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| Photo not from Dziga Vertov. Pervoe Maia v Moskve, 1923. Демонстрация на Красной площади в Москве 1 Мая 1923 г. From: http://www.retromap.ru/show_pid.php?pid=15643 |
I did not see this show because it overlapped with the film concert of D. W. Griffith's Home, Sweet Home, but I copy the program notes here for the sake of completeness.
DZIGA VERTOV III
Grand piano: Stephen Horne
Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), 10 Oct 2004
Prog. 3 (78’)
PERVOE MAIA V MOSKVE / [IL 1° MAGGIO A MOSCA / THE 1ST OF MAY IN MOSCOW] (Proletkino, USSR 1923)
Person in charge of filming: Dziga Vertov; ph: Piotr Novitsky; 35 mm, 367 m., 18’ (18 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.
Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "If programs 1 and 2 covered Vertov’s work in 1918-1919 — the worst years of the civil war in Russia — then program 3 is a sampling of genres in which Vertov worked and the subjects he tackled in the first half of the 1920s, the years of peace and relative well-being triggered by NEP (the New Economic Policy, tolerant of small businesses and market-regulated agriculture).
On the surface, not many things shown in the films that Vertov was making after 1920 look strikingly different from what we have seen already. Does Moscow as filmed on the 1st of May in 1923 (now known as May Day, then as International Workers Day) look very different from the way it looked on the same day in 1918 — as we remember it from Kino-Week No. 1? The same flag-carrying crowds cross Red Square, a familiar globe symbolizing the unity of the workers drives by on a truck, and a military parade is reviewed by the perpetual (though not permanent) Leon Trotsky. An attentive eye, however, will notice the signs of the times: the absence of Lenin (who saw in his last May Day bedridden), or the presence of an anti-fascist banner."
"But the main news of the day, its main attraction, was airplanes — the subject that occupies the last third of the film. Not that there were many people in Russia in 1923 who had ever seen an airplane, but my guess is that most would have seen one only in the distant skies. Here the plane is close by, first sitting in Red Square, then showing how it can take off and land. 1923 was the take-off year for Soviet civil aviation. Airplanes were in. Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote poems about "flying proletarians", and Aleksandr Rodchenko was busy designing covers for books about aviation and logos for Dobrolet (the volunteer association for the support of Soviet aviation). And judging from the movies he made this year Dziga Vertov too was not immune to this craze." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)
DAESH VOZDUKH / [EVVIVA L’ARIA / YOU GIVE US THE AIR!] (Goskino, USSR 1923) [Secondo e terzo numero speciale / Special Issues 2 & 3]
Numero speciale 2 / Special Issue 2: Leader: Dziga Vertov; ph: Mikhail Kaufman.
Numero speciale 3 / Special Issue 3: Leader: Dziga Vertov; ph: Ivan Beliakov; intertitles & diagrams produced by: Ivan Beliakov.
35 mm, 2 rulli / reels (2a & 3), 560 m., 29’ (18 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.
Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "The film Daesh vozdukh! (You Give us the Air!) consists of three "special issues" dedicated to airplanes. The two included in this program are of interest not only to those who like to watch vintage aircraft in action, but also to us, the studentsof theatre and film. Issue 2 begins with the record of an avant-garde theatre performance which I fancy to be a Meyerhold production, but it will take a theatre historian to verify this. The performance takes place in a vast open-air countryside location, which may have served as an airport in 1923. Groups of spectators are seated freely on the grass, while the action evolves both in their midst and on a special elevation which serves as an open stage."
"The action: the story of the two revolutions of 1917 — the fall of the monarchy (February) and the fall of the bourgeois republic (October) — is presented in a grotesque key. The actor impersonating the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, is reading out the Act of Abdication. As he does so, he is shown squatting on a giant chamber-pot, on which is quoted the words "freedom of assembly, liberty of conscience, freedom of the press". It may be a coincidence, or the work of a copycat, but it is still worth mentioning that a similar (if not the same) scene — the tsar on a chamber-pot — is known to have been part of Vsevolod Meyerhold’s 1923 production Zemlya dybom (Earth Rampant). A procession representing the "bourgeoisie" and "officers" crosses the viewing space and enters the stage. Then we see "the people" attacking the stage, as its former owners (some on horseback) desperately try to retain control of it. Note the huge movable screens used to enhance the dynamic of the battle — a distinctive device of the Soviet Constructivist stage."
