NOTES
AND APPENDICES
A.—GLOSSARIAL NOTES
In the discussion of any technical subject it is
necessary to employ technical terms. Technical cinematographic terms afford
wide opportunities for ambiguity and obscurity in two ways. In the first place,
they are usually not invented words, but words in common use extended to
embrace technical meanings, to the confusion of the layman. In the second
place, they vary slightly owing to differing practices in differing countries,
or even in different studios, to the confusion of the expert. It is therefore
desirable to establish, by definition, the sense in which technical terms have
been employed in the preceding essays.
The word Producer
in the film world is properly applied only to the business man, financial
organiser, managing director of a producing concern; the driving-force rather
than the technical guidance behind any given production. Producer in the stage
sense has become Director in the
films. This terminology is American in origin, but is now universal in England
also.
The word Scenario
is loosely applied to almost any written matter relating to the story
preparation of a film in any of its stages. The course of development is
roughly as follows*: The Synopsis is an
* Theme is a term of sense almost exactly congruous
to its nonspecialist meaning. It never represents a written document, except
possibly in the case where the film’s genesis is represented by the producer
commanding, “Make me a war-film, a film of motherlove, or so forth.”
outline of three or four typewritten pages containing
the barest summary of character and action. It is made for the convenience of
the producer or scenario-chooser, who may be too busy or unwilling to study
potential subjects at length. In the adaptation of a book or a play, the
synopsis represents the first stage. In the case of an original filmstory it
may rather be a précis of the next stage following.
This is the Treatment.
A treatment is more extensive, usually from twenty to fifty pages. Here,
although still written throughout in purely narrative form, we have, already
indicated by means of a certain degree of detail in pictorial description, the
actual visual potentialities of the suggested action. The use of the word
scenario for either of these documents is more common with the layman than with
the technician. Credit for a treatment is given, on a title or in a technical
publication, more often by the words “Story by” than by association with the
scenario. The words “Scenario by” imply work on a yet later stage—the shootingscript.
The Shooting-script
is the scenario in its final cinematograph form, with all its incidents and
appearances broken up in numbered sequence into the separate images from which
they will be later represented. These separate images are called Script-scenes, listed, in the
typewritten abbreviation of a usual shooting-script, simply as Scenes—e.g. Scene 1, Scene 2, etc. The
words appearing upon the screen are also listed, as Main-title (the name of the film, and credit-titles), Sub-titles (never “captions”—this is a
layman’s term), Inserts, writings
that are part of a scene, and Superimposed
titles, a term carrying its own
meaning.
It is evident from Pudovkin’s essay on the scenario
that an intermediate stage, quite unusual in England or America, intervenes in
U.S.S.R. between the purely narrative treatment
and its complete cinematographic analysis, the shooting-script. In this stage the titles stand already numbered,
so do the separate tiny incidents, but there is no indication yet of the images
to be selected to compose them. Such an incident Pudovkin terms a”scene, 55
using the word almost in the sense in which it is used in a classical French
play, to indicate not merely a change of place, but even a change of
circumstance such as the entrance or exit of a player. To avoid confusion, the
word scene has been avoided in this text, being rendered by”incident, 55 except
in the example given of this stage of treatment.*
The Sequence
is a convenient division, into a series of which the action naturally falls.
The sequences are already feelable even in the purely narrative treatment, and
may each contain numbers of incidents, or scenes (in the Pudovkin sense) . The sequence of the stealing of the Princess
embraces all the business of running away with her, possibly involving
interactions at several different geographical points. The “scene” (Pudovkin’s sense) of
the Princess being stolen probably covers only the actual carrying her out
of her bedroom; dragging her down the stairs would be another “scene” (incident,
in the phraseology
* Those interested to study further the Soviet method
of writing scenarios are referred to two published examples: that of Eisenstein
and Alexandrev’s “The General Line,”published
as a booklet in German, and extracts from Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Montagu’s
“An American Tragedy,” published bv the late H. A. Potamkin in “Close-Up.”
