A Brief History of the Beginnings of Cinema in Russia

            In studying film, many things can be learned about the culture in which the film was made.  First, the film itself tells a story that is usually indicative of how life currently is in the culture or of how it once was.  Second, if the film portrays the way life was in the past, many things can be gleaned about the current state of the culture’s beliefs.  For example, an American World War II movie made in the 1950s will be drastically different than a World War II movie made in the 1990s.  There will be more violence and there will be much more sexuality in the 1990s film (perhaps even nudity).  If a Russian were to watch the two films, he could learn a lot about how American culture has changed over the last four decades.  For the same reason, I will give a brief overview of Russian cinema from 1917 through the 1930s so that I may learn something about how Russian culture has changed from then to now.

            The cinematograph first came to the Russian Empire in 1896 and many of the early films shown were imported from France (Taylor, 19).  The first Russian film studio was opened in 1907, but films made by Russian directors were not predominant until after the October Revolution of 1917.  Tsar Nicholas II actually said that “cinema is an empty, totally useless and even harmful form of entertainment” (Taylor, 19).  Thus, cinema was not warmly embraced during the late Tsarist years of the empire.  Many people during this period just saw cinema as an extension of the theater.

            It was not until the Bolsheviks took power that the cinema was considered a viable, let alone good and effective, mode of communication.  The Soviets utilized film as a way to distribute their propaganda.  Lenin would later say that “of all the arts for us the most important is cinema” (Taylor, 53).  The Soviets created short films called agitkas that were used to promote Soviet ideals and propaganda.  These films were shown throughout the country on trains and boats to educate the illiterate masses (Gillespie, 4).  Since the people were not able to read, the government used pictures to communicate their positions and ideals, much like the icons and stained glass windows of the early church.  Perhaps people could not read, but the Soviets hoped people would always remember the pictures of happy peasants living at peace with their neighbors.  These short films won support for the Bolshevik cause in the Soviet Union.

            Before 1917, movies were mostly imported into Russia, and it was not until the start of World War I that Russian directors actually began making movies.  This is due in part to the fact that World War I isolated Russia from the rest of the world and supply of foreign films decreased (Taylor, 21).  The demand for films during this time was growing so fast that many Russians in other industries began directing films.  For example, Lev Kuleshov had been a theatrical designer, Sergei Eisenstein an engineer, and Alexander Dovzhenko had been a teacher (Gillespie, 21).  Even though many people were beginning to enter the industry, there was a dramatic shortage in films during the years right after 1917.  This is due in part to the first wave of emmigration.  Many of the best artistic minds had either fled the country to escape persecution or they were forced to join the army.  Hence, there were very few films made during these years because there was a shortage of writers, directors, actors, etc.

            There is a misperception about Soviet cinema that as soon as the Bolsheviks took power they nationalized the industry and forced the directors to only produce films that would further the ideals of the Soviet nation.  However, this was not the case.  Much like the Bolshevik storming of the winter palace took place quietly in the night, so to the control of the film industry was a very slow process and was not actually entirely in the hands on the Soviet government until the 1930s, when Stalin was in power.  The Bolsheviks did not highly regulate the film industry in the beginning for one major reason: they were too busy trying to construct a new government to worry about such trivial matters as cinema.  There were several movements to nationalize the film industry during the 1920s, including Vladimir Gardin establishing the State Film School in 1919 (Taylor, 23) and Lenin establishing Goskino and then the Sovkino in 1924 to replace the financially struggling Goskino (Taylor, 101).  However, none of these institutions received government funding and so they did not create a lot of films or exert much influence.. 

            Much discussion in the early 1920s was devoted to how film should be used, either as documentary or fiction (Taylor, 123).  Many saw cinema used as fiction to be a mere extension of the theater, so they thought that film should only be used to produce documentaries. Lev Kuleshov was a lead proponent of the use of film for fiction.  He was the first person to promote Hollywood’s use of montage, creating scenes of different takes and different camera angles to present an appearance of one continuous shot, in the Soviet Union (Gillespie, 22).  Eisenstein was also a proponent of this view and he employed the use of montage in all of his movies.

            Regardless of how people thought cinema should be used, the greatest directors of the 1920s enjoyed autonomy that would not be regained until Gorbachev gained power in 1986.  Even though many critics believed that film should only be used for documentary films, the great directors of this time created fiction or narrative films.  Herbert Marshall calls the great directors of this time the Four Soviet Giants; the group included Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Dovzhenko, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov (Marshall, 21). The Four Giants employed experiment and innovation in their films (Gillespie, 5).  Furthermore, they were dedicated to creating films that were uniquely Soviet; they shunned the typical story line of Hollywood films.   These directors created mainly idealistic films about the October Revolution or life after the revolution.  Furthermore, many of their films were highly theoretical in nature.  They were exploring a new medium so they would experiment with new angles or acting strategies.  Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin was actually poorly received by the general public because they did not understand what was going on (Taylor, 137).  The common people desired Hollywood movies with violence and sex so it is not surprising that the first major blockbuster in Russian cinema was Little Red Devils (Gillespie, 10).  The movie was violent and exciting, and people and critics alike loved it.

            The Four Giants made many successful movies, but the critics of the time were still hesitant to some of the directors’ “experiments”.  For example, many critics and common people were extremely angered by Eisenstein’s film October, because he had actors play Lenin and fellow revolutionaries in a film about the revolution (Taylor, 193).  Many of the critics viewed Lenin as a deity and felt that there was no actor that could portray Lenin, except Lenin himself.  Thus, even though there was not a lot of direct political pressure in film, the critics (writers and government officials alike) did keep a watchful eye on what the industry was up to.

            By the late 1920s, the metaphors employed in the Four Giants’ movies were under scrutiny by Stalin and his regime, which thought that the metaphors were littered with anti-Soviet sentiment.  Therefore, in films after 1930 or so there is very little experimentation in films.  In fact, “experimentation was valid only if it was useful in realizing the aim of producing films that were both popular and ideologically correct” (Taylor, 293).  Stalin insisted that the government approve scripts before they were created into films.  Therefore by the 1930s, the role of the director was superceded by the role of the scriptwriter, who produced scripts approved by the Soviet regime.

            The 1930s saw directors such as Kozintsev, Trauberg, and Romm who created movies about the joys of peasant life and other utopian ideals that the Soviet government wanted to promote (Gillespie, 94).  Obviously, these films were horrible depictions of peasant life during Stalin’s dekulakization and collectivization policies of the early 1930s that spawned horrible famines.  The Four Giants and other directors of the 1920s did portray romantic views of what the Soviet regime was like, but at least they portrayed these events in a somewhat realistic fashion.  The directors during the reign of Stalin produced movies that were complete misperceptions of reality.  Some of the greatest films made after Stalin’s death were censured as well.  For example, Alexander Askoldov’s The Commisar, which was made in 1967, was banned and was not allowed to be viewed until the Glastnost policies of the 1980s (Gillespie, 94).

            It is evident that many films made during the 1920s in the Soviet Union were on par with their American counterparts.  Sure, they may have portrayed the country in a very idealistic fashion, but many American movies have also portrayed events in American history in a very ideal fashion as well.  The main conclusion to draw is that there was autonomy in the film industry in the 1920s, that allowed early Soviet filmmakers to create experimental films that portrayed Soviet events..

Bibliography

Gillespie, David. Early Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda. London: Wallflower, 2000.

Marhsall, Hebert. Masters of the Soviet Cinema. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.

Taylor, Richard, and Ian Christie, eds. The Film Factory. London: Routledge, 1988.