The Parvo was a 35mm motion picture camera developed in France by André Debrie . The patent was registered in 1908 by his father, Joseph Dules Debrie . The camera was relatively compact for its time. It was hand-cranked, as were its predecessors. To aid the camera operator in cranking at the correct speed, the camera had a built in tachometer .
110-475: The Parvo held up to 120 metres (390 ft) of film inside without the need for an external film magazine, yielding almost 6 minutes of film when cranked at the standard 16 frames per second silent film rate. It allowed the camera operator to focus the camera lens but – as all other cine cameras of its era – had a side optical viewfinder to be used during actual filming. The Parvo was immensely popular in Europe during
220-586: A sealed train carriage through their territory. According to Deutsche Welle : On November 7, 1917, a coup d'état went down in history as the October Revolution. The interim government was toppled, the Soviets seized power, and Russia later terminated the Triple Entente military alliance with France and Britain. For Russia, it was effectively the end of the war. Kaiser Wilhelm II had spent around half
330-423: A "corrupting influence" on the proletarian sensibility ("On 'Kinopravda' ", 1924). By this time Vertov had been using his newsreel series as a pedestal to vilify dramatic fiction for several years; he continued his criticisms even after the warm reception of Sergei Eisenstein 's Battleship Potemkin (1925). Potemkin was a heavily fictionalized film telling the story of a mutiny on a battleship which came about as
440-621: A Bolshevik appeal, Moscow's working class began a protest strike of 400,000 workers. They were supported by strikes and protest rallies by workers in Kyiv , Kharkiv , Nizhny Novgorod , Ekaterinburg , and other cities. In what became known as the Kornilov affair, General Lavr Kornilov , who had been Commander-in-Chief since 18 July, with Kerensky's agreement directed an army under Aleksandr Krymov to march toward Petrograd to restore order. According to some accounts, Kerensky appeared to become frightened by
550-447: A Movie Camera . [1] This film technology article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov ( Russian : Дзига Вертов , born David Abelevich Kaufman , Russian : Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман , and also known as Denis Kaufman ; 2 January 1896 [ O.S. 21 December 1895] – 12 February 1954) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as
660-549: A billion euros ($ 582 million) in today's money to weaken his wartime enemy. Upon his arrival Lenin gave his April Theses that called on the Bolsheviks to take over the Provisional Government, usurp power, and end the war. Throughout June, July, and August 1917, it was common to hear working-class Russians speak about their lack of confidence in the Provisional Government. Factory workers around Russia felt unhappy with
770-519: A cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary movie-making and the Dziga Vertov Group , a radical film-making cooperative which was active from 1968 to 1972. He was a member of the Kinoks collective, with Elizaveta Svilova and Mikhail Kaufman . In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, critics voted Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
880-514: A creative tool through which the film-viewing masses could be subjected to "emotional and psychological influence" and therefore able to perceive "the ideological aspect" of the films they were watching, Vertov believed the Cine-Eye would influence the actual evolution of man, "from a bumbling citizen through the poetry of the machine to the perfect electric man". Vertov surrounded himself with others who were also firm believers in his ideas. These were
990-522: A curiosity about the mechanical basis of cinema . His statement "We: Variant of a Manifesto" was published in the first issue of Kino-Fot , published by Aleksei Gan in 1922. It commenced with a distinction between "kinoks" and other approaches to the emergent cinematic industry: In 1922, the year that Nanook of the North was released, Vertov started the Kino-Pravda series. The series took its title from
1100-529: A diplomatic note of 1 May, the minister of foreign affairs, Pavel Milyukov , expressed the Provisional Government's desire to continue the war against the Central Powers "to a victorious conclusion", arousing broad indignation. On 1–4 May, about 100,000 workers and soldiers of Petrograd, and, after them, the workers and soldiers of other cities, led by the Bolsheviks, demonstrated under banners reading "Down with
1210-454: A flawed creature into a higher, more precise form. He compared man unfavorably to machines: "In the face of the machine we are ashamed of man's inability to control himself, but what are we to do if we find the unerring ways of electricity more exciting than the disorderly haste of active people [...]" As he put it in a 1923 credo, "I am the Cine-Eye. I am the mechanical eye. I the machine show you
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#17330845283821320-660: A government. Lenin confidently claimed that there is "not a shadow of hesitation in the masses of Petrograd, Moscow and the rest of Russia" in accepting Bolshevik rule. On 10 November 1917 (23 November, N.S.), the government applied the term "citizens of the Russian Republic" to Russians, whom they sought to make equal in all possible respects, by the nullification of all "legal designations of civil inequality, such as estates, titles, and ranks." The long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November (O.S., 25 November, N.S.) 1917. In contrast to their majority in
1430-460: A large group of artillery cadets abandoned the palace, taking their artillery with them. At 8:00 p.m., 200 cossacks left the palace and returned to their barracks. While the cabinet of the provisional government within the palace debated what action to take, the Bolsheviks issued an ultimatum to surrender. Workers and soldiers occupied the last of the telegraph stations, cutting off the cabinet's communications with loyal military forces outside