I have employed) . The separate parts that compose
such a”scene,”the as yet further indivisible atoms of the film-structure,* are
termed variously according to their function considered at the moment. In their
philosophic function we term them separate images; materially, separate pieces of celluloid;
functionally, in the shooting-script, script-scenes
(abb. scenes); as separate tasks upon the floor of the studio, or as separate
parts of a finished, edited film, Shots;
while in the cutting-room we find that each is represented by several
subsimilar pieces, varying in number according to the number of times its
action was respectively shot, spoken of as the several Takes of one shot.
On the floor of the studio we Shoot or Take the shots.
The latter expression is perhaps the more common in speaking of a script-scene
in single aspect (“How many times did we take that scene?”), the former as a
general term (“We shot ten scenes before lunch”;”We could not shoot to-day,
because of fog”). The word Turn, a
transliteration of which is used in several European languages instead of
shoot, is used in English only of the special activity of a cameraman (“Who
turned for you on that picture?”). Note that in our last example Picture is
used to mean whole film. This sense is slang rather than
technical. The picture should properly imply the composition space of an image
†—i.e., Picture-shape, meaning
screen-shape. The camera Set-up
* The actual subdivisibility of the atom is in film
paralleled only by those instances (double exposure and the like) in which a
single shot is blended from the effects of more than one separate cameraaction.
† The composition space termed picture on the floor
is termed a frame in the cutting-room, though its height, as a unit of the
length of the picture, has then become more significant than its general shape.
The frame, three-quarters of an inch high on the actual piece of standard size
celluloid, is the concrete unit, repetition of which gives, in projection of a
shot, the illusion of movement.
refers to its position in relation to the shot
object, not only its distance from the object, but also its angle to it. If we
alter the one or the other we alter the set-up. The Camera-angle, in this sense, is the relation between the vertical
and horizontal axes of the object shot on the one hand, and the plane of the
film at the moment of shooting on the other. The distances of the camera from
the shot object are technically designated as Long-Shot, Mid-Shot, and Close-Up, with their manifold
supplementaries. No two studios, directors, or scenarists will agree absolutely
about the measure of these shots, which have constancy only in their relation
to one another. One technician will describe a distance showing the figure from
crown to knee as a mid-shot, another as a medium long-shot. The full tally is
something like distance-shot, long-shot,
medium long-shot, mid-shot, semiclose- up, close-up, big close-up (or, in
the appropriate special case, big head).
It is important to gain a clear conception of the
activities embraced here by the word Editing.
The word used by Pudovkin, the German and French word, is montage. Its only
possible English equivalent is editing. But in England, in the trade, the
editor is too often conceived of as a humble person, called in after the
damage, or good, has been done upon the floor, to accomplish a relatively
mechanical task upon material the effect of which has been already settled. The
word editing, as used here in its
correct sense, has a far wider, constructive application. It covers manifold
activities, not only those which compose in the cutting-room an appearance from
single images, but those which, in the work on the script, predetermine and
select those images and their sequence which will be necessary to form the
later appearance proposed. In its later uses by the Russians—and here we often
retain montage—it implies mounting or
amounting of all the affective impulses ofsound or vision that in one way or
another amountedly affect the spectator. The degree to which the verb monter, to build or edit, is still
comprehended in England as implying little beyond the relatively mechanical
concept to cut, indicates the degree to which an understanding of the creative
process implied by its wider sense may be fruitful for the future advancement
of the industry.
B.—SPECIAL NOTES
(i) NOTES TO “THE FILM SCENARIO AND ITS THEORY”
1. It is interesting to note that at least three
major films turned out so long that they were issued in two parts intended to
be booked at successive weeks: Fritz Lang’s Nibelungs
(Siegfried, called Nibelungs in England, and Kriemhild’s Revenge, called in England The She-Devil); the same director’s Dr.
Mabuse and Gustav Molander’s Jerusalem
from the Selma Lagerlof story. American super-productions of unusual length
concede an interval at half-way on their premier showing, and are shortened
subsequently for general release. The over-long Stroheim pictures Greed for Universal and Wedding March for Paramount were ruthlessly cut down and the wholes have
never been seen. On the Continent, where singlefeature programmes are the rule,
a film usually attains 9,000 feet—1¾ hours. In England and U.S.A., with the
habit of double programmes, only exceptional films attain 90 minutes and the
usual length is 70. (p. 9.)
