The cinema as a graphic art : on a theory of representation in the cinema (1959)

THE CINEMA AS A GRAPHIC ART characterisation of individual persons and situations (the scene in the market, the Mongols, the Partisans). These same elements emerge to the highest degree in " The Deserter ", in which the search for realistic conviction brought Golovnya to news-reel methods of work. In " The Deserter " he was able to exploit the specific methods of news-reel exposition, raising them to the height of the needs of artistic generalisation. The shots of the demonstration, the presentation of the banner, preserve the convincing power of the news-film, but at the same time it is more than a simple news filming, for each shot reveals compositional finish, and so witnesses to special construction, to the confident work of a mature master. Anatoli Golovnya 's creative path provides a clear example of the importance to the camera-man of having uninterrupted creative contact with one and the same director. The creative association of Pudovkin and Golovnya has proved to be a fruitful union of two great masters, each of whom has found his own line, of logical development. Andrei Moskvin occupies a special place among Soviet camera-men. A number of pictorial, including expressionist, influences can be clearly traced in his work. Creatively associated with the directors G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg, he has together with them made a protracted evolution from the extreme expressionism of the representational treatment in " Soldier's Coat " to the realistic tendencies manifested in his work in the picture "Alone". Andrei Moskvin is a talented camera-man with a great creative range. His, work cannot be estimated from the standpoint of superficial, purely imitational tendencies. In " Soldier's Coat " we find shots constructed on schematic cameraangles, on closed space, on non-natural methods of lighting, but these are by no means to be regarded as superficial imitation of the tricks of expressionism. The representational treatment in this film was undoubtedly conditioned by Moskvin's own creative approach, which was organically bound up with the creative tendencies of the director's group F.E.K.S. In the brochure " Eccentricism " published in 1922 is the following declaration of the F.E.K.S. group, which helps considerably to elucidate the sources of the creative attitude of this group as a whole, and of the camera-man Moskvin in particular. ART WITHOUT A CAPITAL A, PEDESTAL, OR FIG LEAF Life demands art hyperbolically coarse, scratching, beating at the nerves, openly utilitarian, mechanically exact, instantaneous, swift. Otherwise they hear not, see not, stop not. All this in sum is equal to : the art of the XXth century, the art of 1922, the art of the last second. ECCENTRICISM OUR PARENTS Parade allez ! In words — chansonette, Pinkerton, the snout of the auctioneer, the invective of the street. In pictorial art — the circus poster, the wrapper of the boulevard novel, in music — the Jazz-band (the negro orchestra rumpus). In ballet — the American tap dance. In the theatre — the music hall, cinema, theme song, boxing. The old pictorial art has died of itself, the eccentric poster will annihilate PICTORIAL ART GENERALLY. WE PROPOSE : i. The boulevardisation of all forms of yesterday's pictorial art. Cubism — futurism — expressionism through the filter : laconism — precision — unexpectedness. 198