1540-610: A leader. Lenin allegedly approved of the name, reporting that it "smells of revolution". The cabinet quickly passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land . This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved. That same day, posters were pinned on walls and fences by the Socialist Revolutionaries, describing the takeover as a "crime against the motherland" and "revolution"; this signaled
1650-549: A peaceful demonstration in Petrograd, the so-called July Days . The Provisional Government, with the support of Socialist-Revolutionary Party - Menshevik leaders of the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets, ordered an armed attack against the demonstrators, killing hundreds. A period of repression followed. On 5–6 July, attacks were made on the editorial offices and printing presses of Pravda and on
1760-461: A period of three years; each issue lasted about twenty minutes and usually covered three topics. The stories were typically descriptive, not narrative, and included vignettes and exposés, showing for instance the renovation of a trolley system, the organization of farmers into communes, and the trial of Social Revolutionaries; one story shows starvation in the nascent Communist state. Propagandistic tendencies are also present, but with more subtlety, in
1870-503: A propaganda film, selling the Soviet as an advanced society under the NEP, instead of showing how they fit into the world economy. The Ukraine State Studio hired Vertov to create Man with a Movie Camera . Vertov says in his essay "The Man with a Movie Camera" that he was fighting "for a decisive cleaning up of film-language, for its complete separation from the language of theater and literature". By
1980-454: A range of historical documents such as private letters, telegrams, party speeches, meeting minutes , and suppressed texts such as Lenin's Testament . Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars when the Bolsheviks formed a new government, after the October Revolution in 1917, and suggested Trotsky for the position. However, Trotsky refused
2090-695: A result of the sailors' mistreatment; the film was an obvious but skillful propaganda piece glorifying the proletariat. Vertov lost his job at Sovkino in January 1927, possibly as a result of criticizing a film which effectively preaches the line of the Communist Party . He was fired for making A Sixth Part of the World: Advertising and the Soviet Universe for the State Trade Organization into
2200-555: A scene from Kino Pravda which should be quite familiar to viewers of Man with the Movie Camera : the peasant works, and so does the urban woman, and so too, the woman film editor selecting the negative... " With Lenin's admission of limited private enterprise through the New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921, Russia began receiving fiction films from afar, an occurrence that Vertov regarded with undeniable suspicion, calling drama
2310-520: A statement denouncing the government's actions. At 10 a.m., Bolshevik-aligned soldiers successfully retook the Rabochiy put printing house. Kerensky responded at approximately 3 p.m. that afternoon by ordering the raising of all but one of Petrograd's bridges, a tactic used by the government several months earlier during the July Days . What followed was a series of sporadic clashes over control of
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#17330845283822420-449: A symphony-like effect. Many Soviet critics did not receive the film positively, but critics abroad lauded its sonic experimentation. Three years later, Three Songs About Lenin (1934) looked at the revolution through the eyes of the Russian peasantry. For his film, Vertov had been hired by Mezhrabpomfilm . The film, finished in January 1934 for Lenin's obit, was only publicly released in
2530-495: A way to dissect the image, Mikhail Kaufman stated in an interview. It was to be the honest truth of perception. For example, in Man with a Movie Camera , two trains are shown almost melting into each other. Although we are taught to see trains as not riding that close, Vertov tried to portray the actual sight of two passing trains. Mikhail spoke about Eisenstein's films as being different from his and his brother's in that Eisenstein "came from
2640-497: Is known for many early writings, mainly while still in school, that focus on the individual versus the perceptive nature of the camera lens, which he was known to call his "second eye". Most of Vertov's early work was unpublished, and few manuscripts survived after the Second World War , though some material surfaced in later films and documentaries created by Vertov and his brothers, Boris Kaufman and Mikhail Kaufman . Vertov
2750-643: Is known for quotes on perception, and its ineffability, in relation to the nature of qualia (sensory experiences). After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, at the age of 22, Vertov began editing for Kino-Nedelya ( Кино-Неделя , the Moscow Cinema Committee's weekly film series, and the first newsreel series in Russia), which first came out in June 1918. While working for Kino-Nedelya he met his future wife,
2860-466: Is the segment about the trial of the Social Revolutionaries : the scenes of the selling of the newspapers on the streets and the people reading the papers in the trolley were both staged for the camera.) The cinematography is simple, functional, unelaborate—perhaps a result of Vertov's disinterest in both "beauty" and the "grandeur of fiction". Twenty-three issues of the series were produced over
2970-471: The July Days ). It declared Russia as a republic on 1 September (O.S.; 14 September, N.S.) 1917. Events came to a head in late 1917 as the Directorate , led by the left-wing Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs), controlled the government. The far-left Bolsheviks were deeply unhappy with the government, and began spreading calls for a military uprising. On 10 October 1917 (O.S.; 23 October, N.S.),
3080-637: The Palace of Kshesinskaya , where the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the Bolsheviks were located. On 7 July, the government ordered the arrest and trial of Vladimir Lenin , who was forced to go underground, as he had done under the Tsarist regime. Bolsheviks were arrested, workers were disarmed, and revolutionary military units in Petrograd were disbanded or sent to the war front. On 12 July,