2. Neglect of this rule, to establish clearly the
theme first of all and select all incident only to express it, was almost
certainly the root cause of the failure of Pudovkin’s penultimate film, A Simple
Case. Not all its later devised
ingenious embellishments could save it, the fault was in its genesis, (p. 10.)
3. This example may be obscure to the reader not
grounded in reformist or revolutionary politics. To a Russian an anarchist is a
definite type—shockheaded, piercing eyes, spouting, impractical—in vivid
contrast to the communist ideal of an athletic, disciplined, handy-man, that
the hero finally becomes. The replacement in the scenario of a vaguely
turbulent character by an anarchist is thus, to a Russian, a gain in definiteness. It is as if a character,
vague and intangible, were described in an English scenario as being “in the
army.” By tightening in revision the character is made a sergeant-major.
Everyone in England knows what a sergeant-major is like; the other persons in
the story can be readily characterised by their reactions to him. The gain in
definiteness is obvious, (p. 11.)
4. How far and under what conditions are “spoken
phrases” admissible in sound films? The author gives his view on this question
in essays VII and VIII. (p. 14.)
5. Here in the original follows a sentence: “But it
is necessary to know them, and the reader’s attention is recommended to the
short bibliography at the end of this sketch.” A fruitless recommendation, for,
alas, the printer omitted the bibliography, (p. 17.)
6. The classic example of the creation by extraneous
methods of a tension not implicit for most audiences in the given dramatic
material is the Separator Sequence in The
General Line. (p. 18.)
7. Scenes and script-scenes. Refer to Glossarial
Notes, (p. 21.)
8. Here a wide textual alteration has been made. In
the original the author gives guidance for sensing the amount of material
required in each reel (rather than in the scenario as a whole), for “it must be
borne in mind that each reel must, to a certain extent, represent a
self-contained part of the picture. In order that the short interval necessary
for changing the reel in exhibition shall not break up the unity of impression,
effort must be made to distribute the material in such a way that the intervals
occur at the place of junction of one just completed part of action to the
beginning of the next. In a technically well-constructed scenario the
conclusion of a reel is used as a special method completing the action,
analogous to the dropping of the curtain at the end of an act in the Theatre.”
These remarks were conditioned by the fact that, at
the time of the sketch, and even now, most places of film exhibition in Russia
are equipped with only one projector. The conception of the reel as a
self-contained dramatic part has no value for the producer in Western Europe
and America, where two-projector exhibition is universal, unless perhaps for
the amateur. It should be noted, indeed, that in production for two-projector
exhibition the reverse requirement obtains. The cutter should take care not to
divide his reels at the end of a sequence. A short footage is almost always
lost to view in each change-over, owing to the precautions taken by the
operator to avoid at all costs the shattering appearance on the screen of the
tag “End of Reel X” or “Reel X + 1.” For example, the penultimate and last
reels of Two Days. Here the Russian, relying on his interval, shows at the end
of the penultimate reel a short shot of the father kneeling by his hanged son;
slow fade-out. Interval for lacing up the next reel. Fade-in, father rising to
his feet. We are aware that he has been long dazed with sorrow, and has at last
reached a critical impulse, to fire the house of his son’s executioners. On a
Western apparatus the change-over swallows all, or the best part of, the fades.
The father appears merely to indulge in a more or less irrational kneeling-down
and almost immediate standing-up, and much of the”Tightness”of the psychology
of his impulse is lost. Care should be taken, therefore, by the cutter to
divide his reels preferably at a place of cross-cut shots where loss of perhaps
the last foot of one and the first foot of another will be insignificant, (p.
21.)
9. Note that in a talking-film script, the dialogue
is set out bunched up on the right-hand side of the page, as in a play, not
between the scenes and level with them, as the spoken sub-titles here. (p. 21.)
10. Refer to Glossarial Notes, (p. 23.)
11. A girl member of the Young Communist League, (p.
23.)
12. This paragraph remains equally true for sound
films in Pudovkin’s view. So long as an image appears it should not be casual,
but selected for its expression; similarly speech should not be casual — the
speech that might happen to be uttered—but rigidly selected and arranged for
maximum expression. See his essays VII and VIII. (p. 27.)
