The film till now : a survey of the cinema (1930)

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THE ACTUAL the mass or epic film, of comparatively contemporary interest, showing the masses challenging the old established authority (October, Battleship 'Potemkin,' The Strike); the individual film, depicting the effect of the revolution on a single person, or group of persons (Mother, The End of St. Petersburg); the historical or monumental film, dealing with past historical events of massed revolt (New Babylon, S.V.D., Revolt in Kazan); the reconstruction film, portraying life under the advantages of the Soviet regime, the rebuilding of the New Russia and the formation of the Worker, the Citizen, and the Peasant, etc. (The Fragment of an Empire, Life's Roads, The Peasant Women of Riazan, Pits, Moscow that Laughs and Weeps): and such films as Eisenstein's The Old and the New, which showed the State laying economic foundations for mechanical agriculture; DzigaVertov's The Eleventh Year, which reflected the commercial and social development of the Ukraine under ten years of Soviet control; and Turksib, Turin's superb film, of the construction of the TurkestanSiberian railway. (b) The educational, scientific, and cultural film, which is a form of cinema that the Government has developed to a vast degree. Instructional films are made about every conceivable subject: industrial, medical, geographical, ethnological, etc., and are shown widely with a view to better education. Special films are made, for example, for the technical instruction of engineers and electricians, and for the officers and men of the Red Army, on field manoeuvres, aerial defence and attack, etc. (c) The news-reel, which, as in other countries, is a survey of the events of the week. It is, of course, largely used to popularise and advertise the leaders of the proletariat. (d) The children's film, both cine-fiction and educational. For each of these groups there exists in every producing company separate scenario departments and information bureaux, which are capable of dealing with the various stages of scenario treatment. This highly developed organisation for the classification, cataloguing, and sorting of the film scenario is an important feature of the Soviet cinema. In no other film-producing country is so much attention paid to the construction of scenario work. Under the control of the central bureau is the selection of themes for the year's output, so that the films may accord exactly with the aim of the Government, politically, socially, and financially. There exist also other departments 150