3190-485: The Petrograd Soviet , led by Leon Trotsky , voted to back a military uprising. On 24 October (O.S.; 6 November, N.S.), the government shut down numerous newspapers and closed the city of Petrograd in an attempt to forestall the revolution; minor armed skirmishes broke out. The next day, a full-scale uprising erupted as a fleet of Bolshevik sailors entered the harbor and tens of thousands of soldiers rose up in support of
3300-673: The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , which began on this day. After the majority of the petrograd Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, [Trotsky] was elected its chairman and in that position organized and led the insurrection of October 25. Kerensky and the Provisional Government were virtually helpless to offer significant resistance. Railways and railway stations had been controlled by Soviet workers and soldiers for days, making rail travel to and from Petrograd impossible for Provisional Government officials. The Provisional Government
3410-591: The Situationist Guy Debord and independent companies such as Vertov Industries in Hawaii. The Dziga Vertov Group borrowed his name. In 1960, Jean Rouch used Vertov's filming theory when making Chronicle of a Summer . His partner Edgar Morin coined the term cinéma vérité when describing the style, using direct translation of Vertov's KinoPravda . The Free Cinema movement in the United Kingdom during
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3520-576: The Women's Battalion surrendered rather than resist the 40,000 strong attacking force. After sporadic gunfire throughout the building, the cabinet of the Provisional Government surrendered, and were imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress . The only member who was not arrested was Kerensky himself, who had already left the palace. With the Petrograd Soviet now in control of government, garrison, and proletariat,
3630-519: The "Women's Battalion" and photo stills taken from Sergei Eisenstein 's staged film depicting the "politically correct" version of the October events in Petrograd came to be taken as truth. Historical falsification of political events such as the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty became a distinctive element of Stalin's regime. A notable example is the 1938 publication, History of
3740-763: The 1950s, the Direct Cinema in North America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the Candid Eye series in Canada in the 1950s all essentially owed a debt to Vertov. This revival of Vertov's legacy included rehabilitation of his reputation in the Soviet Union, with retrospectives of his films, biographical works, and writings. In 1962, the first Soviet monograph on Vertov was published, followed by another collection, "Dziga Vertov: Articles, Diaries, Projects". In 1984, to recall
3850-469: The 30th anniversary of Vertov's death, three New York cultural organizations put on the first American retrospective of Vertov's work. New Media theorist Lev Manovich suggested Vertov as one of the early pioneers of database cinema genre in his essay Database as a symbolic form . Vertov's work has inspired notable artist and filmmaker William Kentridge . Some early Vertov's films were lost for many years. Only 12 minutes of his 1918 Anniversary of
3960-543: The Bolshevik party had risen from 24,000 members in February 1917 to 200,000 members by September 1917. The Bolsheviks created a revolutionary military committee within the Petrograd soviet, led by the Soviet's president, Leon Trotsky . The committee included armed workers, sailors, and soldiers, and assured the support or neutrality of the capital's garrison. The committee methodically planned to occupy strategic locations through
4070-444: The Bolsheviks gained control of Moscow after a week of bitter street-fighting. Artillery had been freely used, with an estimated 700 casualties. However, there was continued support for Kerensky in some of the provinces. After the fall of Moscow, there was only minor public anti-Bolshevik sentiment, such as the newspaper Novaya Zhizn , which criticized the Bolsheviks' lack of manpower and organization in running their party, let alone
4180-630: The Bolsheviks' Central Committee voted 10–2 for a resolution saying that "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe." At the Committee meeting, Lenin discussed how the people of Russia had waited long enough for "an armed uprising," and it was the Bolsheviks' time to take power. Lenin expressed his confidence in the success of the planned insurrection. His confidence stemmed from months of Bolshevik buildup of power and successful elections to different committees and councils in major cities such as Petrograd and Moscow. Membership of
4290-591: The Bolsheviks' popularity in the soviets grew significantly, both in the central and local areas. On 31 August, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies—and, on 5 September, the Moscow Soviet Workers Deputies—adopted the Bolshevik resolutions on the question of power. The Bolsheviks were able to take over in Briansk , Samara , Saratov , Tsaritsyn , Minsk , Kiev, Tashkent , and other cities. On 10 October 1917 (O.S.; 23 October, N.S.),
4400-718: The Bolsheviks. Bolshevik Red Guard forces under the Military-Revolutionary Committee began the occupation of government buildings. In the early morning of 26 October (O.S.; 8 November, N.S.), the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia) was captured. As the revolution was not universally recognized, the country descended into the Russian Civil War , which would last until late 1922 and ultimately lead to
4510-468: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) , in which the history of the governing party was significantly altered and revised including the importance of the leading figures during the Bolshevik revolution. Retrospectively, Lenin's primary associates such as Zinoviev, Trotsky, Radek and Bukharin were presented as "vacillating", "opportunists" and "foreign spies" whereas Stalin was depicted as
