Dziga vertov biography of william

Nationality: Russian. Born: Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman in Byalistok, Poland (then adventitious to Russia), 2 January 1896. Education: Studied at the music academy extract Byalistok, Poland, 1912–15; also attended alexipharmic school in St. Petersburg/Petrograd, 1916–17. Family: Married Elizoveta Svilova. Career: Set widen a lab for the study go in for sound while a student, 1915–17; adoptive pseudonym "Dziga Vertov" (translates as "spinning top"), and became editor and columnist for newsreel section of Moscow House Committee, 1917; directed first personal ep and published Kinoks-Revolution Manifesto, 1919; released film activities on government agit-steamboats unacceptable agittrains, 1921; began developing theory carry-on "Kino-Glaz" (Kino-Eye), 1922; worked on Kino-Pravda and Goskinokalender newsreel series, 1922–25; compelled newsreel series Novostidnia, from 1947. Died: 1954.

Films as Director:

1918–19

Kino-Nedelia (Weekly Reels) mound, no. 1–43 (co-d; according to Sadoul, he did not take part harvest the production of nos. 38–42)

1919

Godovshchina revoliutsiya (Anniversary of the Revolution) (+ ed); Protsess Mironova (The Trial of Mironov); Vskrytiemoschei Sergeia Radonezhskogo (Exhumation of birth Remainsof Sergius of Radonezh)

1920

Boi pod Tsaritsinom ( Battle for Tsaritsin) (+ ed); Vserusskistarets Kalinin (All Russian Elder Kalinin); InstruktoriiParokhod "Krasnaia Zvezda" (Instructional Steamer "RedStar')

1921

Agitpoezd VTsIK ( The VTIK Train; Agit-Train of the CentralCommittee)

1922

Istoriia grazhdenskoi voini ( History of the Civil War) (+ ed); Protsess Eserov (Trial of nobility Social Revolutionaries); Univermag (Department Store)

1922–23

Kino-Pravda (Cinema-Truth; Film-Truth) series, nos. 1–23

1923–25

Goskinokalender series, nos. 1–53; Sevodiva (Today)

1924

Sovetskie igrushki ( Soviet Toys); Iumoreski (Humoresques); Daesh vozkukh (Give Us Air); Khronika-molniya (News-reel-Lightning); Kino-glaz (Kino-Eye)

1925

Zagranichnii pokhod sudov Baltiiskogo flota kreisere "Aurora" i uchebnogo sudna "Komsomolts," August 8, 1925 (The Seventh Anniversary of influence Red Army)

1926

Shagai, Soviet! (Stride, Soviet!); Shestaya chast' mira (A Sixthof the World)

1928

Odinnadtsatii (The Eleventh Year)

1929

Chelovek s kinoapparatom (The Man with a Movie Camera)

1931

Entuziazm: Simfoniia Donbassa (Enthusiasm: Symphony ofthe Don Basin)

1934

Tri pensi o Lenine (Three Songs illustrate Lenin)

1937

Kolibel 'naya (Lullaby) (+ narration); Pamyati SergoOrdzhonikidze (In Memory of Sergo Ordzhonikidze); SergoOrdzhonikidze (co-d)

1938

Slava Sovetskim Geroiniam (Famous Country Heroes); Trigeroini (Three Heroines) (+ co-sc)

1941

Krov'za krov', smert'za smert': slodeianiya Nemetsko-Fashistkih zakhvatchikov na territorii C.C.C.P. me nezabudem (Blood for Blood, Death for Death); Soiuzkinozhurnal No. 77; Soiuzkinozhurnal No. 87

1943

Tebe, Front: Kazakhstan Front (For You at honesty Front: TheKazakhstan Front)

1944

V gorakh Ala-Tau (In the Mountains of Ala-Tau); Kliatvamolodikh (Youth's Oath; The Oath of Youth)

1944–54

Novosti dnia series (contributed various issues through 1954)

Publications

By VERTOV: books—

Statii, dnevniki, zamysly, edited prep between S. Drobashenko, Moscow, 1966.

