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The Russians Are
Coming
Soviet Theatre and the development of Montage
Magic Lantern
• 1646
• Father
Athanasius
Kircher made
drawings of a box
that could
reproduce an
image through a
lens.
• Ancestor of
present day slide
projector.
18th Century
• Showmen travel
across Europe
showing magic
lantern shows.
• Used drawn images
in the beginning.
• Eventually used
photographs.
Phantasmagoria
19th Century
• Photo plays drew viewers to a story just as
film does today.
• Combination of magic lantern shows, live
actors, and photography.
• Some lasted up to 2 hours and told
melodramatic stories.
• Proved the potential of projected film.
Projection Problems
• Projector needs a
powerful light
source to make
images clear.
• Film has to run
smoothly past
this light source
without tearing.
Vitascope
Projector
Persistence of Vision
• The ability of the brain to retain an
image a split second longer than the
eye actually sees it.
• If we see 24 individual images in rapid
succession the brain connects them to
make a fluid sequence of movement.
Toy Makers
• Toy makers used this theory to create
hand held machines that were the basis
of film development.
Zoetrope
• Circular drum
with slits.
• allows moments
of darkness.
• creates illusion
of movement.
• 1834 by William
Horner.
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge
(1830-1904) U.S.
Born in England, he was in the U.S. from youth. A photographer, he
was most interested in capturing "Animal Locomotion," the title of his
summary work.
In 1872, he began his famous series of photo studies, sponsored by
California Governor Leland Stanford.
By 1877, the challenge to prove that at some point in a racehorse's stride,
all four hooves are off the ground was met; Muybridge had produced a
series of quick-exposure photos that captured all moments in the stride via
sequentially-placed cameras, and Stanford had won a $25,000 bet.
Muybridge never produced "moving pictures" himself, but his work was
world-renowned and an influence on many to follow.
Jean Eugène RobertHoudin
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin
(1805-1871) France
The son of a watchmaker, he was "the father of modern conjuring"
(Cambridge Biographical Dictionary).
In Paris, he constructed mechanical toys and automata (robots, like
Disney's animatronics), developed complex magic lantern shows that
featured primitive motion, and performed magic in his own theatre
(later to be purchased and reopened by Georges Melies).
Houdin also inspired a young American magician and escape artist
named Ehrich Weiss to adopt a name in honor of Robert-Houdin-Harry Houdini.
History
The development of the motion picture projector and film stock
allowed the development of film.
Early motion pictures were static shots showing an event or action
with no editing or other cinematic techniques as this series showing
a nude walking demonstrates.
Louis & Auguste
Lumiere
Louis & Auguste Lumiere
(1864-1948; 1862-1954)
France
Invented the Cinematographe, a combined camera and projector, and shot
their first film, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory, in 1895.
December 28, 1895, has been called by some "the birthday of world cinema"-the Lumieres presented a program of 20 short films, projected at the Grand
Cafe in Paris. The program was "held over" for weeks.
Louis Lumiere dispatched photographers all over the globe, with the
combined task of selling Cinematographes, showing films to paying audiences,
and filming newsworthy events and actualities (e.g., "travelogues") to be
marketed worldwide.
Although the Lumiere company did produce some narrative and even
humorous short films, most of its offerings were in the "realist" style, and the
name Lumiere remains firmly attached to the roots of the realist school of
filmmaking.
Cinematographe
• Machine shot the
pictures, printed
them, and
projected them.
• The camera was
portable.
• A hand crank
provided the
power.
December
28,
1895
• First theatre opens
to the paying
public.
• Basement of a
Paris café.
• Lumieres’ show:
• Workers leaving
the Lumiere
Factory.
• Arrival at Lyon.
• A Baby’s Meal.
Film History
» The first audience to
experience a moving film did so
in 1895. The film, by the
Lumiere brothers was called
“Workers leaving the Lumiere
Factory (1895)”
» Their film “Train Entering the
Gare de Ciotat (1895)” caused
people to faint with fear as the
train loomed from the screen
into the theatre auditorium.
» These films did not carry a story
or narrative - they merely
showed a moving image on the
screen.