13. The principle has a useful application, by
converse inference, for the editor (the cutter and titler, called in after the
damage is done) as well as for the scenarist. Suppose he be confronted with
this weak scene of Olga walking out on her husband, already made, he can
slightly strengthen it by weakening the preceding title—that is, making it more
indefinite. Thus: “Olga, unable to endure her hard-hearted husband, came to a
crucial decision.” (p. 33.)
14. A long experience of titling enables me to be not
contradictory, but perhaps more definite. Three considerations affect titles;
they are, in order of descending importance: (a) content, (b) style, (c)
compression.
The absolutely clear significance of the content for
the development of the action is paramount. That satisfied, the use of
phraseology in spoken titles helping to characterise a speaker or his mood, or
of style in continuity titles wedded to the momentary spirit of the film, may
be exceedingly valuable. Compression, though to be considered only after the
other two desiderata, is highly important; though few spectators are
analphabets, reading is, to many of them, an exercise, and, if the screen be
full of type, an astonishing number make no effort to begin on it at all. (p.
33.)
15. Methods of measuring title-length vary. That
given here, though used in several studios, is an excessively large
approximation. A more exact allowance is one foot for each of the first five
words, and one foot for each subsequent pair of words. This presupposes that a
material part of the time taken in reading a card is taken up, firstly, in
adjustment to the first appearance of the card, secondly, in adjustment to each
new word; length of words is regarded as temporally relatively unimportant, for
most long words are recognised when only a part of their length has been spelt
out. For this view there is experimental support. (p. 33.)
16. To it belongs also the science of selection of
fount (or script), tone, and background, (p. 34.)
17. To avoid interruption of the flow of rapid action
by length in a title, the Russians introduced the method of “split-titles,”
that is, distribution of the essential content to be rendered on to two or
three separated cards; each is thus shown short in footage and the tempo undisturbed.
Still faster, in his penultimate film, Pudovkin cut alternate frames of a title
and a picture in battle scenes. This gave an effect of almost machine-gun
rapidity. Alternate frame effects can also be got, perhaps more easily, in what
is called an “optical printer.” (p. 35.)
18. The text is here slightly amended. The author
gives as his simple form the iris-in and iris-out, mentioning what is called
the fade only as a variant. Irises were used far more in the past than to-day,
the fade has now been found to be less distracting to the spectator. The mere
reversal of their respective positions, with litde phrase alteration, is
effective in modernising the passage. (p. 35.)
19. See Note 18. (p. 36.)
20. These effects have lately come very much into
fashion; they are called “wipes,” and are most usually effected not in the
camera but on the printer. (p. 36.)
21. The mix need
not be effected at once in the camera; it can be made subsequendy in the
printing, or by various trick processes. As a matter of fact, however—though
there is no theoretical reason why it should be so—such processes and printing
machines are, in practice, nearly always imperfect, and result in a loss of
photographic quality, (p. 37.)
22. Accomplished by means of a camera accessory, such
a shot is termed a “pan.” Accomplished by free-hand, it is usually termed a
“swinging” shot. (p. 37.)
23. There is strong difference on this point. A
costly process, owing to the time taken for the complex preparation of such a
shot, the prodigal Americans use it more and more frequently, for such purposes
as the following of a character along passages, up flights of stairs, and so
forth. Tracking (and panning) are in disfavour with the left-wing Russian
school, for, naturalists, they hold such methods easily tend to remind the
spectator of the presence of the camera. (p. 38.)
24. The same effect is often obtained by gauzes or
cigarette smoke in front of the lens. (p. 38.)
25. Scenes and script-scenes. Refer to Glossarial
Notes. (p. 39.)
26. A further wide textual alteration. Discussion was
given of the editing of the reel (“each reel is a more or less complete whole,
corresponding, to a certain degree, to an act upon the stage”) and of the
scenario separately. In considering reels, the author repeated the desideratum
that their material must be independent and self-contained, though now adding
that, with two-projector exhibition, this is unnecessary. In considering the
scenario as a whole, the author suggested the various size of reels as a means
of sparing to the end the energy of the spectator. The early ones long, while
he is fresh, the middle reels shorter, and the last reel, if necessary, longer
again, so that the pure final action need not be interrupted by new lacing-up.
These observations are significant in Western Europe and America for amateurs
only. Refer to Note 8. (p. 45.)
