DVD : Kino-Eye/ Three Songs Of Lenin
List Price: $24.99Amazon.com's Price: $22.49 You Save: $2.50 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0014381583427
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Release Date: April 25, 2000
Running Time: 137 minutes
Sales Rank: 60468
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: November 06, 1934
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Description:
Dziga Vertov, whose renegade approach to cinema is best remembered in the legendary "Man With the Movie Camera" and his series of Kino-Pravda newsreels, demonstrates his mastery of montage in this 1924 feature previously unseen in the United States. "Kino-Eye" (1924, 74 min.) is a fascinating film, not just for its aesthetic beauty and political significance, but for honestly documenting a society fresh from revolution, buoyed by idealism, ready to face the challenges of a difficult future. Also included on this DVD is "Three Songs of Lenin" (1934, 62 min.), Vertov's most personal work and the capstone of his career. The film reveals the Soviet leader as seen through the eyes of the people, represented by three songs. The exhilarating beauty of Vertov's images and the majesty of his filmmaking skills produced a film that The New York Times called "a work of unusual beauty and emotional exaltation."
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
Though often slow-going, these Soviet propaganda films are of extreme historical interest. They should be seen by anyone intrigued by Lenin, the history of the USSR, or the Communist movement in general.
Kino-Eye is probably one of the earliest Soviet documentaries still available. Made in 1924, this silent (obviously) film tracks the adventures of a troop of Young Pioneers as they travel from village to village, set up camp, farm, and teach Communism. It also includes shots of a Chinese magician, an elephant, and various collective enterprises. At this early date, the director was clearly having fun with the new film technology: as the film rolls backwards, we see bread returning to wheat, a diver emerging from the water and back to the board, and meat going back to a cow. What we really see, however, is just how poor this country was in 1924. There is perhaps one car and one ambulance in the whole film; children walk around barefoot, and the villagers obviously had little access to dentistry. Contrast this film with "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City," to show how advanced Germany was only three years later. (Yes, perhaps I'm comparing apples and oranges, but some of the shots in Kino-Eye take place in a big city too, with streetcars visible.)
By the time the second film, "Three Songs About Lenin," was made, Communist rule had crystallized. This film is Lenin hagiography at its best. The first "song," "My face was in a dark prison," shows ... Read More
Rating: -
As you might expect, a 70 year old communist propoganda film is not gripping entertainment.
The first "song" is the saga of how the revolution liberated a woman from the oppression and ignorance of Islam. A powerful topic that not many people would dare to tackle today. She goes from being imprisoned in her veil to a free woman, attending school, driving a tractor and learning to shoot a gun.
But as we know, communism was no utopia either.
Rating: -
Dziga Vertov monopolized the Soviet documentary scene together with his brothers and Lev Kuleshov. His movies have reached vast audiences all over the world, and The Man with the movie camera always gets a vote or two in "Greatest films ever made"-polls.
I really looked forward to seeing Vertov's early films, shot in 1923-24. Before that, film stock wasn't readily accessible to filmmakers in the Soviet union.
Vertov developed Kuleshov's theory of montage in those early years and put them to good use in the films featured on this DVD. The 6 Kino-eye shorts was a pioneering venture into the Soviet experience. Vertov sought to bring witness to how the word of communism was spread throughout the countryside and in the cities. If this meant tampering a bit with the footage he shot, well - so be it!
The protagonists of the first three films are "the Young pioneers", a group of young teens who help out wherever they can. They help widows harvesting the crop and old people with shopping and cleaning. They also urge people to buy their meat and veggies at the Communist food market and not at private grocers.(We also follow the meat backwards from the counter to the cow, would you believe!)
The do-gooders still find time to collect the children in the village and explain what communism is all about and request that they join the Communist party.
Later, there are intercut scenes from everyday life, work and leisure. Great stuff. Enthusiasm ... Read More
Rating:  -
Vertov's work is interesting more for its documentary achievement than for its claims as "pure cinema" (a term that is quite meaningless 70 years after it first raised a few eyebrows). Otis Ferguson had the last word to say on the subject of Three Songs About Lenin in his essay "Artists Among the Flickers" in 1934. But Vertov's work is startling to watch today, now that the Revolution had been discredited and that Lenin is universally excoriated. But the feel of that time, the sense of fervent optimism, of a society breaking new ground and - seemingly - finding new solutions to old problems, is captured hypnotically by Vertov in Kino-Eye. It's no accudent that another of his famous films was called 'Enthusiasm'.
Browse for similar items by category:
|
