HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: Russian and Slavic Studies

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Alexander Kulik

Coordinator Email: kulik@mail.hujia.c.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Prof Alexander Kulik

Course/Module description:
The course aims to acquaint students with the history and the best achievements of Russian film art and theory. The course will be accompanied by the analytic examination of the greatest masterpieces of all time. We shall concentrate primarily on the following issues: (1) the language of cinema; its aesthetic and communicative functions; the reception of cinema; cinema and other media and art forms; (2) social-historical context of cinema; film as historical evidence; the role of cinema in historical processes, cinema as a formative factor in East European intellectual history.

Knowledge of Russian and other Eastern European languages is not required, as all the films on the curriculum are subtitled either in English or in Hebrew

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Exposure to the basics of the film theory and its connections to other fields in humanities.

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
Introduction

Early Russian Cinema, 1907-1920s: Avant-garde vs. Entertainment

Recommended:
 Iakov Protazanov, Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924; 113 min.; 1818)
 FF doc. 107: On Kuleshov
 FF doc. 9: Lev Kuleshov, “The Art of Cinema”
 FF doc. 8: Lev Kuleshov, “The Tasks of the Artist in Cinema”
 FF doc. 18: Lev Kuleshov, “Cinema as the Fixing of Theatrical Action”
 FF doc. 20: Lev Kuleshov, “Art, Contemporary Life and Cinema”
 FF doc. 30: Sergei Eisenstein, “The Montage of Attractions”
 HYPERLINK "http://www.ce-review.org/00/1/kinoeye1_horton.html" http://www.ce-review.org/00/1/kinoeye1_horton.html

Soviet Montage and Formalism

 Sergei Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin (1925; 65 min.; 981) HYPERLINK "http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id&eq;2391"
 Recommended Eisenstein’s:
Strike (1924; 94 min.; 3603)
October (1927; 104 min.; 2556)
Old and New (1929; 97 min.;2796)
Que viva Mexico (1930; 85 min.; 2800 English voice-over)
Bezhin Meadow (1937; 31 min.; 2794 English voice-over with Russian titles)
Alexander Nevsky (1938; 112 min.; 641).
 ענר פרמינגר, "הקולנוע הסובייטי," מסך הקסם: כרונולוגיה של קולנוע ותחביר, תל אביב תשנ"ה1995, עמ' 81-87.
 לויס ג'אנטי, "המונטאז' הסובייטי ומסורת הפורמליזם," לויס ג'אנטי, להבין סרטים, תל אביב תשס"א2000, עמ' 156-168.
 סרגי אייזנשטיין, "אחדות אורגנית ופטוס בקומפוזיציה של פוטיומקין," איתן גרין (עורך), במאים ואנשי קולנוע על הקולנוע, תל אביב 1987, עמ' 100-109.
 FF docs. 54; 55: Photography vs. Editing (Balazs vs. Eisenstein; cf. Lotman 47-61)
 FF doc. 79: Vsevolod Pudovkin “S. M. Eisenstein: From Potemkin to October”
 FF doc. 85, 88: October (Piotrovsky)

FEX (Factory of the Eccentric Actor)

 Recommended:
Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, New Babylon (1929; PC)
Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, Overcoat (1926; PC)
Dimitri Kirsanoff, Menilmontant (1926; 38 min.; 1936)
 FF doc. 15: Grigori Kozintsev, Leonig Trauberg, Sergei Yutkevich, Georgi Kryzhutsky, “Eccentrism”
 FF doc. 66: Victor Shklovsky, “Film Factory”; Scriptwriter vs. Film Industry (cf. docs. 116, 146)
 FF docs. 94; 153: Actor vs. Film Industry (Shklovsky; Pudovkin; cf. Lotman 84-93)
 FF doc. 76: Ideology vs. Commerce (Piotrovsky)
 FF docs. 101, 103: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov, “Experiment Intelligible for Millions”
 FF doc. 123: Victor Shklovsky, “The Film Language of New Babylon”

“Kino-Pravda” (“Film Truth”): Russian-Soviet Documentary

 Dziga Vertov, Three Songs about Lenin (1934; 62 min.;1820)
 Recommended:
Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera (1928; 60 min.; 1821)

דזיגה ורטוב, "'עין הקולנוע' – הדוקומנטריסטים הנרדפים," איתן גרין (עורך), במאים ואנשי קולנוע על הקולנוע, תל אביב 1987, עמ' 110-116.
 FF doc. 21: Dziga Vertov, “We. A Version of Manifesto”
 FF doc. 31: Dziga Vertov, “The Cine-Eyes. A Revolution”
 FF doc. 49: Victor Shklovsky, “The Semantics of Cinema” (Shklovsky vs. Cine-Eyes; cf. Lotman 41-43)
 FF docs. 57-60: “Factory of facts” vs. Narrative forms (Vertov vs. Shklovsky)

New Synthesis. “Poetic” Montage

 Vsevolod Pudovkin, Mother (1926; 81 min.; 2866)
 Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Earth (1930; 83 min.; 2793)
 Recommended:
Vsevolod Pudovkin, The Heir of Genghis Khan (Storm over Asia) (1928; 87 min; 2798)
(Mark Donskoi, Gorky’s Childhood (1938; 95 min.; 2863)
 FF doc. 72: Pudovkin and Eisenstein (Shklovsky)
 FF doc. 69: The Birth of the Poetics of Cinema (Shutko)
 FF doc. 70: Victor Shklovsky, “Poetry and Prose in Cinema”
 FF docs. 92-93; 105; 109; 111; 116; 120; 129: The Advent of Sound (Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Alexandrov, Meyerhold; Shklovsky; cf. Lotman 94-96)