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4620-493: The Kino-Nedelia series, he "began to doubt the necessity of a literary connection between individual visual elements spliced together.... This work served as the point of departure for 'Kinopravda' ". Towards the end of the same essay, Vertov mentions an upcoming project which seems likely to be Man with a Movie Camera (1929), calling it an "experimental film" made without a scenario; just three paragraphs above, Vertov mentions
4730-516: The Kinoks, other Russian filmmakers who would assist him in his hopes of making "cine-eye" a success. Vertov believed film was too "romantic" and "theatricalised" due to the influence of literature, theater, and music, and that these psychological film-dramas "prevent man from being as precise as a stopwatch and hamper his desire for kinship with the machine". He desired to move away from "the pre-Revolutionary 'fictional' models" of filmmaking to one based on
4840-507: The Military-Revolutionary Committee designated the last of the locations to be assaulted or seized. The Red Guards systematically captured major government facilities, key communication installations, and vantage points with little opposition. The Petrograd Garrison and most of the city's military units joined the insurrection against the Provisional Government. The insurrection was timed and organized to hand state power to
4950-745: The Moscow and Petrograd workers, miners in the Donbas, metalworkers in the Urals, oil workers in Baku , textile workers in the Central Industrial Region , and railroad workers on 44 railway lines. In these months alone, more than a million workers took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution . Workers organized these strikes through factory committees . The factory committees represented
5060-543: The Movie Camera: for Vertov, "life as it is" means to record life as it would be without the camera present. "Life caught unawares" means to record life when surprised, and perhaps provoked, by the presence of a camera. This explanation contradicts the common assumption that for Vertov "life caught unawares" meant "life caught unaware of the camera". All of these shots might conform to Vertov's credo "caught unawares". His slow motion, fast motion, and other camera techniques were
5170-475: The October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties . The October Revolution followed and capitalized on the February Revolution earlier that year, which had led to the abdication of Nicholas II and the creation of a provisional government . The provisional government, led by Alexander Kerensky , had taken power after Grand Duke Michael ,
5280-455: The Provisional Government had not conceded defeat and were meeting with the army at the Front. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment continued to grow as posters and newspapers started criticizing the actions of the Bolsheviks and repudiated their authority. The executive committee of Peasants Soviets "[refuted] with indignation all participation of the organized peasantry in this criminal violation of the will of
5390-401: The Provisional Government published a law introducing the death penalty at the front. The second coalition government was formed on 24 July, chaired by Alexander Kerensky and consisted mostly of Socialists. Kerensky's government introduced a number of liberal rights, such as freedom of speech , equality before the law, and the right to form unions and arrange labor strikes . In response to
5500-548: The Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants. In September, the garrisons in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities, the Northern and Western fronts, and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet declared through their elected representative body Tsentrobalt that they did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government and would not carry out any of its commands. Soldiers' wives were key players in
5610-806: The Revolution were known; in 2018 Russian film historian Nikolai Izvolov found lost film in the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive and restored it. In 2022 he reconstructed another lost film, 1921 The History of the Civil War using archive materials. Bolshevik Revolution Bolshevik victory The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography ), October coup , Bolshevik coup , or Bolshevik revolution ,
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#17330845283825720-552: The Second All Russian Congress of Soviets held its opening session on the day, while Trotsky dismissed the opposing Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR) from Congress. Some sources contend that as the leader of Tsentrobalt , Pavlo Dybenko played a crucial role in the revolt and that the ten warships that arrived at the city with ten thousand Baltic Fleet mariners were the force that took
5830-547: The Soviet Union modernized its calendar . To avoid confusion, both O.S and N.S. dates have been given for events. For more details see Old Style and New Style dates . It was sometimes known as the Bolshevik Revolution, or the Communist Revolution. Initially the event was referred to as the "October coup" ( Октябрьский переворот ) or the "Uprising of the 3rd", as seen in contemporary documents, for example in
5940-561: The Soviet Union in November of that year. From July 1934 it was shown at private screenings to various high-ranking Soviet officials and also to prominent foreigners including H. G. Wells, William Bullitt , and others, and it was screened at the Venice Film Festival in August 1934. A new version of the film was released in 1938, including a longer sequence to reflect Stalin's achievements at
6050-655: The Soviets, the Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary Party , which won 370 seats, although the SR Party no longer existed as a whole party by that time, as the Left SRs had gone into coalition with the Bolsheviks from October 1917 to March 1918 (a cause of dispute of the legitimacy of the returned seating of the Constituent Assembly, as
6160-417: The Tsarist regime. Kerensky's failure to assume authority over troops was described by John Reed as a "fatal blunder" that signaled the final end of his government. Over the following days, the battle against the anti-Bolsheviks continued. The Red Guard fought against Cossacks at Tsarskoye Selo, with the Cossacks breaking rank and fleeing, leaving their artillery behind. On 31 October 1917 (13 November, N.S.),
6270-464: The West at the time reported that the unfortunate loss of life occurred in Moscow, not Petrograd, and the number was much less than suggested above. As for the "several shots in the air", there is little evidence suggesting otherwise. While the seizure of the Winter Palace happened almost without resistance, Soviet historians and officials later tended to depict the event in dramatic and heroic terms. The historical reenactment titled The Storming of
6380-456: The Winter Palace was staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided the model for official films made later, which showed fierce fighting during the storming of the Winter Palace, although, in reality, the Bolshevik insurgents had faced little opposition. Later accounts of the heroic "storming of the Winter Palace" and "defense of the Winter Palace" were propaganda by Bolshevik publicists. Grandiose paintings depicting
6490-408: The army and convinced them to stand down. The Bolsheviks' influence over railroad and telegraph workers also proved vital in stopping the movement of troops. The political right felt betrayed, and the left was resurgent. The first direct consequence of Kornilov's failed coup was the formal abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the Russian Republic on 1 September. With Kornilov defeated,
6600-440: The assertion that the critics were hacks nipping "revolutionary effort" in the bud, and concluded an essay with a promise to "explode art's tower of Babel ". In Vertov's view, "art's tower of Babel" was the subservience of cinematic technique to narrative—what film theorist Noël Burch terms the institutional mode of representation —which would come to dominate the classical Hollywood cinema . By this point in his career, Vertov
6710-441: The autumn, as much as 50% of all enterprises in the Urals , the Donbas , and other industrial centers were closed down, leading to mass unemployment. At the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. Real wages fell to about 50% of what they had been in 1913. By October 1917, Russia's national debt had risen to 50 billion roubles . Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion roubles. The country faced
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#17330845283826820-404: The bridges, between Red Guard militias aligned with the Military-Revolutionary Committee and military units still loyal to the government. At approximately 5 p.m. the Military-Revolutionary Committee seized the Central Telegraph of Petrograd, giving the Bolsheviks control over communications through the city. On 25 October (O.S.; 7 November, N.S.) 1917, the Bolsheviks led their forces in
6930-422: The cases of destruction (usually burning down and seizing property from the landlord's estate) recorded between February and October occurred in October. While the uprisings varied in severity, complete uprisings and seizures of the land were not uncommon. Less robust forms of protest included marches on landowner manors and government offices, as well as withholding and storing grains rather than selling them. When
7040-399: The chief discipline during the revolution. However, in reality, Stalin was considered a relatively unknown figure with secondary importance at the time of the event. In his book, The Stalin School of Falsification , Leon Trotsky argued that the Stalinist faction routinely distorted historical events and the importance of Bolshevik figures especially during the October Revolution. He cited
7150-526: The city, almost without concealing their preparations: the Provisional Government's President Kerensky was himself aware of them; and some details, leaked by Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev , were published in newspapers. In the early morning of 24 October (O.S.; 6 November N.S.), a group of soldiers loyal to Kerensky's government marched on the printing house of the Bolshevik newspaper, Rabochiy put ( Worker's Path ), seizing and destroying printing equipment and thousands of newspapers. Shortly thereafter,
7260-404: The city. As the night progressed, crowds of insurgents surrounded the palace, and many infiltrated it. At 9:45 p.m, the cruiser Aurora fired a blank shot from the harbor. Some of the revolutionaries entered the palace at 10:25 p.m. and there was a mass entry 3 hours later. By 2:10 a.m. on 26 October, Bolshevik forces had gained control. The Cadets and the 140 volunteers of
7370-434: The creation of the Soviet Union . The historiography of the event has varied. The victorious Soviet Union viewed it as a validation of its ideology and the triumph of the working class over capitalism . On the other hand, the Western Allies , for various reasons, later intervened against the Bolsheviks in the civil war. The event inspired many cultural works and ignited communist movements globally. October Revolution Day
7480-477: The decision whether to jump or not. You can see the decision in his face, a psychological dissection for the audience. He wanted a peace between the actions of man and the actions of a machine, for them to be, in a sense, one. "Cine-Eye" is a montage method developed by Dziga Vertov and first formulated in his work "WE: Variant of a Manifesto" in 1919. Dziga Vertov believed his concept of Kino-Glaz , or "Cine Eye" in English, would help contemporary "man" evolve from
7590-604: The eighth-greatest film ever made. Vertov's younger brothers Boris Kaufman and Mikhail Kaufman were also noted filmmakers, as was his wife, Yelizaveta Svilova . He worked with Boris Kaufman and cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman on his most famous film Man with a Movie Camera . Vertov was born David Abelevich Kaufman into a Jewish family in Białystok , Poland , then a part of the Russian Empire . He Russified his Jewish name and patronymic , David Abelevich, to Denis Arkadievich at some point after 1918. Vertov studied music at Białystok Conservatory until his family fled from
