments of actuality which, when organized together,
showed a deeper truth which could not be seen with the naked eye. For
instance, ‘Man with a Movie Camera’ captures every day actions such as
getting out of bed, washing, and even giving birth. It is in the editing and
cutting together of these fragments that meaning is made. In the Kino-
Pravda series, Vertov focused on everyday experiences, eschewing
bourgeois concerns and filming marketplaces, bars, and schools instead,
sometimes with a hidden camera, without asking permission first.
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19. Vertov's driving vision, expounded in his frequent essays, was to capture
"film truth"- that is, fragments of actuality which, when organized
together, have a deeper truth that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
For example - Working within the Marxist ideology (seeking social
Film - Man with
transformation by understanding class relations and considering society a movie camera
as a unit) Vertov would often follow a frenetic wide shot of a crowd with (1929) - 17:13 -
a quick close up, then back again to the crowd: a means of both
collapsing space but also of giving the new collective consciousness a
visual form, pointing to the audience that they must see themselves
subsumed within the collective even as they retain their individuality.
* * *
20. Kino-Pravda (lit. 'Film Truth') is a series of 23 newsreels prepared by
Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman launched in June
1922.
21. In the Kino-Pravda series, Vertov focused on everyday experiences,
eschewing bourgeois concerns and filming marketplaces, bars, and
schools instead, sometimes with a hidden camera, without asking
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permission first. Usually, the episodes of Kino-Pravda did not include
reenactments or stagings
22. Vertov referred to the twenty-three issues of Kino-Pravda as the first
work by him where his future cinematic methods can be observed.
23. The episodes of Kino-Pravda usually did not include reenactments or
stagings.
24. The cinematography is simple, functional, and unelaborated.
25. The stories were typically descriptive, not narrative
26. Kino-Eye was based more fundamentally on the techniques of the
newsreel than on montage or any entertainment-filmmaking process.
27. In many ways, Kino-Eye resulted from newsreels and styles of Bolshevik
journalism. Jeremy Hicks writes that the Bolsheviks had long espoused
the newspaper as the main source of fact and truth. Vertov's cinematic
form was a direct response to the truth that he found in journalism and
its representations of everyday life. He hoped for Kino-Eye to capture
cinematic truth.
28. Kino-Eye was also a reaction to overly "acted" films that Vertov despised.
It was positioned diametrically opposite what the kinoks thought of as
"staged" film. They wanted to capture "real life," which they believed
could only be achieved through the objectivity of Kino-Eye.
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29. Vertov and his followers that took up Kino-Eye as their method of film
production referred to themselves as kinoks ("cinema-eye men") rather
than "cinematographers."
30. The term “kino pravda”, though it translates from Russian as "film
truth", is not to be confused with the “cinéma vérité” movement in
documentary film, which also translates as "film truth". Cinéma vérité
was similarly marked by the intention of capturing reality "warts-and-
all", but became popular in France in the 1960s.
Man with a movie camera
1. Largely considered Vertov's lone masterpiece, Man with a Movie Camera
is the greatest example of Kino-Eye. According to Vertov, it required
more work than his previous Kino-Eye films because of its complexity in
both filming and editing. Without words or titles, it relies solely on the
visual language of film to tell its story, departing wholly from the
languages of theatre and literature that the kinoks believed had
infiltrated cinema.
2. Hicks writes, "In its very form Man with a Movie Camera is a defence of
documentary. For Vertov, however, the defence of documentary was
inextricable from the defence of the integrity of cinema itself, since
documentary was its purest, least theatrical form." To Vertov, the film
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was his fullest physical manifestation of the theory of Kino-Eye.
Responding to critics and those trying to intellectualize the film, he
wrote, "In fact, the film is only the sum of the facts recorded on film."
This simplicity and goal of objectivity is the foundation of Kino-Eye.
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