Page 71 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

52 INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY
attached the single genre label detektiv–captured the fancy of the Soviets. They
admired the vitality and frenetic activity of these ‘naive’ films. Kuleshov noted of
the detektiv that ‘the fundamental element of the plot is an intensity in the
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development of action, the dynamic of construction’. The Soviets hoped to adapt
this energetic style into an aggressive, revolutionary cinema.
The Americans offered no more impressive example of dynamic cinema than
Intolerance, and various incidents attest to its impact in the USSR; Pudovkin
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abandoned a scientific career for the cinema after watching the film; Intolerance was
so popular that in 1921 the Petrograd Cinema Committee organised an extremely
successful two-week run of the film to raise funds for victims of the Civil War
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famine; Soviet representatives reportedly even extended Griffith an invitation to
work in the USSR. 7
Nevertheless, other evidence indicates that we should not overestimate the film’s
importance–particularly as a stylistic inspiration. It would be incorrect to assume
that the idea of film montage for the Soviets originated with Intolerance. Rather, it
seems that when the film was shown in the Soviet Union in 1919, it merely
popularised a style already evolving in the hands of Soviet artists. Kuleshov claims
he began to forge his seminal theories well before Intolerance appeared in the
Soviet Union. His experiments which defined the ‘Kuleshov effect’ apparently
began as early as 1917—18. In March 1918, several months before the Russian
première of Intolerance, Kuleshov published his theoretical essay ‘The Art of
Cinema’, in which he argued that editing constituted the fundamental feature of film
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art. Vertov writes that he worked out a rapid montage style in his early film The
Battle of Tsaritsyn [Boi pod Tsaritsynom, 1919—20]. Intolerance played in Russia
while he was still at work on the film, and the American picture helped acquaint
audiences with the mode he sought to perfect: ‘After a short time there came
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Griffith’s film Intolerance. After that it was easier to speak.’ Intolerance may have
been less a source than a vindication for these innovators.
Russia’s familiarity with Griffith actually predated the Revolution. A number of
Griffith’s early Biograph shorts circulated in tsarist Russia, and at least one served
as the source for a Russian film. Yakov Protazanov used the story of Griffith’s The
Lonely Villa for his Drama by Telephone [1914]. Protazanov’s tale concerns a
young wife who discovers that bandits are trying to break into her home. She
immediately telephones her absent husband for help but, as he desperately rushes
home, the bandits break in and overpower the wife. Whereas Griffith specialised in
the successful rescue, in the Russian version the husband arrives too late and
discovers that his wife has been murdered. This is not the only change Protazanov
makes. Anyone searching for an early link between Griffith’s cross-cutting device
and Soviet montage must look elsewhere. Protazanov is not concerned with the
rhythm or tension of the attempted rescue, and he does not exploit parallel editing.
Rather he examines the psychological states of the characters during the crisis, the
terror of the woman and the panic of the husband, and he employs an elaborate split-
screen system which permits the audience simultaneously to compare the
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emotions of the husband, wife and culprits. The Russian artist, in borrowing