Dziga Vertov VIII: Kino-Pravda No. 20–23, GCM Sacile 2004, narrated by Yuri Tsivian

Kino-Pravda No. 20. End of 1924. 15 min 56 sec. Reports of the Pioneers: Excursion to the country, to the zoo etc. Photo and caption: Österreichisches Filmmuseum. Kino-Pravda Online Edition.

DZIGA VERTOV VIII
Moderator, live translator, narrator and explicador: Yuri Tsivian
Grand piano: Tama Karena
Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), 12 Oct 2004

Prog. 8 (77’)

KINO-PRAVDA NO. 20 (PIONERSKAIA PRAVDA) / [(KINO-PRAVDA DEI PIONIERI) / (PIONEER PRAVDA)] (Goskino, USSR 1924)
A work by Dziga Vertov; ph: Mikhail Kaufman; rel: 12.12.1924; 35 mm, 326 m., 14’
(20 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.

Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "Made from footage left over from Kino-Eye and released after it, Kino-Pravda No. 20 should be seen as its mini sequel, a Kino-Eye II, as it were, but compared to Kino-Eye this Kino-Pravda is less ideologically charged, more relaxed, pleasantly trifling. We run into familiar Young Pioneer characters like "Little Smoked Sprat" and "The Gypsy Kid" — captured fondling the youngest of the Pioneers, a four-(or-something)-year-old toddler (thus, a 100% New Person — for he or she was born after October 1917!). Our darling elephant is back too, now in his artificial habitat, the zoo, showing the things he can do with his trunk. If you recall the heavy political load of the term smychka — alliance — explained in the note for Program 6, you will appreciate the humor of the sequence introduced by the title "Smychka s zvermi" — alliance with animals — in which our Young Pioneers, enthralled, if a little tense, are shown hugging a wolf, and being hugged by snakes. There is also an unexpected pun ascribed to a bearded peasant who tells our Young Pioneers how to work. "The one who works is Lenin, the one who does not is lazy," he says, and everyone laughs, for the Russian for "laziness" is len."

"In terms of film style, the most remarkable sequence in Kino-Pravda No. 20 is the railway journey sequence, whose rapid editing and rushing landscapes look almost like a tribute to Abel Gance’s La Roue (that Vertov condemned fiction films does not mean he did not learn from them). Don’t be nonplussed by the fact that the film comes "in five dispatches": the allusion is to mock-military dispatches ostensibly sent by the Pioneer unit to their old friend and comrade, the Kino-Eye." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)

AA: Duration of the screening 15'57".

Kino-Pravda No. 21. January 21, 1925. 32 min 28 sec. First anniversary of Lenin's death: 1. Assassination attempt on Lenin and Soviet Russia's progress under his leadership / 2. Lenin's illness, death and funeral / 3. The year after Lenin's death. Photo and caption: Österreichisches Filmmuseum. Kino-Pravda Online Edition.

KINO-PRAVDA NO. 21. LENINSKAIA KINO-PRAVDA. KINOPOEMA O LENINE / [KINO-PRAVDA SU LENIN. POEMA CINEMATOGRAFICO SU LENIN) / (LENIN KINO-PRAVDA. A FILM POEM ABOUT LENIN.)] (Kultkino, USSR 1925)
A work by Dziga Vertov; ph: Grigorii Giber, A. Aleksandr Levistky, Aleksandr Lember, Piotr Novitsky, Mikhail Kaufman, Eduard Tisse, et al.; rel: 22.1.1925; 35 mm, 664 m., 29’ (20 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.

Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "Lenin Kino-Pravda is a special, longer-than-usual issue of Kino-Pravda made to mark the first anniversary of Lenin’s death. It consists of 3 parts, announced laconically by I, II, III, and of smaller sections marked by no-less laconic references to years. The one-two-three structure relates the film’s narrative to the famous Hegelian (now also Marxist) dialectical triad. Part I begins with Lenin being wounded by an S.R. assassin (1918); goes on from there to "1919" — the year when the Red Terror policy was declared by the Bolshevik government in response; the "1920", "1921", and "1923" sections are organized around shots of Lenin speaking, intercut with quotations from his speeches and documentary shots which illustrate Soviet Russia’s progress under Lenin’s leadership. This is the thesis. Part II is the antithesis, about the decline in Lenin’s health. We see the title "1922-1923", and then the words: "The iron leader is ill." The course of his illness is represented in what can be seen as a tour de force, Vertov and Rodchenko’s animated titling: we see a table of sorts, with a calendar for dates, a clock for counting the hours, a graph showing the temperature, and two pulsating lines representing Lenin’s pulse and breath rate. The bottom-line inscription says "General state satisfactory", but note how this word — "satisfactory" — is being split by an ominous slit. Then follows the funeral sequence, famous for its antiphony of images and titles; then, the no-less famous progression of mourners: wife, sister, Stalin, etc. — and then, 200,000 — 400,000 — 700,000. Note the way in which the size of the font grows with the size of the figures; note also the size of the font for "Stalin". Remember the all-Union funeral from the 1922 Kino-Pravda No. 13? Vertov already knew how to transform funerary footage into an affecting film."