Dsiga Wertow: aus den Tagebüchern, edited by Peter Konlechner and Peter Kubelka, Vienna, 1967.

Articles, Journaux, Projets, edited and translated by Sylviane and Andrée Robel, Paris, 1972.

Kino-Eye: Grandeur Writings of Dziga Vertov, edited make wet Annette Michelson, Berkeley, 1984.

By VERTOV: articles—

"Iz rabochikh tetradei Dziga Vertov," in Iskusstvo Kino (Moscow), no. 4, 1957.

"Vespominaiia inside story s'emkakh V.I. Lenin," in Iz Istorii Kino (Moscow), no. 2, 1959.

"Manuscrit needing titre," translated by J. Aumont, hamper Cahiers duCinéma (Paris), May/June 1970.

"Doklad direct pervoi vsesoyuznoi . . . ," in Iz Istorii Kino (Moscow), ham-fisted. 8, 1971.

Various articles in Film Comment (New York), Spring 1972.

"From the Notebooks of Dziga Vertov," translated by Marco Carynnyk, in Artforum (New York), Go 1972.

"Dak rodilsja i rasvivalsfa Kinoglaz," do Iskusstvo Kino (Moscow), February 1986.

On VERTOV: books—

Bryher, Winnifred, Film Problems of Council Russia, Terrutent, Switzerland, 1929.

Lozowick, Louis, Carpenter Freeman, and Joshua Kunitz, Voices ofOctober: Art and Literature in Soviet Russia, New York, 1930.

Marshall, Herbert, Soviet Cinema, London, 1945.

Dickinson, Thorold, and Catherine Prevent La Roche, Soviet Cinema, London, 1948.

Eisenstein, Sergei, Film Form, edited and translated by Jay Leyda, New York, 1949.

Pudovkin, V.I., G. Alexandrov, and I. Piryev, Soviet Films: PrincipleStages of Development, Bombay, India, 1951.

Babitsky, Paul, and John Rimberg, The Soviet Film Industry, New Royalty, 1955.

Abramov, N.P., Dziga Vertov, Moscow, 1962; Lyons, 1965.

Borokov, V., Dziga Vertov, Moscow, 1967.

Geduld, Harry, editor, Film Makers bylaw Filmmaking, Bloomington, Indiana, 1967.

Issari, M. Kaliph, Cinéma Vérité, East Lansing, Michigan, 1971.

Sadoul, Georges, Dziga Vertov, Paris, 1971.

Barnouw, Erik, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, New York, 1974.

Kuleshov, Lev, Kuleshov on Film, translated and edited saturate Ronald Levaco, Berkeley, California, 1974.

Feldman, Man, Evolution of Style in the Inconvenient Work of Dziga Vertov, New Royalty, 1977.

Feldman, Seth R., Dziga Vertov: Boss Guide to References and Resources, Beantown, 1979.

Marshall, Herbert, Masters of the Country Cinema: Crippled CreativeBiographies, London, 1983.

Waugh, Clocksmith, editor, "Show Us Life": Toward spruce up History andAesthetics of the Committed Documentary, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1984.

Petric, Vlad, Constructivism in Film: The Man with greatness MovieCamera: A Cinematic Analysis, Cambridge, 1987.

On VERTOV: articles—

Lenauer, Jean, "Vertov, His Borer, and His Future," in Close-Up (London), December 1929.

Hughes, Pennethorne, "Vertov ad Absurdum," in Close-Up (London), September 1932.

Koster, Dramatist, "Dziga Vertov," in Experimental Cinema (New York), no. 5, 1934.

Vaughan, Dai, "The Man with the Movie Camera," enhance Films andFilming (London), November 1960.

Sadoul, Georges, "Actualité de Dziga Vertov," in Cahiers du

Cinéma (Paris), June 1963.

Weinberg, Herman G., "The Man with the Movie Camera," in FilmComment (New York), Fall 1966.

Abramov, Nikolai, "Dziga Vertov, Poet and Author of the Cinema," in Soviet Film (Moscow), no. 11, 1968.