Georges Melies
Georges Melies
(1861-1938) France
As a child, more interested in art, puppetry, and magic than in
business.
In 1888, he sold his interest in the family shoe business, and
reopened the Theatre Robert-Houdin in Paris, and soon became
famous for his shows of magic and illusion.
When he saw the Lumiere program at the Grand Cafe in 1895, he
begged the brothers to sell him film equipment, but they declined.
He purchased a Bioscope projector from Robert Paul, and began
showing Edison shorts; but soon after, he invented and had
constructed his own camera/projector system.
Although he produced a number of literary films (e.g., Joan of Arc,
1900), he is remembered most for his contribution in the realm of
fantasy, and special visual effects (e.g., A Trip to the Moon, 1902).
Constantin Stanislavski
• Born in Moscow, Russia in 1863.
• An actor and moved on to become a director
and teacher.
• He developed a new approach to acting.
• It took years of experimenting to get to what
is now known as the Stanislavski System.
Stanislavski's System
• As an actor, Stanislavski saw a
lot of bad acting - what he
termed as artificial. Stanislavski
wanted actors to work on
characters from the inside
(instead of the outside) and thus
create more of a "true" or "real"
(i.e. not artificial) performance.
• Stanislavski's thought process
toward acting differed greatly
from the way actors traditionally
approached their roles.
1. Given Circumstances
• The given circumstances
are the character details in
the script - the facts the
playwright gives the actor.
• What has the playwright
told us?
• Location of the play?
• Time/period/year it is set?
• People in the play?
2. Analysis of text through action
• This helps the actor
• What do I (the character)
understand the aim or
do?
the main idea of the play.
• Why do I (the character)
do it?
• In analysing an action,
the actor answered three
questions:
• How do I (the character)
do it?
3. Adaptation
• Adaptation requires the
• Depends on the other
actor to answer the
actors.
questions;
• Adaptation could be used to
communicate the subtext.
• What? (action)
• Why? (aim)
• How? (adaptation)
With respect to an action.
• The function of adaptation is
to allow the actor to transmit
‘invisible messages’ that
could not be put in to words.
4. Units of action & Objectives
• Break the script down into
units (sections).
• A unit (aka Beat) is a
portion of a scene that
contains one objective for
an actor.
• There can be more than
one unit that occurs during
a scene.
• Every unit has an objective
for each character.
• An objective is expressed
through the use of an
active verb.
• Not necessarily what
happens, but this is what
the character is striving for
5. Motivation
• Stanislavski insisted that an • The ‘will’ or motivation is in
actor was either driven by
the subconscious.
emotions or by the mind to
choose physical actions.
• Motivation become
• This in turn aroused the ‘will’ important in realism, it is
of the actor to perform the
based on the subtext and
given actions. Thus, the
any hidden meanings.
‘will’ became activated
indirectly through either
emotions or the mind.
6. Super Objective
• The Super Objective is
the main theme of the
play.
• The subject of the play.
• Everything drives toward
the Super Objective.
• When all the objectives
are strung together in a
logical form, a through
line of action can be
mapped out for the
character.
7. Subtext
• Subtext refers to the
meaning lying
underneath the text/
dialogue.
• The subtext is not
spoken, but is
interpreted by the actor
through, gesture,
posture, pauses or
choices in the action.
• There is a clear
relationship between
Subtexts & dialogue and
between subtext and
objective…
9. Imagination
• The more fertile the actor’s
imagination, the more
interesting would be the
choices made in terms of
objectives, physical action
and creating the given
circumstances around the
character.
• There is no such thing as
actually on the stage. Art is
a product of the
imagination, as the work of
a dramatist should be. The
aim of the actor should be
to use his technique to turn
the play into a theatrical
reality. In this process the
imagination plays by far the
greatest part.
10. The Physical Apparatus
• Stanislavski believed that an
actor’s body and voice is the
physical apparatus that is needed
in order for the actor to fully
express every nuance and subtle
shade of character.
• He saw the body and voice as
‘instruments’ that could be trained
and could help the actor give
shape to an actor.
• The body needs to be trained,
improve posture and make
movements supple and graceful,
with purpose and truth.