"Part III was designed to serve as the synthesis of I and II. It looks at the year that has elapsed since Lenin’s death. "Lenin is gone, but his strength is with us," says the title. The most remarkable thing about this part (and, for me, about this film) is the boldness and ease with which Vertov jumps between newsreel and drawn animation. An animated caricature lasting 30 meters shows the face of a Capitalist changing from gloating to despair — as he sees more and more people, crowds of them, join the Communist Party after Lenin’s death (there was a recruitment campaign, exhorting people to join). Note how the animated stream of workers willing to join the Party turns into a photographed one. Peasants are not forgotten, either: we are shown how a worker and a peasant shake hands, then there is a close-up of their handshake with the word "smychka" superimposed on it." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)

AA: Duration of the screening: 31'58". Multiple framelines.

Kino-Pravda No. 22. March 13, 1925. 19 min 24 sec. First anniversary of Lenin's death / Smychka - the "alliance" of the city and the village: a group of peasants on their visit to Moscow / Lenin's effect on peasants and oppressed nations. Photo and caption: Österreichisches Filmmuseum. Kino-Pravda Online Edition.

KINO-PRAVDA 22 (KRESTIANSKAIA KINO-PRAVDA. V SERDTSE KRESTIANINA LENIN ZHIV. KINORASSKAZ) / [KINO-PRAVDA NO. 22 (PEASANT KINO-PRAVDA. "LENIN IS ALIVE IN THE HEART OF THE PEASANT. A FILM STORY.") (Kultkino, USSR 1925)
Dir: Dziga Vertov; ph: Mikhail Kaufman, Aleksandr Lemberg, Ivan Beliakov; rel: 13.3.1925; 35 mm, 397 m., 17’ (20 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.

Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "Issue 22, entitled "Peasant Kino-Pravda", is all about smychka, the much-desired political alliance between workers and peasants, between the city and the countryside, which Soviet leaders believed Socialist Russia would thrive on. According to Marxism, the peasant class is progressive but backward; it needs the guidance of the worker class to hit the mark. In keeping with this view, Russian peasants were stereotyped as good-hearted, crafty, but slow-thinking bearded men, who required a special approach and extra agit-prop effort in order to be fully converted. This issue of Kino-Pravda (a politically commissioned film, I am sure) was part of this extra effort. Its first subtitle — Peasant Kino-Pravda — means "pravda [truth] made for the peasants"; the second one — Lenin Is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant — sums up its simple message; and the third one, A Film Story (in contrast to Vertov’s usual "film experiment"), signals that this issue (distinct from the previous one) will not be testing new grounds in film form. And it does not. A group of peasants visit Moscow, talk to workers, file through Lenin’s mausoleum, are shown the Kremlin, and visit the Museum of Revolution. The second half of the film is less didactic, however, and should be seen as Vertov’s rough draft for his 1934 Three Songs about Lenin: in it, the oppressed nations (found-footage of Asia and Africa is used) pay tribute to Lenin (via direct-speech intertitles, in which Vertov puts words in their mouths)." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)

AA: Duration of the screening: 19'35". Kettle / straw-hut in Finland, Lenin museum. A direct guideline for live music for the screening, not followed.

Kino-Pravda No. 23. 1925. 20 min 03 sec. A peasant buys a receiver at the radio shop / Instructions to attach an antenna / Developing a broadcast station / The broadcasting of a concert. Photo and caption: Österreichisches Filmmuseum. Kino-Pravda Online Edition.

KINO-PRAVDA 23 (RADIO PRAVDA) (Kultkino, USSR 1925)
Dir: Dziga Vertov; ph: Mikhail Kaufman, Ivan Beliakov; anim. des: Aleksandr Bushkin; rel: 3.1925; 35 mm, 406 m., 17’ (20 fps), RGAKFD.
Didascalie in russo / Russian intertitles.

Yuri Tsivian (GCM): "Less than a third survives of this, the 23rd issue of Kino-Pravda — originally 1400 metres long — which, as it happened, turned out to be the last. As its subtitle indicates, it is about that exciting new medium, radio, and its propaganda potential, particularly important for Russia’s vast countryside. The beginning is missing in the available footage, but a title list survives, from which we can judge that this was a classic smychka gambit. The film begins in a city, at a working-class site. A title sets the scene: "A meeting of commissars outside a factory". The following series of intertitles convey what the politically educated workers’ commissars think of peasants, and how they decide to act: "Luring peasants into a reading room is very difficult, to say nothing of women, who are unable to leave their chores," one says. "Installing radio receivers would add life to the situation," adds another. There follows a title, "In the radio shop," and a dialogue ensues between a shop assistant and a peasant who has come to buy a radio receiver: "Will we be able to hear anything in our village, 60 versts away?" "Not only 60 versts but 600 versts." It is here that the surviving part of the film begins — the peasant buys the radio, but there is no antenna in his village. How to get one? The film becomes instructional: go to the woods, chop down a tall tree, make a mast, raise it (via time-lapse animation), and so on. Watch out for Aleksandr Bushkin’s brilliantly animated scene, in which a cross-section of a photographically correct izba [Russian peasant’s log hut] is penetrated by schematically charted radio waves."

"It seems almost symbolic that the last issue of Kino-Pravda is called Radio Pravda — as if Vertov wanted to pass on the baton to the younger medium — even though we know it was not upon Vertov’s initiative that the series was terminated. As for this retrospective, we are not done with Kino-Pravda yet — two more issues will be screened in Program 11." – YURI TSIVIAN (GCM)

AA: Duration of the screening: 8'03" + 14'40". An unassembled workprint. Beautiful imagery. Screened too fast. Shots out of sequence. A sense of urgency. Animation: how a radio antenna is erected. Technical animation: how the radio works. How the telephone works. Radio telegraph. Telephone exchange. Converters.