"The third special issue of You Give us the Air! (274 m.) starts with credits specifying which of the two kinoc brothers is responsible for what. Dziga Vertov is credited as the supervisor (rukovoditel) of the production, Mikhail Kaufman as the cinematographer and editor. I know the Giornate audience needs no guidance in appreciating editing and camerawork — the only thing I want to remind them of is that this is 1923, so Kaufman’s exercise in rhythmical montage and his clear, not to say geometrical, shot compositions comes one year before Kuleshov’s Mr. West and two years before Eisenstein’s Strike." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)
GOSKINOKALENDAR / [CINECALENDARIO DI STATO / STATE KINO-CALENDAR] (Goskino, USSR 1923)
Dir: Dziga Vertov; rel: 6.1923; 35 mm, 142 m., 7’ (18 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.
GOSKINOKALENDAR / [CINECALENDARIO DI STATO / STATE KINO-CALENDAR] NO. 20 (Goskino, USSR 1924)
Dir: Dziga Vertov; 35 mm, 159 m., 8’ (18 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.
Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "Alongside thematic pictures, two periodical newsreels kept Vertov busy in the first half of the 1920s. One was his famous Kino-Pravda (1922-1925), the other, the somewhat more obscure Goskinokalendar [State Kino-Calendar], which appeared from April 1923 to May 1925. Kino-Pravda (which we are going to show in full) was the more ambitious of the two — it was cinematically experimental, had a political edge, and was made to be noticed and discussed. And discussed it was."
"State Kino-Calendar was more of a quickie. Its task (reflected in its subtitle, "Daily and Weekly Express Newsreel") was to respond to current events, not so much to interpret them. This task explains its title. Distinct from Kino-Pravda, so named to evoke Pravda, the central newspaper of the Communist Party, State Kino-Calendar was indeed an equivalent of a tear-off calendar — which, in turn, explains why Vertov used tear-off calendar pages as the background for this newsreel’s intertitles. These are small-scale news items — which of course makes them no less interesting for the present-day viewer."
"We cannot afford to show all 57 issues of State Kino-Calendar (miraculously all survive, in relatively good shape), but a selection of four (two now, two later) will help to give us a general idea. For the most part, the events shown in Kino-Calendars are self-explanatory — except for two, which may appear baffling without historical comment. The first issue (June 1923) begins with this title: "Goskino assumes patronage over the Fire-Explosion School (Shkola Ogne-Vzryva)." This phrase, and the rite shown after it, are less arcane than they may seem. Patronage (shefstvo) was a system which required large, well-to-do organizations (in this case, the State movie enterprise Goskino) to serve as a "patron" — sponsor, supporter — of a poor one (in this case, the "Fire-Explosion School" — the sapper school of the Red Army Academy). Patronages (which were mandatory, and assigned from above) were showcased as noble acts of Socialist solidarity — hence, the pompous ceremony, and the fact that Goskino included it in its State Kino-Calendar."
"Later into the film, the viewer is faced with another puzzling title: "Moscow. Red pussy willow. Sunday, 1 April 1923 (19 March, Old Style)." There is nothing arcane about this phrase, either. Pussy-Willow Sunday (Verbnoe voskresenie) in Russia is the same as Palm Sunday in the West (there are lots of pussy-willows and almost no palms in Russia). "Red pussy willow" stands for the Communist, atheist Palm Sunday. What it means is that on that Sunday, instead of going to church to hear the liturgy celebrating Christ’s entrance to Jerusalem, Soviet people are offered a range of secular alternatives. It so happened that in 1923 Pussy-Willow Sunday fell on April 1st, April Fools’ Day according to the Western-style calendar. Hence comic dances and buffoonery presented, of all places, at GUM — the huge department store in the center of Moscow." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)
[KINO-PRAVDA (AUSSCHNITTE)] / [CINEVERITÀ (ESTRATTI) / KINO-PRAVDA (EXCERPTS)] (MoMA compilation, 1930s; orig. material Goskino, USSR 1922)
35 mm, 342 m., 16’ (18 fps), Österreichisches Filmmuseum.
Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "The last film in this program can be seen as a trailer, of sorts, for the next one. At the Austrian Film Museum, the source of this print, it is catalogued as Kino-Pravda (Ausschnitte) [Kino-Pravda (Excerpts)] — because it consists of selected subjects from the first 9 issues of Kino-Pravda, pieced together by English titles laid out in the manner of Russian Constructivist titling. This one-reel anthology was edited together for the Museum of Modern Art Film Library in the 1930s, so in a sense it is part of film history itself. According to Jay Leyda’s Kino (1983 edition, p. 161), the Kino-Pravda circulated by the Museum of Modern Art Film Library was a synthesis made from several issues of 1922 found in a New York collection: 1 (June 5), 2 (June 12), 4 (July 1), 4 (July 7), 6 (July 14), 7 (July 25), plus some August items." – YURI TSIVIAN
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