27. The author here repeated, almost word for word,
the account of those scenes given on (p. 49.)
(ii) NOTES TO “FILM DIRECTOR AND FILM MATERIAL”
28. The great significance here alluded to by
Pudovkin is the economic consequence that cost of performance becomes a mere
fraction of cost of production. Whereas in the theatre or concert hall, chief
analogies in the entertainment industry, costs of repeat performance are
relatively much nearer original production costs. This, not anything in their
respective intrinsic possibilities of creative method, determines the
paramountcy of theatre for esoteric groups, and puts the cinema as a mass art
out on its own with limitless financial resources. (p. 52.)
29. The original here speaks of the impossibility of
approaching “scenes,” using the word in the classical French sense. See
Glossarial Notes, (p. 57.)
30. The net is “cheated.” Any movement or object
outside the picture-frame or otherwise unremarked is said to be “cheated.” (p.
57.)
31 . Communist mixed Boy and Girl Scouts, (p. 58.)
32. By a curious error of mistranslation on the part
of the German renters of this film it has been customary to refer to this
warship as an armoured cruiser (Panzerkreuzer)
. Both in actuality and in the Russian name of the film the Potemkin is a predreadnought battleship,
the full name of which is Potemkin Tavritcheski (ex Pantelimon, ex Kniaz Potemkin Tavritcheski) . It was completed in 1900, and its details are given
as follows: Displacement, 12,480 metric tons; complement, 741; guns, four 12”,
sixteen 6”, fourteen 11 -pounders, six 3-pounders; 5 torpedo-tubes, speed,
about 16 knots. It closely resembles those English classes of pre-dreadnought —Bulwark, Formidable, Majestic, Canopus—of
which so many examples were lost during the war. (p. 67.)
33. These are the marble steps leading from the
statue of the Due de Richelieu on the boulevard to the docks below, (p. 67.)
34. In the German edition the translators here
inserted Ruttman’s Berlin as a film of this kind. This is absurd; Berlin was
most carefully scripted and exactly executed, and the instance was repudiated
by Pudovkin when brought to his attention, (p. 72.)
35. The counter to this rule is, of course, Dziga-Vertov
with his theory of the “Kino-eye.” Dziga- Vertov holds that the director should
stage nothing, simply going about quietly and unobservedly accumulating
material with the camera, his “Kinoeye,” and that only such a film as one in
which the director’s “interference” with the natural course of events is
limited to choosing and eliminating details can properly be called documentary.
It is all a matter of degree. At the one pole there is the arbitrary, staged
and acted event — Chang or the
sandstorm in Turksib, at the other
the lurking about the streets of Ruttmann in Berlin or Dziga-Vertov. But even
Dziga-Vertov would doubtless repeat and “interfere” in the sense of the next
text paragraph to secure certain material, (p. 74.)
36. In England it is the whole work of one member of
the producing team, the “continuity” or floor-secretary, to aid the director to
keep watch on correspondences of this kind. (p. 79.)
37. Recall that the director’s field will alter with
every lens. Modification of the amount of space to be embraced may often be
effected not by change of set-up but by change of lens. (p. 80.)
38. In “The Dynamic Square,” Eistenstein eloquently
pleads for all those male shapes utterly banned from proper screen expression
by its at present accepted frame, (p. 81.)
39. The
Mechanism of the Brain, Reel One. (p. 83.)
40. At the former Imperial summer residence in
Livadea, near Yalta, (p. 89.)
41. Pudovkin is himself a declared and practising
disciple of the American Griffith in this matter. Compare the steady,
inexorable flow of spring river ice and the marching, demonstrating workers in Mother; compare the storm, existing for
the story not in reality but only in emotion, that sweeps away the English at
the finale of Jenghiz Khan. This last is his most daring and
remarkable achievement. For the risk of introducing an emotional environmental
effect is that it is much less likely than a real one to be apprehended
unconsciously by the audience; it may become a symbol, requiring conscious
effort for comprehension, and risk passing the audience by, e.g., the
Regeneration Sequence in Simple Case. (p. 101.)
42. Recall again the Separator Sequence, General Line, Reel Two. (p. 104.)
43. Example: The grimacing and painted Krauss
standing on a real hill, pretending to influence a real fox, real foxhounds and
horses; a preposterous scene in The Student of Prague, (p. 106.)