11. Magic If…
• In realism where the aim of the
actor is to create the appearance
of reality or ‘truth’ on stage.
• Your character is in a specific
situation. The Magic If answers
the following question: "What
would I do if I were in the same
situation?“
• The situation is not real, and the
system doesn't assume you have
ever been in that situation. But
knowing yourself, what would you
do? How would you act?
• Take the imaginary situation and
make real life decisions as to how
you would behave.
• It's crucial to determine the
• The "If" is very important. This
"do" in the question. What
about your real life experiences, in
action would you take?
combination with your imagination.
…Magic If
• IF I was to be in this
• If you were in a similar
situation what would I do?...
situation…
Thus, the character's
• What would you do?
objectives drove the actor’s • Would you be a coward or a
physical action choices.
hero?
• Would you yell?
• Exercise: You are in a play • Would you hide behind
that takes place at a bank.
someone?
As your character is
• Would you run out?
finishing up with the teller, a
• How would this information
bank robber enters and
help in your character
shoots a gun into the air.
development?
Pre-Revolutionary
Russia
• Only true autocracy left in
Europe
• No type of representative
political institutions
• Nicholas II became tsar in 1884
• Believed he was the absolute
ruler anointed by God
• Russo-Japanese War (1904) –
defeat led to political instability
The Revolution of 1905
• Rapid growth of
working class
(discontented
• Vast majority of workers
concentrated in St. Petersburg
and Moscow
– No individual land ownership
– Rural Famine
Conservatism Continues: • Tsar paid no
attention to the
1905-1917
Duma; it was
harassed and
political parties
suppressed – only
token land reform
was passed
• Nicholas was
personally a very
weak man; he
became increasingly
remote as a ruler
• Numerous soviets
thus began to appear
Alexandra: The Power Behind the
Throne
• Even more blindly
committed to autocracy
than her husband
• She was under the
influence of Rasputin
• Scandals surrounding
Rasputin served to discredit
the monarchy
World War I: “The Last Straw”
• War revealed the
ineptitude and
arrogance of the
country’s
aristocratic elite
• Corrupt military
leadership had
contempt for
ordinary Russian
people
• Average
peasants had
very little
invested in the
War
The Collapse of the Imperial
Government
• Nicholas left for the
Front—September, 1915
• Alexandra and Rasputin
throw the government
into chaos
• Alexandra and other high
government officials
accused of treason
The Collapse of the Imperial
Government
• Rasputin assassinated in
December of 1916
• Complete mismanagement
of the wartime economy
• industry production
plummeted, inflation and
starvation were rampant,
and the cities were
overflowing w/ refugees
• cities became a hotbed for
pol. activism, and this was
ignited by serious food
shortages in March 1917,
esp. in St. Petersburg
The Two Revolutions
of 1917
• The March
Revolution
(March 12)
• The November
Revolution
(November 6)
Soviet Political
Ideology
•More radical and
revolutionary than the
Provisional Government
•Most influenced by
Marxist socialism
•Two Factions
-- “Mensheviks”
-- “Bolsheviks”
Lenin Steps into This Vacuum
• Amnesty granted to all political prisoners in
March of 1917
• A tremendously charismatic personality
• “Peace, Land, Bread”
• “All Power to the Soviets”
• He preached that the war was a
capitalist/imperialist war that offered no
rewards for the peasants/workers; he also felt
the war was over w/ the czar’s abdication
• Bolshevik party membership exploded; their
power was consolidated
Vsevolod Meyerhold 18741940
Biography
• Karl Theodor Kasimir Meyerhold was born in Russia in
1874.
• In 1898 he joined the Moscow Popular Art Theatre; an
establishment with the intention of breaking class
divisions and bringing theatre to the masses as part of
the socialist movement.
• After a successful Bolshevik revolution in 1917 in which
Meyerhold had fought as part of the Red Army, he
joined the party. As an official of the Theatre Division of
the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment, he
took on a prominent role in the production of ‘Agitprop’.
– During his 37 year long career, Meyerhold directed nearly
300 productions.
