We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE SOVIET FILM
Protasanov, from the play by Count Alexei Tolstoi. This was an extraordinary Martian fantasy, combining the events in Russia during 191 7 and 191 8 with a fictitious story on the planet; it was notable for its wonderful massed grouping of crowds and for the cubist settings and costumes designed by Isaac Rabinovitch and Madame Alexandra Exter, of the Kamerny Theatre, Moscow. It has not been shown in England. The influence of the stage, in setting, lighting, and acting was strongly marked on these 'art' films, there being no trace of the dynamic filmic properties that were later to become the characteristics of the Soviet cinema.
The first experiments in film construction, using strips of celluloid as the basic material, which are the foundation of Soviet film technique appear to have been due to Lev Kuleshov. He was the director of several productions, including On the Red Front, The Death Ray, Expiation, and recently made The Gay Canary and 2 Buldi 2, as well as being the founder of a school of cinematography. Kuleshov tried many experiments in the arrangement of pieces of film in different orders, finding that he could obtain remarkable effects by the relation, inter-relation, and juxtaposition of the various lengths. He logically maintained that in every art there was, firstly, a material and, secondly, a method of composing that material according to its nature; further, he determined that in the cinema the material was the film strips of photographic record, and the composing was the act of editing or piecing those strips together. His famous experiment with the actor Mosjukhin and the plate of soup, the coffin, and the little girl is probably too well-known to be repeated. Some time later, Pudovkin, who at that time was working on scenarios, became interested in the experiments of Kuleshov, and in 1923 they formed together a production unit and made The Adventures of Mr. West Among the Bolsheviki. This was followed later by Pudovkin 's film, The Chess Player, in which Jose Capablanca was made to appear to play a part merely by the cutting and composition of film strips. Thus it is from the original experiments of Kuleshov and Pudovkin that the modern school of advanced editing and cutting has developed. It is of interest to note that Pudovkin suggests as a probable reason for the progress of editing among the Soviet cineastes, that in the early days there was a shortage of film stock, and that whilst they were unable to find fresh film for their cameras, the Soviet technicians had ample time to evolve cinematic theories. Not only this, but
i55