Pre-revolutionary Russian film 1896-1918

The capitalist way…

The first films ever…

Lumiere Brothers’

L’arrivée du train à la Ciotat (1895)

In 1896 they visit Moscow and St Petersburg with their films. In that year the first film is made in Russia: the coronation of Nicholas II.

A productive industry…

• Prerevolutionary cinema as fully-fledged industry along with French, Danish, German, American

• 1700 + films between 1907-1917 (some 280 have survived)

• Exported (no problem of sound); change to happy ending for export.

The social impact

• Early cinemas have sleazy reputation.

• Cheap, informal entertainment, no dress code (unlike theatre).

• Itinerant industry (no electricity needed) in far-flung empire.

• Democratic art form – for people of all classes.

First Russian feature filmSten’ka Razin (1908; Aleksandr Drankov dir. )

What kinds of film-making?

• narrative (melodrama, historical pageant)

• non-ideological

• entertainment value

• star system

• erotic content

Film Genres

• Newsreels and propaganda – especially during the war

• Melodramas

• Historical and literary subjects:– Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, War and

Peace, The Idiot, Queen of Spades.

Stars and Directors

• Stars selected for their beauty, expressiveness: Ivan Mozzhukhin, Vera Kholodnaia

• Directors seek innovation: Evgeny Bauer, Yakov Protazanov

• First experiments with the possibilities of light, montage (editing) and camera (e.g. travelling shots, close-ups)

The new aesthetic

• Differences with theatre: no spoken lines, closeness of camera.

• Possibility to retake shot.

• Expressive make-up.

• Exaggerated gestures to compensate for lack of speech.

• a new expressiveness of the facial gesture.

Stars…

Ivan Mozzhukhin

(1889-1939)

The power of the camera

“... One indubitable advantage and the essence of cinema is the face, the eyes, speaking not less that the tongue. It has become clear that it is sufficient for the actor to think sincerely and with inspiration about what he might say, only think about it as he acts in front of the camera, creating the way he would onstage, and with every muscle, question or plea of the eyes alone, with every wrinkle visible from the most remote corner of the movie theatre, he will reveal his entire soul to the public on the screen. And the public, I repeat, will understand him without a single word or a single intertitle. “Ivan Mozzhukhin (1918)

The little house in Kolomno(dir. Petr Chardynin, 1913)

Father Sergy(based on Tolstoy; dir. Iakov Protazanov, 1918)

…and directors

Wladislaw Starewicz (1882-1965)(a.k.a. Ladislas Starevich)

• First Russian animated films, beginning in 1910.

• Stop motion technique.

• Used dead beatles, attaching legs with wax.

• The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912)

• After revolution moved to France, worked in Paris.

Evgeny Bauer Movie-making career 1913-1917

Bauer’s movie-making career 1913-1917

• experimented with the possibilities of light, montage and camera (e.g. travelling shots)

• static camera becomes moving camera

• artful use of light

• carefully crafted shots

• complicated subject matter, sophisticated plot, psychological depth, compassion to characters

After Death (1915)

• Mystic film based on Turgenev’s story “Klara Millich.”

• Heroine Zoya Kadmina played by Vera Karalli, ballet dancer.

• Also stars in film Dying Swan.

• Available in library on DVD Mad Love (DVD00841)

What to look for...

• Camera: panning, travelling, close-up.

• Film effects.

• Composition of the shot.

• Cutting between shots.

• Recurrent themes and motifs.

• “Situation rhyme.”