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The Eleventh Year
1928. USSR. Dziga Vertov. Approx. 52 min.
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Im Schatten der Maschine—Ein Montagefilm
1928. Germany. Albrecht Viktor Blum. Approx. 20 min.
With piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Saturday, May 14, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Theater 2 (The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2), T2
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The Eleventh Year
1928. USSR. Directed by Dziga Vertov. Dziga Vertov, cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman, and editor Elizaveta Svilova worked in perfect harmony to create this visually and rhythmically spectacular film. Made to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the revolution—but only completed in “the eleventh year”—the film charts the excavation of a future river bed for the construction of a giant hydroelectric power station. In 1928, a woefully misguided critic wrote that “by means of extremely complex montage and photographic tricks, Vertov and his cameraman Kaufman achieve the demonstration on screen of almost absolutely nonobjective, abstract movement ‘in its pure form,’ which smells strongly of the idealistic, non-objective ‘Constructivism’ of the Western European Dadaist innovators and their ilk. It cannot be gainsaid that all these quadruple exposures, reverse filming, and so on and so forth, are very pleasant, often externally stunning, effected with great ‘taste’ and skill, but what, besides an easy-on-the-eye ‘spectacle for spectacle’s sake,’ can such an October anniversary film give the viewer?!” Silent. Approx. 52 min.
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Im Schatten der Maschine—Ein Montagefilm
1928. Germany. Directed and edited by Albrecht Viktor Blum. Approx. 20 min.
In the Film exhibition Dziga Vertov
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