– TB stalled Meyerhold during 1919, and his career at the
TEO was put on hold.
– 1922 saw the theatre great set up The Meyerhold Theatre,
which explored the furthest boundaries of theatre. The
theatre was to be closed two years before it’s founders
brutal execution.
– No longer a promoter of Soviet values, Meyerhold was
swiftly removed. Arrested on account of murdering his
performer wife, Zinaida Raikh,who was found dead in their
apartment, more likely a victim of a government assassin.
An ill man of 65, Meyerhold was accused of spying for anticommunist enemies as well as various other charges and
repeatedly and violently tortured. It is suspected he was
executed on the 2nd February 1940.
Ideas and Practices
– Much of Meyerhold’s work carries socialist themes, with the
belief that ‘Art cannot be non- political’. (Van Gyseghem)
– Meyerhold believed that attempts at naturalism in theatre are
absurd when a play spanning several years may be told in a
few hours.
-He also tried to break the
traditional sense of barriers
between actors and their
audience, much like the work of
Bertolt Brecht.
-Meyerhold saw both movement
and music not merely as an
accompaniment to realism but as
a means to illustrate the
important aspects of a scene,
such as emotion.
7 Things
1. The emphasis is on the trivial detail
2. It leaves nothing to the imagination
3. The actors rely on facial features not physical
dexterity
4. It results in the actors merely illustrating the
playwright’s words
5. The natural rhythm of the play is subsumed under
surface trivialities
6. The overall shape of the play is lost in the process
of textual analysis
7. The naturalistic aim of ‘reproducing life on stage’ is
itself absurd
Overall
Naturalism
reduced the
expressivity of the
performer
•Instead of using the actor’s body to define a character, Naturalism encouraged what
Meyerhold called ‘reincarnation’- a transformation of the actor into the character using
make-up, costume and voice. In doing so the actor is encouraged to focus on the little
details, ‘trifles of everyday life’ to capture the person they are playing
•Why invest such effort in attempting to disguise the theatre’s own theatricality? Asked
Meyerhold. Why not simply give up the pursuit of verisimilitude?
Stylisation
1. To simplify and reduce something down
to find its ‘essence’
2. To extend the range of expression used
3. To pay particular attention to the
question of rhythm
7 things Meyerhold liked about
the stylised theatre…
1. The emphasis is on the actor, working with
minimal props and scenery
2. The spectator is compelled to use their
imagination
3. The actors rely on physical plasticity and
expression
4. The words of the playwright may be transformed
by the director
5. Rhythm becomes uppermost in the director’s and
the spectators’ minds
6. The look of the work is carefully constructed, like
painting a picture
7. The stylised theatre can produce any type of play
Bio-Mechanics
–
–
–
–
–
Defined as ‘the scientific study of forces and
the effects of those forces on and within the
human body’.
Exercises in bio-mechanics involve prescribed
movements in a sequence to tell a story. There
must be the careful study of the moments
before, during, and after an action, in order to
portray it in simple poses.
‘the whole theme of the play is interpreted in
movement’. (Van Gyseghem)
The bio-mechanics movement was forced
underground after Meyerhold’s execution, but
re-emerged in 1972 thanks to Nikolai Kustov.
Alexei Levinski and Gennachi Bogdanov are
now the only teachers of biomechanics in
Russia
Biomechanics and the actor
of the future
“Biomechanical training might be compared to a
pianist’s studies…Mastering the technical difficulties
of the exercises and etudes does not provide the
student with a prescription for the lyric energy
necessary, let’s say, to perform a Chopin
nocturne…yet he must master the techniques in order
to master his art. Technique arms the imagination.”
(Garin- one of Meyerhold’s most talented actors)
The Fairground
Booth (1906)
• Performers behave as marionettes
• “Help, I’m bleeding cranberry juice!”
• Double-stage/set
• Author as character
Problems raised by Meyerhold’s work
– As with any ground-breaking work, Meyerhold’s theatre
initially experienced problems with audience response. He
was asked to leave the employment of Vera
Kommissarzhevskaya after poor audience response to
‘Hedda Gabler’, in which all the original stage directions
were ignored.