Cinema and History

 Esther Shub and Sergei Yutkevich, Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927; 66 min.; 2797)
 Georgi and Sergei Vasiliev, Chapayev (1934; 90 min; 2864)
 Recommended:
Sergrei Eisenstein, October (1927; 104 min.; 2556)
Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Arsenal (1928; 2799)
Sergrei Eisenstein, Old and New (1929; 97 min.; 2796)
Sergrei Eisenstein, Que viva Mexico (1930; 2800 English voice-over)
Efim Dzigan, We are from Kronstadt (1936; 88 min.; 2795)
Sergrei Eisenstein, Alexander Nevsky (1938; 112 min.; 641).
 שלמה זנד, הקולנוע כהחסטוריה: לדמיין ולביים את המאה העשרים, תל אביב 2002, עמ' 13-29 (מבוא); 99-136 (פרק שלישי: מאוקטובר האדום ועד קץ האוטופיה – קומוניזם וחזון המהפכה בעשרים וארבע תמונות בשניה).
 FF doc. 140: Socialist Realism: “Vital truth” (Chapayev) vs. “Renounced Documentarism” (Three Songs about Lenin)
HYPERLINK "http://www.ce-review.org/kinoeye/kinoeye38old.html" www.ce-review.org/kinoeye/kinoeye38old.html

Acme of the Soviet Cinema

 Sergei Eisenstein, Ivan The Terrible (1944; 184 min.; 1819.1-2)
 HYPERLINK "http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/איוואן_האיום" http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/איוואן_האיום

The Thaw: Renewal of the Soviet Cinema

 Michail Kalatozov, The Cranes are Flying (1957; 95 min.; 7016)
 Recommended:
Alexander Askoldov, Comissar (1967; 105 min.; 2534)

“The Depicted Time” of Andrei Tarkovsky

 Andrei Tarkovski, Andrei Rublev (1966; 185 min.; 898 Heb / 3267)
 Recommended:
Ivan’s Childhood (1962; 84 min.; 2367/2368)
Soliaris (1972; 165 min.; 898 Heb/827.1-2);
The Mirror (1974; 106 min.; 1717 Heb/860);
Stalker (1979; 160 min.;1778 Heb).
 HYPERLINK "http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/אנדריי_טרקובסקי" http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/אנדריי_טרקובסקי
 HYPERLINK "http://skywalking.com/tarkovskyold/master.html" http://skywalking.com/tarkovskyold/master.html

Late Soviet Cinema

 Alexei German, My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1984; 99 min.; 2581)
 Recommended:
Georgi Danelia, Autumn Marathon (1979; 94 min.; PC Heb)
Nikita Mikhalkov, Urga (1990; 118 min.; 1808 Heb)

Russian Post-Soviet Cinema

 Nikita Mikhalkov, Burned by the Sun (1994; 134 min.; 2791)
 Recommended:
Sergei Bodrov, Prisoner of the Mountains (1996; 99 min.; 4347 Heb/3822)
Aleksey Balabanov, Brother (1997; 95 min.; PC)
 HYPERLINK "http://www.kinoeye.org/archive/country_russia.php#articles" www.kinoeye.org/archive/country_russia.php#articles

Contemporary Russian Cinema

 Alexander Sokurov, Russian Ark (2002; 96 min.; 7290 Heb)
 HYPERLINK "http://www.kinoeye.org/archive/country_russia.php#articles" www.kinoeye.org/archive/country_russia.php#articles

Russian-Soviet Art Animation

 Yuri Norstein, Tale of Tales (PC)
 idem, Hedgehog in the Fog (1975; 11 min.; PC)

Required Reading:
See in the course plan above.

FF &eq; Taylor, Richard & Christie, Ian. The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896-1939. Cambridge MA, 1988.

Additional Reading Material:
Selected printed resources (all on Mt. Scopus)

Bordwell, David, The Cinema of Eisenstein. London, 1993.
Gillespie David, Early Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda, London, 2000.
Eagle, Herbert, Russian Formalist Film Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1981
Eikhenbaum, Boris M. (ed.), The Poetics of Cinema. Oxford: Russian Poetics in Translation Publications, 1982.
FF &eq; Taylor, Richard & Christie, Ian. The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896-1939. Cambridge MA, 1988.
Kenez, Peter, Cinema & Soviet Society, 1917-1953. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Leyda, Jay. Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. Princeton, NJ, 1960 (1973, 1983).
Lotman &eq; Lotman, Jurij. Semiotics of Cinema. Ann Arbor, 1976.
Tailor, Robert (ed.), The Eisenstein Reader. London, 1998.
Tsivian, Yuri, Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception. London – New York, 1994.
Zorkaia, Neia, The Illustrated History of the Soviet Cinema. New York, 1989.

Selected internet resources

Institute of Modern Russian Culture at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles – Russian Cinema: HYPERLINK "http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/IMRC/russianart/cinema.htm" www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/IMRC/russianart/cinema.htm ((articles acc. to film directors).
The Kinoeye archive Russia: HYPERLINK "http://www.kinoeye.org/archive/country_russia.php#films" www.kinoeye.org/archive/country_russia.php#films (articles acc. to film titles).
Russian and Soviet Cinema: Bibliography (maintained by Vladimir Padunov): HYPERLINK "http://www.pitt.edu/~slavic/video/cinema_biblio.html" http://www.pitt.edu/~slavic/video/cinema_biblio.html


Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 20 %
Project work 80 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: