Page 50 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

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Kuleshov’s experiments and the new
anthropology of the actor
Mikhail Yampolsky

Kuleshov’s theoretical legacy is usually divided into two parts: one is devoted to the
problems of montage and is rightly considered to be the more valuable and
original, the second is concerned with the elaboration of the problem of the cinema
actor and, in particular, of the theory of the naturshchik [model actor] and of
rehearsal method. The books that Kuleshov wrote are organised along these lines.
Both The Art of Cinema [Iskusstvo kino, 1929] and The Practice of Film Direction
[Praktika kinorezhissury, 1935] begin with a statement of montage theory and then
move on to an exposition of the problematic of the actor. This model has been
adopted in most histories of cinema that contain an account of Kuleshov’s
theoretical views. Because of this, the correlation between montage theory and the
anthropology of acting appears, as a rule, to be highly ephemeral. However, there
is every reason to believe that the theory of montage derives genetically from the
new conception of the anthropology of the actor and is based completely on it. The
expositional structure adopted by Kuleshov and his popularisers masks to a
considerable extent not just the profound unity of Kuleshov’s film theory but also
its true sense.

I
Kuleshov’s conception of the actor is not distinguished by any great originality, but
is borrowed almost entirely from theatre theory of the 1910s and the beginning of
the 1920s. There was at that time in Russia an active reaction against the method
of Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theatre. The principle of the transformation and
embodiment of the actor in the character was being criticised from all sides. At the
same time a new anthropology of acting was being actively elaborated at the
beginning of the 1910s: the major influences on it were the views of two theorists,
the Frenchman F.A. Delsarte and the Swiss J.Dalcroze. The teaching of Delsarte
figures among the teachings of physiognomy, which were very popular in the
nineteenth century and which owed much, for instance, to the old works of G.G.
Engel. He had elaborated a highly pedantic lexicon of gestures, each of which,
according to the author, had a direct correlation with the psychological state of
man. The originality of Delsarte’s teaching consisted to a large extent in the
accentuation of the rhythmic side of mime and gesture that is predictable in a