Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Early Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda examines the aesthetics of Soviet cinema during its "golden age" of the 1920s, against a background of cultural ferment and the construction of a new socialist society. Separate chapters are devoted to the work of Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Dziga Vertov and Alexander Dovzhenko. Other major directors are also discussed at length. David Gillespie places primary focus on the text, with analysis concentrating on the artistic qualities, rather than the political implications, of each film. The result is not only a discussion of each director's contribution to the "golden age" and to world cinema but also an exploration of their own distinctive poetics.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

The so-called "Golden Age" of Soviet cinema in the 1920s continues to attract the attention of scholars. Gillespie (Univ. of Bath, UK) does not attempt to survey the work of all the most important filmmakers or the changes undergone by the film industry during a period of dramatic social and political change in the new Soviet Union. Rather, he focuses on brief plot summaries of and stylistic comments about the films of the five most famous directors--Eisenstein, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Vertov, and Dovzhenko--and provides brief comments on works by Protozanov, Barnet, and Shub. Despite a few minor errors of fact and interpretation, the volume does a creditable job of sketching the achievements--and the limitations--of these great film artists and the tricky political conditions in which they were obliged to work. This volume faces stiff competition, however. The accounts of the same period offered by David Cook in History of Narrative Film (CH, Jan'82; 3rd ed. 1996) and by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell in Film History: An Introduction (1994) are superior. Nonetheless, the writing is clear and accessible to undergraduates just beginning the study of film, and the bibliography will adequately orient them in the basic literature. S. Liebman CUNY Graduate Center