Russian Cinema (History in brief)

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Russian Cinema The first period (silent movie) Russian cinema is a unique and complicated phenomenon in the world cinema industry. Every step of the development of the Russian cinema has his owns specific. In this article we should try to represent the portrait of the cinema of Russia, directly the main ways of development and transformation of the Russian cinema industry. The cinema of Russia began in Russian Empire.

The first séances were exhibited in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1896. The film industry was brought to Russia by the French. Many Russian photographers pretty quickly mastered the technology; two years later began to emerge of their own works. Of course, at first they were a little documentary. Only 10 years, Russian filmmakers have managed to create the first film. Alexander Drankov in 1908 created the first motion picture, which was called «Stenka Razin».

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Drankov Experience began to learn from other filmmakers, creating their own masterpieces. Many of them have become classics of Russian cinema. Among the first creators of Russian film was made by figures such as Yakov Protazanov («Queen of spades») and Eugene Bauer («Twilight of a women’s soul», «The dying swan») and many others. By 1910, the cinema of Russia functioned on a par with the cinema of West. There were quite a lot of movies in different genres – detective, melodrama, comedy, historical and military themes.

The first movie stars had become: Vera Kholodnaya, Ivan Mozzhukhin, Vladimir Maximov. Russian cinema found its face. One of the most important figure in Russian cinema, which were most known outside Russia, is Sergei Eisenstein, the author of the film «Battleship Potemkin», «October» and «Ivan the Terrible». Eisenstein had created large scale, massive movies about historical processes and about the relationship of a man and a government. Eisenstein had developed the theory of the montage, which used as Russian filmmakers and European and American filmmakers. This theory called the intellectual montage, which based on symbolic bonding of the episodes.

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The second important name in first period of the cinema of Russia is Dziga Vertov and his movie «Man with a Movie Camera». There was an experiment with cinematographic forms. It was the movie without actors, scenario, decorates. The plot is about the one day of life of the city. Dziga Vertov had represented the anthropomorphic image of the city. The city had a heart and mind. This effect had achieved through special methods of filming, eccentrics episodes (for example, the scene of birth) and principles of montage. In 1931 in Russia had appeared the first sound movie «The start in life» by Nicolay Ekk.

This occurrence signaled the end of the silent movies in Russia and the beginning of the new wave of history of the cinema of Russia. The first period of the cinema of Russia is special and important time, because it was the period of formation of Russian movie: the birth of the individual style, innovation of the cinematic techniques and transformation from the ordinary documentary films to special forms of art.

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By Evgenya Tokareva