– A modern- day audience would perhaps struggle to
suspend their disbelief in a performance that constantly
reminds them of their setting in a theatre.
– Bio-mechanics is a difficult skill to learn as an actor,
particularly due to little written work having been produced
about it, and there being only two teachers of it now in
Russia. It is seen as a very specialised art form.
Impact on Theatre
– During a time of political revolution, Meyerhold took a
main role in revolutionising theatre.
– The idea of not using curtains to hide the mechanics of
theatre, which was so new to audiences of Meyerhold’s
time, is now commonplace, as audiences often arrive to
see a performance where there is no front curtain
shielding the set from view.
– Despite the complexities of bio-mechanics, use of
symbolism in the form of poses, and choreographed
movement to music as part of performance, are now
commonly accepted forms of theatre.
– Meyerhold’s expulsion from Soviet theatre has shown
how the ancient art form that is theatre, can be used as
a modern form of communication of political and
propagandist intent.
Meyerhold
• I have come to regard the mise en scène not as
something which works directly on the spectator
but rather as a series of ‘passes’, each intended
to evoke some association or other in the
spectator . . . . Your imagination is activated, your
fantasy stimulated, and a whole chorus of
associations is set off. A multitude of
accumulated associations gives birth to new
worlds . . . . You can no longer distinguish
between what the director is responsible for and
what is inspired by the associations which have
invaded your imagination. A new world is created,
quite separate from the fragments of life from
which the [piece] is composed.
Sergei Eisenstein
 Russian film director and
theoretician
 Used the montage
technique
 Had an enormous
influence on the
development of the
cinema.
Eisenstein and
Montage
• Eisenstein called montage “the
hieroglyph of the intellectual cinema.”
• Combinations of shots create what is
graphically inexpressible in a single
shot, just as a single word alone cannot
express what a combination can.
The Eccentric Arts
• An artistic device for pointedly comic portrayal
of reality, consisting of intentional violation of
logic, sequentiality, and interdependence
among the events portrayed and of alogical
(from the point of view of generally accepted
norms) behaviour of the characters, with the
result that the occurrences appear displaced
from their usual positions and receive
unexpected shifted meanings.
• The Soviet Encyclopedia of Circus
MONTAGE OF
ATTRACTIONS
• An attraction (in our diagnosis of theatre) is
any aggressive moment in theatre, i.e. any
element of it that subjects the audience to
emotional or psychological influence, verified
by experience and mathematically calculated
to produce specific emotional shocks in the
spectator in their proper order within the whole.
These shocks provide the only opportunity of
perceiving the ideological aspect of what is
being shown, the final ideological conclusion.
”(Eisenstein, 2009a, p.30)
MONTAGE
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
He distinguished the conflict of:
graphic direction (lines),
shot levels (between one another),
volumes,
masses,
spaces etc.,
close-ups and long shots,
different directions of graphic symbols,
conflict between light fragment and dark.
Eisenstein on
Chinese
Ideograms
• “The combination of two hieroglyphs of the
simplest series is to be regarded not as their
sum, but as their product, i.e., as a value of
another dimension; each, separately,
corresponds to an object, to a fact, but their
combination corresponds to a concept.”
• For example,
• a dog + a mouth = “to bark”
• a mouth + a child = “to scream”
• a mouth + a bird = “ to sing”
• a knife + a heart = “sorrow”
Kuleshov Effect
• Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the
expressionless face of Tsarist matinee idol Ivan Mosjoukine was
alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, a
woman on a divan). The film was shown to an audience who believed
that the expression on Mosjoukine's face was different each time he
appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup,
the girl in the coffin, or the woman on the divan, showing an expression
of hunger, grief or desire, respectively.
• It was, in fact, the same shot repeated
• In Kuleshov's view, cinema consists of fragments and the assembly of
those fragments, the assembly of elements which in reality are distinct.
It is therefore not the content of the images in a film which is important,
but their combination.
The Wise Man
• Actors train in circus skills for two years
• Stage shaped like circus arena
• Entrances over audience heads
• The tray of drinks
• Glumov’s Diary
Glumov’s Diary
Battleship Potemkin
PSYCHO