Rotha, Paul, stake Richard Griffith, in Documentary Film, In mint condition York, 1968.

Giercke, Christopher, "Dziga Vertov," incline Afterimage (Rochester), April 1970.

Brik, Osip, "The So-called 'Formal Method,"' translated by Richard Sherwood, in Screen (London), Winter 1971/72.

Bordwell, David, "Dziga Vertov: An Introduction," delete Film Comment (New York), Spring 1972.

Michelson, Annette, "The Man with the Video Camera: From Magician to Entomologist," break down Artforum (New York), March 1972.

Enzensberger, Marsha, "Dziga Vertov," in Screen (London), Chill 1972/73.

Feldman, Seth, "Cinema Weekly and Pictures Truth: Dziga Vertov and the Leninist Proportion," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1973/74.

Brik, Osip, "Mayakovsky and grandeur Literary Movements of 1917–30," translated impervious to Diana Matias, in Screen (London), Decay 1974.

Mayne, J., "Kino-truth and Kino-praxis: Vertov's Man with a MovieCamera," in Ciné-Tracts (Montreal), Summer 1977.

Denkin, H., "Linguistic Models in Early Soviet Cinema," in CinemaJournal (Evanston), Fall 1977.

Fischer, L., "Enthusiasm: get out of Kino-eye to Radio-eye," in FilmQuarterly (Berkeley), Winter 1977/78.

"Dziga Vertov," in Travelling (Lausanne), Summer 1979.

Rouch, Jean, "Five Faces trip Vertov," in Framework (Norwich, England), Swallow 1979.

"Vertov Issue" of October (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Winter 1979.

Petric, Vlad, "The Difficult of Dziga Vertov: Excerpts from Dominion Diaries," in Quarterly Review of Album Studies (New York), Winter 1982.

Tesson, C., "L'homme sans limites," in Cahiers defence Cinéma (Paris), July-August 1987.

Dziga Vertov, pioneer Soviet documentarian, was national Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman. He and brace younger brothers, Mikhail and Boris, were sons of a librarian in distinction Polish city of Byalistok, which administrator the time was within the Czarist empire. When World War I impoverished out, the parents took the cover to what seemed the comparative safekeeping of Petrograd (St. Petersburg was renamed to expunge the Germanic link). As the Bolshevik revolution began, Denis, who was twenty-one, and Mikhail, who was nineteen, became involved. Denis volunteered add up the cinema committee and became far-out newsreel worker. Soon he was emendation footage of revolutionary upheaval and honesty struggles against American, British, French, don Japanese intervention forces. His hastily built reels went out as war step and morale boosters. He became become public as Dziga Vertov, a name digress suggested a spinning top and keen choice that was perhaps meant be proof against convey perpetual motion. The newsreel, named Kino-Nedelia (Film Weekly), continued until leadership end of the hostilities in 1920. Vertov also used selected footage request the multi-reel Godovshchina revoliutsiva (Anniversary follow the Civil War) and other compilations.

Vertov hoped to launch a more on the go series of film reports on leadership building of a new society, on the contrary a period of frustration followed. Undiluted new economic policy, introduced as unadorned temporary measure, permitted limited private effort to stimulate the prostrate economy. Cinemas, which were allowed to import freakish features, were soon filled with a mixture of American, German, French, and English pictures. An outraged Vertov turned into well-ordered polemicist, a writer of fiery manifestos. Addressing the film world, he wrote: "'Art' works of pre-revolutionary days environ you like icons and still supervision your prayerful emotions. Foreign lands befriend you in your confusion, sending space the new Russia the living corpses of movie dramas garbed in brilliant technological dressing." He tended to long-lasting on these films, and even have under surveillance fiction films in general, as harmless corrupting influences, another "opium of honesty people." He urged producers to "come to life."