44. It requires such an abundance of stock on the
regular pay-roll as can only be afforded by the wealthiest film-company. The
herding of extras into a film-city, in which all companies centralise their
studios, has, however, something of the same effect, (p. 108.)
45. Many historians of the Theatre would disagree,
(p. 110.)
46. For Pudovkin’s views on the proper relation of
speeches and movements in dialogue film see essays VII and VIII. (p. 115.)
47. Remember also the face of the Mongol in the
finale of The Heir to Jenghiz Khan.
(p. 119.)
48. Soft-focus, refer note 24 (p. 122).
49. This is a considerable over-estimate for the
conditions of commercial film production in the West. Companies with big studio
investments hate going on location; they must keep their studios occupied to
cover their overheads. (p. 129).
50. This, of course, the elimination of the
supererogatory, is what makes the Close-up the keystone of the whole power and
effectiveness of the cinema. A measure—the ultimate possible—of the
unconsciousness of the West and its innocence of theory was seen at that
meeting of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the would-be
learned society of Hollywood, at which were delivered Eisenstein’s remarks on
“The Dynamic Square.” This meeting was called to consider Wide Film. A
prominent cameraman from Fox was recounting his experiences. Although one could
not approach close enough to the subject to secure a close-up, he declared this
was no drawback, for the image on the screen was so large that the characters’
expressions could none the less be clearly discerned even in mid-shot! Despite
the presence of a multitude of directors and leading technicians from every
studio, this astounding appraisal excited no remark. To this day, though their
pragmatism has taught them to drop Wide Film after stinging losses, the big
companies are probably quite mystified and unable to account for the public’s
indifference to it. (p. 129.)
51. There is a growing tendency, alas, in England and
America for the director too to
leave, his picture at this point passing to an “editor.” It derives from
commercial envy of the “quickies,” and must tend, with them, to standardisation
and mechanicalisation of style, (p. 136.)
52. In spite of this address it should be noted that
Pudovkin does very often use actors. Inkishinov, Baranovskaia, Batalov,
Baturin, are examples of more or less experienced actors in leading roles in
his films. Other equally important parts are, it is true, played by complete
novices and he certainly handles them all, experienced and otherwise, with the
technique prescribed here for the handling of types. Dovzhenko uses types
rather more, and only Eisenstein invariably, (p. 137).
53. Various means of obtaining “Close-ups in Time”
have been used previously by directors other than the quoted Epstein. Turning
the camera fast — though not in actual exaggerated slow-motion as in these
experiments—is not at all uncommon for certain underlinings. Some of Fairbanks
athletic feats were probably recorded in this way to emphasise their grace.
Eisenstein, on the other hand, has always emphasised his moments by repetitive
cutting. Recall the repetition in the enthroning in the tractor in the last
reel of General Line, in the bridge scene of October,
and as for the Odessa Steps scene in Potemkin—you
will find that the soldiers march down this whole length two or three times if
all the descent shots are added together. These are other technical means to
the same end as the experiments in A Simple Case here described. (p. 146).
C—V. I. PUDOVKIN:
ICONOGRAPHY
1.
The
Mechanism of the Brain (Mejrabpom-russ, 1925)
Technical scientific direction: Professor L. N.
Voskresenski and Professor D. S. Fursikov.
Technical cinematographic direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
Physiological experiments and operations: Professor
D. S. Fursikov.
Animal-life direction: L. N. Danilov.
Conditional reflex experiments on children: Professor
N. I. Krasnogorski.
Child-life direction: Professor A. S. Durnovo.
Diagrams: I. Vano, D. Tcherkess, V. Merkulov.
Photography: A. N. Golovnia.
A documentary film illustrative of comparative mental
processes, more particularly of the progress in knowledge of conditioned
reflexes attained by workers in Professor Pavlov’s laboratory at the Academy of
Sciences, Leningrad. Regarded as unsuitable for public presentation by the B.B.
of F.C., February 1929. First exhibited in England, privately, to the Royal
Society of Medicine (Neurological Section), March, 1929.
2.
The Chess Player (Mejrabpom-russ, 1926).
Direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
A short comedy in which, by means of an experiment in
cutting and editing, J. R. Capablanca is made to appear to play a part.
3.
Mother
(Mejrabpom-russ, 1926).
Based on the story by Maxim Gorki.
Scenario: N. A. Zarkhi.
Direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
Art Direction: S. V. Koslovski.
Photography: A. N. Golovnia.
Cast: The father—A. Tchistiakov [Kenneth
Macpherson, in Bryher’s Film Problems of Soviet Russia (q.v.), identifies this
character as the actor Leinstiakov.]; the
mother —Vera Baranovskaia; the son—Nikolai
Batalov.
Baranovskaia and Batalov are professionals,
Tchistiakov is an accountant of Mejrabpom, he has appeared in each of
Pudovkin’s subsequent films. A small part in the film, that of a mild,
bespectacled officer, is played by Pudovkin. First performed in England,
privately, at the Film Society, October 1928. Regarded as unsuitable for public
presentation by the B.B. of F.C., November 1928.
4.
The End of
St. Petersburg (Mejrabpom-russ, 1927).
Scenario: N. A. Zarkhi.
Direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
Art Direction: S. V. Koslovski.
Photography: A. N. Golovnia.
Cast: The Bolshevik—A. Tchistiakov; his wife—V.
Baranovskaia; the peasant boy— I. Tchuvelev; Lebedev—V.
Obolenski; a jingo—V. Tsoppi.
The peasant boy is played by a peasant, whose brother
appears, also as a peasant boy, in the blackleg scene. The part of his pregnant
mother is played by a peasant woman. The stockbrokers are all former
stockbrokers. Obolenski similarly a member of the former governing class. First
performed in England, privately, at the Film Society, February 1929.
5.
The Heir
to Jenghiz Khan (Mejrabpom-film, 1928).
Based on a story by Novokshenov.
Scenario: O. Brik.
Direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
Art Direction: S. V. Koslovski and Aronson.
Photography: A. N. Golovnia.
Cast: The Mongol—V. Inkishinov; his father— I. Inkishinov; the Partisan
leader—A. Tchistiakov; the Commandant—L.
Dedintsev; his wife—L. Billinskaia; his daughter—Anna Sujakevitch; a fur-trader—V.
Tsoppi; a soldier —K. Gurniak; a missionary—R. Pro.
The four last-named actors are professionals.
Inkishinov is assistant producer in the Meyerhold Theatre. His father in the
film is played by his actual father, on the location in which he has always
lived. The Mongols and Mongolian ceremonies are actual. The film was regarded
as unsuitable for public presentation by the B.B. of F.C., August 1929. First
presented in England, privately, at the Film Society, February 1930.
6.
The Story
of a Simple Case (Mejrabpom-film, 1931).
Theme: M. Koltsova.
Scenario: A. Rzheshevski.
Direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
Photography: G. Kabalov.
Cast: (Prologue) Worker—A.
Gortchilin; his wife—Tchekulayeva; son—
M. Kashtelian; (Story) Uncle Sasha—A. Tchistiakov; Paul Langovoi—A.
Baturin; Fedya Zheltikov—V. Kuzmitch; Masha
Langovoi—E. Rogulina; the second
wife—M. Belousova.
Baturin is a concert-singer; Kuzmitch actually a Red
Army Officer; Belousova a Professor of Psychology. The film was first presented
in England, privately, at the Film Society, May 1933; it has been withdrawn in
the U.S.S.R. It was at first provisionally named Life is Grand.
7.
Deserter
(Mejrabpom-film, 1933).
Scenario: N. Agadjanova-Shutko, M. Krasnostavski, A.
Lezebnikov.
Direction: V. I. Pudovkin.
Art Direction: A. Kozlovski.
Photography: A. N. Golovnia.
Sound Recording: E. Nesterov.
Music: I. Shaporin.
Sound System: Tagephon.
Cast: Boris Livanov, M. Aleshchenko, A. Besperotov,
S. Gerasimov, I. Gliser, K. Gurniak, A. Konsovski, V. Kovrigin, I. Lavrov, T. Makarova,
T. Svashenko, A. Tchistiakov, V. Uralski.
D.—INDEX OF NAMES
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