KINO-Eye documentarian Dziga Vertov’s tenth-year commemoration on the death of Bolshevik Revolution leader Vladimir (call me Ilyich) Lenin remains historically important, just not in the way intended. Meant to celebrate cultural, industrial, agricultural & territorial advances inside the Soviet Republic (and out), Vertov uses three ‘anonymous’ odes to the man as a loose organizing principle. (Not that you’d notice.) But undoubtedly, the main purpose was to conflate the reputations of Lenin and current General Secretary Joseph Stalin. It’s why this largely silent-with-added-sound film saves the lion’s share of its synch-sound footage for Stalin himself, letting us know Lenin’s preparatory work would be implemented by Stalin. All previous actuality footage (much of it staged), as so often with Vertov, pulled together with little continuity, catch-as-catch-can montage bolstered by inter-titles giving whatever political slant approved by the current Party Line.* Ergo the film’s true historical interest, as the original 1934 release needed to be re-edited in 1938 to remove any disgraced non-persons (goodbye Trotsky!) standing too close to Ilyich or Uncle Joe for (political) comfort. Then, by the 1970s, a re-re-edit to downplay, if not totally eliminate the great eliminator himself, Stalin, now officially out of favor. Finally, more recent glanost protocol necessitating a re-re-re-edit to put everything back in. Watching all the various edits a priceless lesson in Soviet Realpolitik. If anyone could only get thru it.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Without the magical last two reels of Vertov’s MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA/’29, where his usual agitation/propaganda on the New Workers’ Paradise gives way to pixilated filmmaking equipment coming alive on its own to make movies, his reputation might not even stand up in Academic Circles. The real talent in the family was Dziga’s (real name Denis Abramovich Kaufman) kid brother, Boris Kaufman, regular cinematographer to Vigo, Kazan & Lumet among many others.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: For a surprisingly accurate, grimly hilarious look at Stalin & his gang of lethal incompetents, Armando Iannucci’s lauded/under-seen DEATH OF STALIN/’17 is hard to beat. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-death-of-stalin-2017.html
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