Film Technique and Film Acting: The Cinema Writings of V.I. Pudovkin (1949–)

“Vsevolod Pudovkin was one of the leading Soviet film directors in the ‘golden age’ of silent cinema in the 1920s. His films – especially The Mother, The End of St Petersburg and Storm over Asia – are classics of silent cinema. Like Eisenstein, Pudovkin was also a major theorist of film. This translation of Pudovkin´s seminal writings brings together his two key books, Film Technique and Film Acting. The essays highlight the development of Pudovkin´s revolutionary thinking on scripts, directing, time, sound, and acting.”

Stanley Kubrick in a 1969 interview: “The most instructive book on film aesthetics I came across was Pudovkin’s Film Technique, which simply explained that editing was the aspect of film art form which was completely unique, and which separated it from all other art forms. The ability to show a simple action like a man cutting wheat from a number of angles in a brief moment, to be able to see it in a special way not possible except through film — that this is what it was all about. This is obvious, of course, but it’s so important it cannot be too strongly stressed. Pudovkin gives many clear examples of how good film editing enhances a scene, and I would recommend his book to anyone seriously interested in film technique.”

Translated by Ivor Montagu
Introduction by Lewis Jacobs
English edition first published in 1949
Publisher Vision Press, London, 1954
xviii+204+153 pages
via FC

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The German Experimental Film of the 1990s (1996) [German/English]

A survey of short experimental films made in Germany between 1990-95.

Der Deutsche experimentalfilm der 90er Jahre
Edited by Bruno Fischli and Carola Ferber
Written by Jochen Coldewey
Translation Martin Robinshaw
Publisher Goethe Institut, Munich, 1996
101 pages

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PDF (68 MB)

Film Culture, 43: Expanded Arts (1966)

This special issue of 1960s New York’s avant-garde film quarterly is an all Fluxus tabloid newsprint issue featuring George Maciunas, Jonas Mekas, Henry Flynt, Ken Dewey, Gerd Stern, Stan VanDerBeek, Robert Whitman, et al.

From the Introduction: “The purpose of this Special Issue of Film Culture, EXPANDED ARTS, is twofold: a) to give to our readers and idea about what’s going on in the avantgarde arts today, and b) to serve as a sort of catalogue or index to the work of some of the artists involved.

This issue started as an index to the artists working in the area of Expanded Cinema. Only as we went along, our original conception changed and we decided to include all the other arts. EXPANDED ARTS – we intend to come out with other issues–will eventually include all areas of expanded performing arts. This issue, however, is dominated by the Expanded Cinema, Expanded Music, Expanded Gags and Readymades, and some Happenings. And not all of the artists working in those areas are represented. Some of them were simply too bnusy to get the necessary information in time. Many are missing; such as Lucinda Childs, Merce Cunningham, Ken Dewey, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Al Hansen, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Ben Van Meter, Robert Whitman etc.”

Contents:
Introduction … 1
Expanded Cinema: A Symposium N.Y. Film Festival 1966, panel members: Ken Dewey, Henry Geldzahler, John Gruen, Stan VanDerBeek & Robert Whitman” … 1
Interview with Ken Dewey by Fred Wellington … 2
USCO. Interview with Gerd Stern by Jonas Mekas … 3
The Blue Mouse and the Movie Experience by Sheldon Renan … 4
To Be Alive! and the Multi-Screen Film by Maxine Haleff … 4
Notions on a New Dance Program by Gregory Battcock … 4
Triptape: An Interview with Richard Aldcroft by Gordon Ball … 4
Mock Risk Games – A Psychological Exploration (June 1961-1966) by Henry Flynt … 5
The Images of Robert Whitman by Toby Mussman … 5
Expanded Arts Bourse … 5
Fluxfest … 6
Expanded Arts Diagram by George Maciunas … 7
Movie Journals by Jonas Mekas … 10

Edited by Jonas Mekas
Publisher Film Culture, New York, Winter 1966
Design George Maciunas
ISSN 0015-1211
12 pages, 56 x 43 cm
via Walker Art Center

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PDF (24 MB)
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