Dziga Vertov I: Kino-Nedelya 1–32, GCM Sacile 2004, narrated by Yuri Tsivian

DZIGA VERTOV I
Moderator, live translator, narrator and explicador: Yuri Tsivian
Grand piano: John Sweeney
Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), 10 Oct 2004

Prog. 1 (ca 82’)

VERTOV PRIVATAUFNAME / [VERTOV FILMED IN PERSON] (USSR, 1922, 1923, + post-1930)
ed: Elizaveta Svilova; 35mm, 21 m., 55" (20 fps), Österreichisches Filmmuseum.
Senza didascalie / No intertitles.
This appears to be Elizaveta Svilova’s latter-day compilation of outtakes and cut-outs from films in which Vertov appears. Kino-Pravda issues 8 and 17 can be identified as two of the sources. – YURI TSIVIAN

[VERTOV INTERVIEWS] (USSR, post-1935)
ed: Elizaveta Svilova; 35mm, 15 m., 39" (20 fps), Österreichisches Filmmuseum / Austrian Film Museum.
Didascalia in francese / One intertitle, in French.
Possibly another later compilation by Elizaveta Svilova of documentary shots featuring Vertov. The shots in which Vertov is being interviewed by Sojin Kamiyamo (Japan) may have been taken at the Moscow Film Festival in 1935. – YURI TSIVIAN

KINO-NEDELIA / [CINE-SETTIMANA / KINO-WEEK] NO. 1, 3, 4, 5, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (Russia, 1918), NO. 31, 32 (Russia, 1919)
Prod: The Moscow Film Committee [Kinokomitet] of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment [Narodnyi Komissariat Prosveshcheniia, Narkompros]; 35 mm, totale: 1820 m, ca 80’ (20 fps), Österreichisches Filmmuseum, eccetto / except No. 20, RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles, except No. 32: Didascalie in norvegese / Norwegian intertitles.

Kullervo Manner, Chairman of the Finnish People's Delegation in January – April 1918, Speaker of the Finnish Parliament in 1917, seeks asylum in Russia from the white terror in Finland. — Kinonedelja No. 1. 20.5.1918. Video Duration: 7 min 55 sec. 1. The Moscow Union of Metal Workers celebrates the centenary of Karl Marx's birth. / A speech by the Soviet Peoples’ Commissar, Comrade Lenin. / Lev Trockij, the Peoples’ Commissar for Military Affairs, reviews the parade. 2. Orša: Refugees return to a province formerly occupied by the Germans. / Refugees at the demarcation line. / Lined up to receive passes. / In Orša, the border between the Russian and German-occupied areas runs through the railway station. / Negotiations between the Russian and German forces. / Due to the shortage of train cars, refugees must wait for weeks to be sent home. 3. Moscow, May 9: The case of P. E. Dybenko comes before the revolutionary tribunal. / The tribunal. / Tribunal chairman Berman. / Comrades Štejnberg and Egorov, counsels for the defense. / The prosecutor, Comrade Krylenko. / The former Peoples’ Commissar Pavel Dybenko, the accused. / Dybenko at Narva. 4. Kursk: Comrade Podvojskij, the Peoples’ Commissar for Military Affairs, at a Red Army parade. 5. Petrograd: The Chairman of the Finnish People's Delegation, Manner, who fled to Russia. 6. Moscow: People strolling in the Virgin-Field (Devič'e pole). / A toy stall. — My screenshots and added opening remarks about Kullervo Manner. — The film and the protocol: Österreichisches Filmmuseum / Collection Dziga Vertov.

KINO-NEDELIA — 1 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 1] 156 m., 6’48"
    AA: Kullervo Manner rescued from the White Terror in Finland. Print good.

KINO-NEDELIA — 3 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 3] 174 m., 7’36"
    AA: Print ok.

KINO-NEDELIA — 4 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 4] 101 m., 4’24"
    AA: 25 June 1918. Council, Helsinki, Ruzhek.

KINO-NEDELIA — 5 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 5] 113 m., 4’56"
    AA: 2 July 1918.

KINO-NEDELIA — 20 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 20] 209 m., 9’08"
    AA: October 1918. NO.

KINO-NEDELIA — 21 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 21] 151 m., 6’35"
    AA: 22 Oct 1918. Cavalry attack.

KINO-NEDELIA — 22 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 22] 190 m., 8’17"
    AA: 29 Oct 1918. Lenin. Good.

KINO-NEDELIA — 23 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 23] 121 m., 5’17"
    AA: 5 Nov 1918.

KINO-NEDELIA — 24 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 24] 169 m., 7’24"
    AA: 19 Nov 1918. Kamenev, Sverdlov. Sevchenko, Robespierre.

KINO-NEDELIA — 25 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 25] 107 m., 4’40"
    AA: 26 Nov 1918. Yesenin, Koltsov, Niku...

KINO-NEDELIA — 31 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 31] 204 m., 8’54"
    AA: Zinovyev.

KINO-NEDELIA — 32 / [KINO-WEEK NO. 32] 125 m., 5’24"
    AA: Agit train. Beautiful snowscapes. Kotcheniko. Nuns.

Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "Kino-Week was a year-long week-by-week record of daily life at the time of the civil war, a war waged on a tangle of fronts. Internally, the Red Army (formed soon after the Socialist Revolution in October 1917) fought against the White Army, loyal to the old Russia of the Tsars. That was the "civil" part of the civil war. The other part was World War I, which Russia entered in 1914 on the side of the Entente, and from which it was now trying to extricate itself. German and Austrian troops advanced in the west, the Turks in the south. But no sooner had Russia’s new government reached a peace with Russia’s old enemies than its former allies marched in. American troops, aided by the Japanese, landed in Siberia, while the French and British landed in the south. Famine led the Bolshevists to the policy of forced product requisitions, which led to peasant mutinies, which encouraged non-Bolshevist revolutionary parties to rise against the party in power. In response, the Soviet Government announced the "Red Terror" policy. The war ended in 1920. All sides paid a high price in blood."

"The entire run of Kino-Week covers the period from May 1918 through June 1919. A total of 43 issues of the film journal were released. It was initially released by Mikhail Koltsov, then by N.P. Tikhonov, E. M. Shneider, and others. Vertov was the author of the text and the director of several issues. Apparently he began making Kino-Week in the second half, or even at the end, of 1918. But even in the Kino-Week issues made under Vertov’s supervision we will not find much that anticipates his later experiments in film form, of the kind found in his Kino-Pravda, the experimental newsreel launched in 1922."

"But even if Kino-Week is not very unusual as a piece of filmmaking, the time it documents makes this newsreel unusual enough. Its first issue (20 May 1918) informs the viewer of the following events: 20 days ago, for the first time in history, the First of May was officially celebrated — we see Lenin and People’s Commissar for Military Affairs Leon Trotsky reviewing the Red Army parade in Red Square. 100 years ago — on 5 May 1818 — Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany, and a bizarre vehicle called the Anniversary Chariot, constructed for the occasion by the Moscow Union of Metal Workers, circles the streets of Moscow, complete with a tableau vivant staged aboard a truck-driven globe! The celebrated Revolutionary hero, sailor-turned-Peoples’-Commissar-for-the-Navy Pavel Dybenko, appears before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 9 May, charged with having lost the Battle of Narva to the Germans earlier in February (he will be acquitted, but is expelled from the Communist Party all the same). It’s May: The Russians and Germans are already talking, and mutual refugees are being returned. A festive crowd enjoys the Moscow spring. Do not miss the close-up of a handsome homemade mechanical toy which a boy toy-vendor demonstrates to prospective buyers."

"Such, in a nutshell, are the current events depicted in Kino-Week No. 1. Other issues are more or less like the first: a mix of war and peace ("Townspeople planting potatoes" or "A tobacco line in Petrov street"); a living gallery of obscure and all-too-familiar historical figures ("Moscow. Lenin is recovering from wounds"); an occasional scenic picture ("Peter and Paul Fortress during the White Nights"); a record of bizarre anniversaries and endless unveilings of countless short-lived monuments to the new pantheon of heroes: Danton, Robespierre, Radishchev, Bakunin ("Across from the monument to Koltsov stands the monument to Nikitin," pedantically specifies one intertitle from Kino-Week No. 25). Short-lived, because all these 1918 statues (commissioned by the Government in keeping with Lenin’s "Plan for Monumental Propaganda") were quickies made of non-durable materials (plaster and the like). A curious case in the history of monumental art: an entire generation of monuments survives thanks to the fragile medium of film." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)

AA:  This fantastic collection from the year of the revolutionary warfare made special sense thanks to the live commentary by Yuri Tsivian.