Kuleshov on Film: Writings by Lev Kuleshov PDF
Preview Kuleshov on Film: Writings by Lev Kuleshov
KULESHOV ON FILM WRITINGS BY LEV KULESHOV Selected, translated and edited, with an introduction by RONALD LEVACO Film Department San Francisco State University UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY • LOS ANGELES • LONDON KULESHOV ON FILM WRITINGS BY LEV KULESHOV Selected, translated and edited, with an introduction by RONALD LEVACO Film Department San Francisco State University UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY • LOS ANGELES • LONDON FOR ROZLYN University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Copyright © 1974, by The Regents of the University of California ISBN 0-520-02659-4 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-90666 Printed in the United States of America FOR ROZLYN University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Copyright © 1974, by The Regents of the University of California ISBN 0-520-02659-4 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-90666 Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION 1 ART OF THE CINEMA 41 SELECTED ESSAYS 125 Americanitis 127 The Question of the Film Repertory 131 Handiwork 135 Will . . . Tenacity . .. Eye 137 Why I Am Not Working 141 David Griffith and Charlie Chaplin 144 The Rehearsal Method 146 Our First Experiences 159 Address to the Union of Soviet Film Workers 178 The Principles of Montage 183 In Maloi Gnezdnikovsky Lane 196 On the Red Front 208 BIBLIOGRAPHY of Works by Lev Kuleshov 211 IILMOGRAPHY of Films by Lev Kuleshov 216 INDEX 219 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE PRESENT WORK is literally the result of a gift. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a series of gifts. Every writer who shares his life with other people—even if he is a scholar—knows about such gifts and generosity. Over the several years this project has been part of my life, I have been incalculably indebted to many generous people. I am only able to accord my thanks to some of them and, limited by space, unable fully enough to express my deepest gratitude to each of them. In the beginning several people were crucial. My warmest thanks to Professor Peter Dart, University of Kansas, for turning over to me, his then graduate assistant, the single-copy photostats he had made of Lev Kuleshov's first book, so that, as he simply put it to me, "the thing could get done," while unflaggingly cheering me toward that end ever since. And, likewise, my special gratitude must go to Professor Steven Hill, University of Illinois, for his unhesitant bestowal on me of the most substantial Kuleshov materials and papers in his possession, which he had begun collating before I knew precisely why Kuleshov was significant. Subsequently, there was a time during which the affectionate, unwavering confidence in my capabilities and efforts of two extraordi nary teachers who became my friends, Professors John Fell, San Francisco State University, and Arthur Benavie, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, meant more to me than they know, because it ix exceeded my own confidence and because it showed me pleasure in my work. For my introduction to phenomenology, structuralism, and sem iology I have to thank especially Professor Thomas Pace, Southern Illinois University, and my then colleague and present friend, Professor Richard Lanigan, Chicago State University, with both of whom I sought to clarify the meaning and direction of my work. The unpretentious sharing of our work and their warmest comradeship became an indelible and compassionate example in pedagogical collectivism. Clearly, in terms of my particular tutorial in Soviet studies and the Soviet cinema, I must express my deepest gratitude to Professor H. P. J. Marshall, Director, Center for Soviet Studies in the Performing Arts, Southern Illinois University, under whose unique auspices and remarkable tutelage my research was unfettered, supported, and directed. Abroad, a number of research institutions and their representa tives assisted me in my research. Not the least of these are the Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants and the International Research and Exchanges Board, indispensable past and present organizations that award and administer grants to American scholars named to the U.S.A.-U.S.S.R. exchange. Additionally, I must extend my gratitude to Marie Merson, Cinematheque Francaise; Penelope Houston and Sam Rohdie, editors of Sight and Sound and Screen, respectively, at the British Film Institute; and in the Soviet Union, Isabella Epshtein at the Union of Soviet Cinematographers, Professor Ilya Vaisfeld, Lilya Mamantova, Yuri Slavich, and Professor Vladimir Utilov, all at VGIK, The All-Union State Institute of Cinematog raphy, Moscow—and, of course, most particularly, the inimitable Alexandra Sergeevna Khokhlova. I should also like to accord special thanks to Professor Jay Leyda and Mr. Ernest Callenbach, both of whom read the manuscript with patience and thoroughness and offered precise and clarifying criticism that turned my writing and translation in the direction of lucidity and INTRODUCTION / mi DISTINGUISHED and enduring fifty-year career of Lev Kuleshov virtually spans the history of the Russian and Soviet film. Landmark theoretician, director, professor at VGIK, Moscow's All-Union Insti- luic of Cinematography, the successes and failures of Kuleshov's life reflect the very ethos of the Soviet cinema. Yet, with few of his films ihowi) in the West, and his several books and scores of articles Untranslated into English until this work, Kuleshov remains for us a ihftdowy background figure, an early experimenter trapped some where in the first chapters of film history. 1 n fact, Kuleshov was the first aesthetic theorist of the cinema. In the introduction to his first book Art of the Cinema, published in 1929, a group of his disciples—among them Vsevolod Pudovkin—had wniien no less a tribute than: "We make films—Kuleshov made 1'inematography." Indeed, Kuleshov estimated that over half the Soviet directors since 1920 had been his pupils, including most BOtably Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Barnet, Kalotozov, and, more recently, I'arajanov. Thus, Kuleshov's influental, many-sided career invites ili wider attention and closer examination. When I arrived in Moscow in late March of 1970 to complete my research on Kuleshov, the city's streets still bore the traces of a hard and icy winter. Mild, spring-like weather was spreading northward
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