PROCESS: PROBLEM AND REFLECTIONS

War: two premiers. First impressions

Alexander TROSHIN. To fire and to film is a one word in English — to shoot.

Irina SHILOVA. War as an adventure model.

Nina TSYRKUN. Talent’s sister and her brother.

Svetlana ISHEVSKAYA. A computer game principle.

Alexander DERIABIN. Insomnia.

Tamara SERGEEVA. Being in their own fate’s spell. To the director’s portreit.

What place does War take in Balabanov’s creation? Is the main character Ivan a mouthpiece of national idea that is being searched in modern Russia or he isn’t? Is war a total metaphor of Russian life? The film proves anyway that Balabanov is one of the few directors who can skillful and adequate represent life of the country.

Alexander TROSHIN. «Stars» coordinations.

Nina DYMSHITS. The human cinema.

Irina SHILOVA. Return to simpleness.

Nikolai Lebedev’s Star is a new screen-adaption after novel of the same name by Emannuil Kazakevich. Authors reflect on what place it takes in modern Russian movie process and how it corresponds to Lebedev’s search of genre.

A p p e n d i x.

Alexander IVANOV. On the screen and behind the screen. Memoirs.

In 1949 the novel «Star» was screen-adaptioned for a first time by Alexander Ivanov. But the film was censored very much and distributed only four years later. The director tells about it in detail in his memoirs which have never been published before.

IN THE SPACE OF CULTURE

Nikolai KHRENOV. Film history as a history of mass reception: epoch of primitives.

In XX century popular print poetics determined a development of art process in many ways (especially development of its mass form such as cinema). The article reports what way popular print poetics assimilated to cinema and how with help of popular print early cinema turned out to be in center of art develop-ment and what mass public reception was.

BORIS BARNET—100

«You’ve been given with such a force…»—Discussion about U samogo sinego morya on April, 1, 1936 in House of cinema.

«Here Barnet has something in common with surrealism!» — Shorthand record of a session of the theory and critique section in House of cinema on May, 28, 1945. The item of discussion — Barnet’s picture Odnazhdy nochiu.

Milena MUSINA. Fear and lauth. About Boris Barnet’s picture Odnazhdy nochiu.

Valentina KOZINTSEVA. About a fine man.

A p p e n d i x.

Boris Barnet’s death note.

It is considered that contemporaries underestimated Barnet’s creation. But judging by shorthand records of discussion about his films they did understood the meaning of such director presence in Soviet cinema and they declared their love to his cinematography publicly. Milena Musina analyses his forgotten masterpiece Odnazhdy nochiu (the first—and the best—Soviet thriller ) in detail revealing a lot of personal motives.

Memoirs of Valentina Kozintseva add to inimitable portrait of Boris Barnet as a man.

CINEMA MUSEUM

Marina KARASIEVA. Cursed screenplay. Alexander Medvedkin’s unrealized conception.

Alexander MEDVEDKIN. Cursed power. Russian folk fairytale.

A p p e n d i x.

– Scenes from other screnplay versions.

– Shorthand record of a discussion about Medvedkin’s screenplay, 7/XI–35.

«Cursed power» is the most huge conception by Alexander Medvedkin. The director had been rewriting the script during fifty years all the time hoping to produce a film. The reasons why the film never had been shot were different, but «Cursed power» remains the most  valuable testimony of Medvedkin’s thoughts and reflections in different periods of his life. Screenplay become a real legend for film historian is published for the first time. It also supplied with one of shorthand records of its discussion.

DOCUMENTS AND COMMENTARIES

Yuri SAAKOV. «To come to grief…», or What spectator hadn’t seen at the cinema hall «Khudozhestvenny» on October, 8, 1940.

Elena DOLGOPYAT. «There are double people in Soviet statement». From the history of making film Vesna (on materials of Cinema museum).

Vladimir TIMIN. To bolshevistic adherence to principle in art.

A history of making the films by Gregory Aleksandrov has been studied less as it seems. A publication of some materials testifies to that fact: a fragment of shooting script Svetly putt (a lot of scenes were excepted from the comedy), documents about difficult production period of Vesna (a script was altered for a few times and a film releasing was provided with a lot of censorial corrections). Also the publication includes a kind of unique letter-review by spectator Timin who annihilated Aleksandrov’s Vesyolye rebyata in the best traditions of political trials of the 30es.

EXPERIENCE

Maya TUROVSKAYA. Films and people.

Alas, people and human behavior under totalitarian pressure is still actual item for us. What kind of role were the role of “person”, human factor, author’s self-will in Soviet movie of Stalin epoch? Well-known film historian shows on example of Ivan Pyriev’s Partiyny bilet (1936) how complicated the factors were, which had influenced to creation of the most “odious” works of art.

EISENSTEIN’S READINGS

«Mеier is actor… I am engineer …» Eisenstein’s notes about Меierkhold. 1924–1935.

For a first time Eisenstein’s articles and diary notes of 1920es-30es, which were devoted to his relations to his teachers and colleagues Vsevolod Meierkhold, Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshov, has been gathered together.

ANDREY TARKOVSKY—70

Chris MARKER. Seven seals.

French film-maker reflected on fate and creation of Andrey Tarkovsky, its leit-motives and leit-images in essay picture One day with Andrey Arsenievich (2000) and then he wrote an article about it in French magazine “Pozitif”.

Julia MIKHEEVA. Silence. Pause. Quietness. Light (Apothetic of sound in Tarkovsky’s Zercalo).

The article tells about rhythm, sound and music in the picture.

CINEMA: LIFE AND ADVENTURE

The breath of the will. Michael Tsekhanovsky’s diaries.

A p p e n d i x.

– Michael TSEKHANOVSKY. Fairytale about priest and his hired man Balda. Movie popular print.

– Letters to M.M.Tsekhanovsky from D.D.Shostakovich.

A completion of publication (outset see in KZ № 54, 55). In this part of his diaries Michael Tsekhanovsky described a process of work on film after the Pushkin’s fairytale of the same name Balda. But government’s resolution about Shostakovich’s opera «Lady Macbeth» (he was a composer of film) and repressions against studio management (art supervisor of Lenfilm studio Adrian Piotrovsky supported Tsekhanovsky project) bothered to finish the film.

Nevertheless, the only survivor reel «Market» and screenplay published allow to state that Balda is one of the masterpieces in history of animation.

THEME FOR EXPLORATION

Natalia BALANDINA. A poetical space of Mikhail Kalik.

Creative portreit of the director has been written under the influence of talks to Mikhail Kalik.

Ada BERNATONITE. Mystification of marquise de Pasolini’s sin.

Author analyses Pasolini’s Salo o le 120 giornate di Sodoma as a normal sum up of director’s creative and life way.

CHRONICLE. INFORMATION

«Kino about cinema». Richard Taylor’s publishing project.

For foreign film studies a releasing of book series «Kino» by London publishing house «I.B.Tauris» is the most significant publishing undertaking devoted to Soviet and Russian cinema (more than twenty books have been published for last years). Known English film historian and curator of the book series Richard Taylor tells about its conception and its perspectives.