SERGEI GERASIMOV
available — and at this stage terri I could give a lecture in reply to ble arguments may break out this, and I’d love to, but instead I’ll between people who are at other recount a conversation I once times very good friends . . . overheard between Dziga Vertov Then, of course, recent students and Esther Shub. Vertov unearthed are always coming up, diploma in an incident that had occurred in a hand, with someone saying, “this little-known, little-visited town in one will go a long way”, and you Georgia, accessible only by steep saying, “Oh God, you said that last and dangerous mountain passes. time!” But, you give them a chance, Georgia is the country of legends, and turn your face away. and stories; the earliest kind of life style is still preserved there. Vertov Does film teaching at present still heard about the incredible effort place an emphasis on formulas taken by the townspeople to get a derived from theatre, as Eisenstein’s grand piano into their mountain theory of film practice encouraged? kingdom. This struck Vertov as a miracle of the stubborn desire of Eisenstein has been the establish people to partake of the fruits of ed authority in Soviet film, and civilization. Esther Shub im always will be, in some areas. But mediately said: “We must buy a se there are some areas where Eisens cond piano so that we can film tein — because he was a human be them dragging it up to the town” . ing — changed his mind as time Vertov exploded: “ I expected that went by. When he made Strike he from you. That’s the whole shame was an ‘old’ man of 24 years. As a of your approach. Documentary member of the FEX group (which cinematography must be dedicated Gerasimov insisted on calling the to that second of reality, and only Leningrad School for Eccentrics) that second. These sets, this he was bent on breaking all the staging, it’s impossible, it’s not traditions. If he could have seen real] . . .” Ivan at the time of making Strike, Is there still the great interest in he would have said: “That’s not me!” Everything changes, even for theory that there was in the twen Eisenstein, and so we can see com ties? plete turn-abouts in his theory — such as the idea of staging “attrac The number of people who want tions” which gave way to other to be spectacular theoreticians is ideas. But Eisenstein is still the larger than the number who number one director. manage to be.
How much c r i t i c a l and theoretical work are production students encouraged to undertake? It is understood that there is a dialectical relationship between theory and practice, although prac tice typically runs ahead of theory. The twenties was the exception, a tabula rasa. Then theory was oblig ed to run ahead. Now it is propor tionately more difficult to do something completely new. Even in pornography. Godard is perhaps in teresting — criticism and theorizing preceding action — but you find similar attitudes in Ford, Chaplin and Dovzhenko. Do students hold screenings of the films of other countries? No “major film” is unavailable to them, from any country. Perhaps the films they have least contact with are American films, because there are no “exchange funds” for
Are the questions raised by Ver tov concerning the bond between form and content still of interest?
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films between America and the Soviet Union, as there are between the Soviets and most other countries. It’s a great pity, and it’s our job to change this. Are films ever excluded on ideological grounds, despite the fact of possible technical interest? Except for films that launch an outright anti-Soviet attack (and I find it hard to think of an example), no, this doesn’t happen. We can en joy even people you might expect us to find “extremists” — Kubrick, Coppola, Kramer; even though they are not on the friendliest relations with our country. What about Godard and his Maoist, anti-Soviet stand? Well, I’ve seen Godard. Of course Godard has been lately somewhat confused, somewhat complex, for us and for France, and America. He’s very talented, but so mixed up — he has kosher in his brains. There’s not enough time for us to decipher him. The students are excited by Fellini, Kurosawa (who recently directed a film in the Soviet Union), by Antonioni — although they’ve gone cold on his recent films. But there are very good conversations after screening such films. Continued on P.373