EN
“In his Workshop etudes, as in his previous films, Kuleshov had striven to choreograph and encode a kinesthetic drama for the screen, using both his ‘body language’ acting system and his concept of; montage as a system of ‘shot-signs.’ He thrust his actors into an overt dramatic world of somersaults, tricks, leaps, battles, and chases. He mistrusted the cinema's potential for depicting man's interior world; and, indeed, perhaps as some legacy of industrial mechanization, mistrusted the indulgence of any dramatic art that was preoccupied with the ‘interior.’ Now, the need to tackle the acutely psychological By the Law augured a reassessment. If Andreyev's exclusion of the cinema from the ‘inner-soul drama’ was correct, By the Law would seem destined for disaster. On the other hand, if Kuleshov could penetrate the drama of Edith Nelson's struggle to resolve the tension of her doctrinal sense of justice versus her tortured compassion for Dennin, he should accomplish it using the very principles of film theory he had invested nearly ten years in formulating. What Kuleshov's success with By the Law affirmed was that montage, as the syntactic structure of film, dictates no imperatives, no textual substance of its own. It is the very structure of the cinema, the linguistic system as it were, the cinematic ‘code,’ which preexists, as Peter Wollen puts it, the ‘message’ of any given film. Through montage, Kuleshov could draw the viewer into the dramatic space in a way that conventional theater could not do.”
Ronald Levaco
“Comrade Kuznetsov, who worked with me on two films so marvelously, don't you recall how we argued at the start of our work about the horizon line? And later did you not yourself select those shots in By the Law [1926] with the horizon falling along the bottom tenth of the frame, and even shots that were completely without horizon? Now that you are one of the finest Soviet cameramen, hasn't it become easier to work, after you and I buried that good old tradition which was worth about a cent? Let art photographers work according to canons – we shall construct our shots by logic and economy. In the past, a man viewed everything from eye level, from a moving horse, at best from atop a hill. Now, he can observe and perceive from everywhere, and what is more, with variations of speed. Cinematography will assist him in this. The viewpoints of a coalminer or a deep-sea diver are as accessible to the screen as the viewpoint of an airplane pilot.”
Lev Kuleshov
“The cinematograph developed in the following way: first the apparatus was invented (1893–1896), then a few very simple scenes were filmed. Gradually, these scenes improved, which gave rise to ambitions of associating the cinematograph with art – even though the process of creating cinematic scenes was governed by chance and based on nothing. Most arts have such ancient origins that their legitimacy has long been established and they give rise to various interpretations; finally – and most importantly – their criteria and characteristics are evident. As we can see, this is not at all the case with the cinematograph: an art has been born, but its legitimacy still needs to be demonstrated. Since we cannot base our reasoning solely on theory and ignore past experiments or ongoing work, we will attempt to find what is necessary to our undertaking in the very process of filmmaking and in the analysis of the results obtained. Moreover, to facilitate our reasoning, we will begin with the hypothesis that the cinematograph is indeed an art, and that it must therefore possess a means of producing an artistic impression.”
Lev Koulechov
FR
« Le cinématographe s’est développé de la façon suivante : on a commencé par inventer l’appareil (1893-1896), puis on a tourné quelques tableaux très simples, peu à peu les tableaux se sont améliorés, ce qui a fait naître des prétentions à rattacher le cinématographe à l’art, alors même que le processus de création des ciné-tableaux relevait du hasard et ne se fondait sur rien. La plupart des arts ont une origine si ancienne qu’il y a longtemps que leur légitimité est établie et qu’ils donnent matière à différentes interprétations ; enfin et surtout, leurs critères et leurs caractéristiques sont évidents. Comme on le voit, ce n’est pas du tout le cas du cinématographe : un art est né mais sa légitimité demande encore à être démontrée. Comme nous ne pouvons pas fonder nos raisonnements sur la théorie et négliger les expériences déjà tentées ni les travaux en cours, nous essayerons de trouver ce qui est nécessaire à notre entreprise dans le processus même du tournage des films et dans l’analyse des résultats obtenus. En outre, pour faciliter le raisonnement, nous prendrons pour hypothèse que le cinématographe est un art et qu’il doit en conséquence posséder un moyen permettant de produire une impression artistique. »
Lev Koulechov