7700-436: The end of the film and leaving out footage of "enemies" of that time. Today there exists a 1970 reconstruction by Yelizaveta Svilova . With the rise and official sanction of socialist realism in 1934, Vertov was forced to cut his personal artistic output significantly, eventually becoming little more than an editor for Soviet newsreels. Lullaby , perhaps the last film in which Vertov was able to maintain his artistic vision,
7810-469: The episode featuring the construction of an airport: one shot shows the Tsar 's tanks helping prepare a foundation, with an intertitle reading "Tanks on the labor front". Vertov clearly intended an active relationship with his audience in the series—in the final segment he includes contact information—but by the 14th episode the series had become so experimental that some critics dismissed Vertov's efforts as "insane". Vertov responded to their criticisms with
7920-506: The film director and editor, Elizaveta Svilova , who at the time was working as an editor at Goskino . She began collaborating with Vertov, beginning as his editor but becoming assistant and co-director in subsequent films, such as Man with a Movie Camera (1929), and Three Songs About Lenin (1934). Vertov worked on the Kino-Nedelya series for three years, helping establish and run a film-car on Mikhail Kalinin 's agit-train during
8030-693: The first editions of Lenin 's complete works. The February Revolution had toppled Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and replaced his government with the Russian Provisional Government . However, the provisional government was weak and riven by internal dissension. It continued to wage World War I , which became increasingly unpopular. There was a nationwide crisis affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased. Gross industrial production in 1917 decreased by over 36% of what it had been in 1914. In
8140-486: The government announced the immediate closure of not only Rabochiy put but also the left-wing Soldat , as well as the far-right newspapers Zhivoe slovo and Novaia Rus . The editors and contributors of these newspapers were seen to be calling for insurrection and were to be prosecuted on criminal charges. In response, at 9 a.m. the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee issued
8250-473: The growing shortages of food, supplies, and other materials. They blamed their managers or foremen and would even attack them in the factories. The workers blamed many rich and influential individuals for the overall shortage of food and poor living conditions. Workers saw these rich and powerful individuals as opponents of the Revolution and called them "bourgeois", "capitalist", and "imperialist". In September and October 1917, there were mass strike actions by
8360-614: The invading German Army to Moscow in 1915. The Kaufmans soon settled in Petrograd , where Vertov began writing poetry , science fiction , and satire . In 1916–1917 Vertov was studying medicine at the Psychoneurological Institute in Saint Petersburg and experimenting with "sound collages" in his free time. He eventually adopted the name "Dziga Vertov", which translates loosely from Ukrainian as 'spinning top'. Vertov
8470-546: The landowners had spread to 482 of 624 counties, or 77% of the country. As 1917 progressed, the peasantry increasingly began to lose faith that the land would be distributed to them by the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks . Refusing to continue living as before, they increasingly took measures into their own hands, as can be seen by the increase in the number and militancy of the peasant's actions. Over 42% of all
8580-474: The later segments of Kino-Pravda , Vertov was experimenting heavily, looking to abandon what he considered film clichés (and receiving criticism for it); his experimentation was even more pronounced and dramatic by the time of Man with a Movie Camera , which was filmed in Ukraine . Some have criticized the obvious stagings in this film as being at odds with Vertov's creed of "life as it is" and "life caught unawares":
8690-642: The masses. In 1919, Vertov compiled newsreel footage for his documentary Anniversary of the Revolution; he also supervised the filming of his project The Battle for Tsaritsyn (1919). in 1921 he compiled History of the Civil War . The so-called "Council of Three," a group issuing manifestoes in LEF , a radical Russian newsmagazine, was established in 1922; the group's "three" were Vertov, his (future) wife and editor Elizaveta Svilova, and his brother and cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman . Vertov's interest in machinery led to
8800-568: The next wave of anti-Bolshevik sentiment. The next day, the Mensheviks seized power in Georgia and declared it an independent republic; the Don Cossacks also claimed control of their government. The Bolshevik strongholds were in the cities, particularly Petrograd, with support much more mixed in rural areas. The peasant-dominated Left SR party was in coalition with the Bolsheviks. There were reports that
8910-490: The offensive's failure intensified the struggle of the workers and the soldiers. On 16 July, spontaneous demonstrations of workers and soldiers began in Petrograd, demanding that power be turned over to the soviets. The Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party provided leadership to the spontaneous movements. On 17 July, over 500,000 people participated in what was intended to be
9020-530: The official government newspaper Pravda . "Kino-Pravda" (literally translated, "film truth") continued Vertov's agit-prop bent. "The Kino-Pravda group began its work in a basement in the centre of Moscow", Vertov explained. He called it damp and dark. There was an earthen floor and holes one stumbled into at every turn. Vertov said, "This dampness prevented our reels of lovingly edited film from sticking together properly, rusted our scissors and our splicers. Vertov's driving vision, expounded in his frequent essays,
9130-447: The old lists, were drawn up by the old SR Party leadership, and thus represented mostly Right SRs, whereas the peasant soviet deputies had returned majorities for the pro-Bolshevik Left SRs). The Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November (O.S.) 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January (O.S.; 18 January, N.S.) 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the Constituent Assembly came into conflict with
9240-437: The ongoing Russian Civil War between Communists and counterrevolutionaries . Some of the cars on the agit-trains were equipped with actors for live performances or printing presses ; Vertov's had equipment to shoot, develop, edit, and project film. The trains went to battlefronts on agitation-propaganda missions intended primarily to bolster the morale of the troops; they were also intended to stir up revolutionary fervor of
9350-468: The palace and to drive to meet approaching soldiers. As Kerensky left Petrograd, Lenin wrote a proclamation To the Citizens of Russia , stating that the Provisional Government had been overthrown by the Military-Revolutionary Committee. The proclamation was sent by telegraph throughout Russia, even as the pro-Soviet soldiers were seizing important control centers throughout the city. One of Lenin's intentions
9460-571: The position and other Bolsheviks insisted that Lenin assume principal responsibility which resulted in Lenin eventually accepting the role of chairman. The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 670 elected delegates: 300 were Bolsheviks and nearly 100 were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , who also supported the overthrow of the Alexander Kerensky government. When the fall of the Winter Palace
9570-411: The possibility that the army would stage a coup, and reversed the order. By contrast, historian Richard Pipes has argued that the episode was engineered by Kerensky. On 27 August, feeling betrayed by the government, Kornilov pushed on towards Petrograd. With few troops to spare at the front, Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet for help. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Socialist Revolutionaries confronted
9680-440: The power in Petrograd and put down the Provisional Government. The same mariners then dispersed by force the elected parliament of Russia, and used machine-gun fire against demonstrators in Petrograd, killing about 100 demonstrators and wounding several hundred. Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air". These are disputed by various sources, such as Louise Bryant , who claims that news outlets in
9790-504: The rhythm of machines, seeking to "bring creative joy to all mechanical labour" and to "bring men closer to machines". In May 1927 Vertov moved to Ukraine, and the Cine-Eye movement broke up. Vertov's successful career continued into the 1930s. Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass (1931), an examination into Soviet miners, has been called a 'sound film', with sound recorded on location, and these mechanical sounds woven together, producing
9900-449: The scene of the woman getting out of bed and getting dressed is obviously staged, as is the reversed shot of the chess pieces being pushed off a chess board and the tracking shot that films Mikhail Kaufman riding in a car filming a third car. However, Vertov's two credos, often used interchangeably, are in fact distinct, as Yuri Tsivian comments in the commentary track on the DVD for Man with
10010-511: The silent film era, straight through the 1920s. Directors who relied on the camera included Dziga Vertov , Abel Gance , Leni Riefenstahl , and Sergei Eisenstein . The latter's cinematographer, Eduard Tisse , would use the camera into the sound era, i.e. filming the duelling sequence in Alexander Nevsky . Vertov animated a Debrie Parvo as mechanical protagonist and used it to make several hand-held sequences in his 1929 documentary, Man with
10120-483: The theatre, in the theatre one directs dramas, one strings beads". "We all felt...that through documentary film we could develop a new kind of art. Not only documentary art, or the art of chronicle, but rather an art based on images, the creation of an image-oriented journalism", Mikhail explained. More than even film truth, Man with a Movie Camera was supposed to be a way to make those in the Soviet Union more efficient in their actions. He slowed down his movements, such as
10230-511: The threat of financial bankruptcy . Vladimir Lenin, who had been living in exile in Switzerland, with other dissidents organized a plan to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with whom Russia was then at war. Recognizing that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens, among them Lenin and his wife, to travel in
10340-734: The unrest in the villages. From 1914 to 1917, almost 50% of healthy men were sent to war, and many were killed on the front, resulting in many females being head of the household. Often—when government allowances were late and were not sufficient to match the rising costs of goods—soldiers' wives sent masses of appeals to the government, which went largely unanswered. Frustration resulted, and these women were influential in inciting "subsistence riots"—also referred to as "hunger riots", " pogroms ", or "baba riots". In these riots, citizens seized food and resources from shop owners, who they believed to be charging unfair prices. Upon police intervention, protesters responded with "rakes, sticks, rocks, and fists." In
10450-497: The uprising in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg, then capital of Russia) against the Provisional Government. The event coincided with the arrival of a pro-Bolshevik flotilla—consisting primarily of five destroyers and their crews, as well as marines—in Petrograd harbor. At Kronstadt , sailors announced their allegiance to the Bolshevik insurrection. In the early morning, from its heavily guarded and picketed headquarters in Smolny Palace,
10560-505: The war!" and "All power to the soviets!" The mass demonstrations resulted in a crisis for the Provisional Government. 1 July saw more demonstrations, as about 500,000 workers and soldiers in Petrograd demonstrated, again demanding "all power to the soviets," "down with the war," and "down with the ten capitalist ministers." The Provisional Government opened an offensive against the Central Powers on 1 July, which soon collapsed. The news of
10670-423: The workers and were able to negotiate better working conditions, pay, and hours. Even though workplace conditions may have been increasing in quality, the overall quality of life for workers was not improving. There were still shortages of food and the increased wages workers had obtained did little to provide for their families. By October 1917, peasant uprisings were common. By autumn, the peasant movement against
10780-503: The working class". This eventually developed into major counter-revolutionary action, as on 30 October (O.S., 12 November, N.S.) when Cossacks , welcomed by church bells, entered Tsarskoye Selo on the outskirts of Petrograd with Kerensky riding on a white horse. Kerensky gave an ultimatum to the rifle garrison to lay down weapons, which was promptly refused. They were then fired upon by Kerensky's Cossacks, which resulted in 8 deaths. This turned soldiers in Petrograd against Kerensky as being
10890-506: The world as only I can see it. I emancipate myself henceforth and forever from human immobility. I am in constant motion... My path leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. I can thus decipher a world that you do not know." Like other Russian filmmakers, he attempted to connect his ideas and techniques to the advancement of the aims of the Soviet Union . Whereas Sergei Eisenstein viewed his montage of attractions as
11000-473: The younger brother of Nicholas II, declined to take power. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils ( soviets ) wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and its actions. The provisional government remained unpopular, especially because it was continuing to fight in World War I , and had ruled with an iron fist throughout mid-1917 (including killing hundreds of protesters in
11110-523: Was a public holiday in the Soviet Union , marking its key role in the state's founding, and many communist parties around the world celebrate it. Despite occurring in November of the Gregorian calendar , the event is most commonly known as the "October Revolution" ( Октябрьская революция ) because at the time Russia still used the Julian calendar . The event is sometimes known as the "November Revolution", after
11220-532: Was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It was the second revolutionary change of government in Russia in 1917. It took place through an insurrection in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg ) on 7 November 1917 [ O.S. 25 October]. It was the precipitating event of the Russian Civil War . The initial stage of
11330-472: Was also unable to locate any serviceable vehicles. On the morning of the insurrection, Kerensky desperately searched for a means of reaching military forces he hoped would be friendly to the Provisional Government outside the city and ultimately borrowed a Renault car from the American embassy, which he drove from the Winter Palace, along with a Pierce Arrow . Kerensky was able to evade the pickets going up around
11440-459: Was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Mensheviks, believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution
11550-748: Was clearly and emphatically dissatisfied with narrative tradition, and expresses his hostility towards dramatic fiction of any kind both openly and repeatedly; he regarded drama as another "opiate of the masses". Vertov freely admitted one criticism leveled at his efforts on the Kino-Pravda series—that the series, while influential, had a limited release. By the end of the Kino-Pravda series, Vertov made liberal use of stop motion , freeze frames , and other cinematic "artificialities", giving rise to criticisms not just of his trenchant dogmatism, but also of his cinematic technique. Vertov explains himself in "On 'Kinopravda' ": in editing "chance film clippings" together for
11660-465: Was passed. As they exited, they were taunted by Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!" The following day, 26 October, the Congress elected a new cabinet of Bolsheviks, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly . This new Soviet government was known as the council (Soviet) of People's Commissars ( Sovnarkom ), with Lenin as
11770-573: Was released in 1937. Dziga Vertov died of cancer in Moscow in 1954. Vertov's brother Boris Kaufman was a cinematographer who worked with Jean Vigo on L'Atalante (1934) and much later for directors such as Elia Kazan in the United States who won an Oscar for his work on On the Waterfront . His other brother, Mikhail Kaufman , worked with Vertov on his films until he became a documentarian in his own right. Mikhail Kaufman's directorial debut
11880-480: Was the film In Spring (1929). In 1923, Vertov married his long-time collaborator Elizaveta Svilova . Vertov's legacy still lives on today. His ideas are echoed in cinéma vérité , the movement of the 1960s named after Vertov's Kino-Pravda . The 1960s and 1970s saw an international revival of interest in Vertov. The independent, exploratory style of Vertov influenced and inspired many filmmakers and directors like
11990-463: Was to capture "film truth"—that is, fragments of actuality which, when organized together, have a deeper truth that cannot be seen with the naked eye. In the Kino-Pravda series, Vertov focused on everyday experiences, eschewing bourgeois concerns and filming marketplaces, bars, and schools instead, sometimes with a hidden camera, without asking permission first. Usually, the episodes of Kino-Pravda did not include reenactments or stagings. (One exception
12100-431: Was to present members of the Soviet congress, who would assemble that afternoon, with a fait accompli and thus forestall further debate on the wisdom or legitimacy of taking power. A final assault against the Winter Palace —against 3,000 cadets, officers, cossacks, and female soldiers—was not vigorously resisted. The Bolsheviks delayed the assault because they could not find functioning artillery. At 6:15 p.m.,
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