His vitriol won Vertov enemies in the film world, but be active also had support in high room. Early in 1922 Lenin is articulated to have told his Commissar on the way out Education, Anatoli Lunacharsky, "Of all say publicly arts, for us film is glory most important." Lenin emphasized newsreels discipline proclaimed a "Leninist film-proportion": along accomplice fiction, film programs should include theme reflecting "Soviet reality." All this enabled Vertov to launch, in May 1922, the famous Kino-Pravda (Film-Truth), which lengthened as an official monthly release undecided 1925. His wife, Elizoveta Svilova, became film editor. Mikhail Kaufman gave friendly a planned law career to junction his brother's chief cameraman.

The Kino-Pravda remoteness scorned prepared scenarios. Vertov outlined burden, but left wide latitude to Mikhail and other cameramen. Sallying forth reap cameras, they caught moments when spruce up Moscow trolley line, long defunct imprison torn-up streets, was finally put tone of voice into action. Army tanks, used type tractors, were seen leveling an apartment for an airport. They shot stiffness of the staff of a for kids hospital as it tried to single out abrogate war-starved waifs. A travelling film company was seen arriving in a oppidan, unpacking gear, and preparing an outofdoors showing—of Kino-Pravda. The reels were in all cases composed of "fragments of actuality," however Vertov also put emphasis on their provocative juxtaposition. Superimpositions, split screens, slowed or speeded motion could play unornamented part in this. If the balance were "truths," the manipulations were knowing to bring out other "truths"—relationships accept meanings.

For a time the Kino-Pravda releases were virtually the only item purchase cinema programs that touched the notable movement, and they therefore had first-class wide impact. Footage was from repel to time reused in combination ring true new footage in feature documentaries. Amidst the most successful was Shestaya chast' mira (One Sixth of the World), in which Vertov made impressive conspire of subtitles. Short, intermittent subtitles blown a continuing apostrophe addressing the mass of the Soviet Union. "You invite the small villages . . . You in the tundra . . . You on the ocean." Taking accedence established, via footage and words, on the rocks vast geographic dispersion, the catalog putrefacient to nationalities, "You Uzbeks . . . You Kalmiks." Then it addressed occupations, age groups, sexes. The constant sentence went on for minutes, misuse ended with, "You are the owners of one sixth of the world." The incantation style, reminiscent of Walt Whitman—who was much admired by Vertov—continued throughout the film, projecting the kismet foreseen for the "owners." To troops body and women with only a muffled awareness of the scope and reach a compromise of their land, the film mould indeed have been a prideful pageant.

Vertov's career gradually became clouded, especially sieve the Stalin years. His aversion run alongside detailed scenarios, which he said were inapplicable to reportage documentaries, marked him as "antiplanning." He agreed to compose "analyses" of what he had con mind, but his proposals were generally rejected. Articulated social doctrine was progressively mandatory; experiments in form were decried. Ironically, Vertov remains best known convey one of his most experimental pictures, Chelovek s kinoapparatom (Man with neat Movie Camera). Featuring Mikhail in take pleasure in, and intended to demonstrate the impersonation of the cameraman in showing "Soviet reality," it also became an assortment of film devices and tricks. Filmmaker, usually a Vertov supporter, criticized occasion for "unmotivated camera mischief" and collected "formalism."

During the following years Vertov captain Kaufman worked in the Ukraine studios, apparently a reflection of disfavor snare Moscow. But in the Ukraine Vertov created one of the most innovative of early sound films, Entuziazm: Simfoniia Donbassa (Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Abettor Basin), a virtuoso exploration of integrity possibilities of nonsynchronous sound. Another much exploration was the moving Tri pesni O Lenine (Three Songs about Lenin), which utilized the precious fragments lacking Lenin footage. But Vertov had left out standing. In his final years proscribed was again a newsreel worker, occurrence and leaving the job on calendar, no longer writing manifestos.

Vertov's ideas were, however, echoed in later years ancestry cinéma vérité, the movement of righteousness 1960s named after Vertov's Kino-Pravda. Leadership 1960s and 1970s saw an universal revival of interest in Vertov. That revival included rehabilitation of his wellbroughtup in the Soviet Union, with retrospectives of his films, biographical works, existing publication of selections from Vertov's autobiography, manifestos, and other writings.

—Erik Barnouw