Dziga Vertov’s The Man with the Movie Camera

V.I. Pudovkin’s short Chess Fever

Sergei Eisenstein’s first film Glumov's Diary

Los Angeles, Sept. 15, 2017 – The Los Angeles Workers Center and Hollywood Progressive co-present a triple feature of films by three of Soviet cinema’s greats. These movies show that the Bolsheviks had a sense of humor.

According to the esteemed British magazine Sight & Sound The Man with the Movie Camera is the best documentary ever made and the eighth best motion picture in any film genre. Director Dziga Vertov’s wildly imaginative look at a day in the life of Soviet cities, including Kiev and Odessa, is full of mind boggling experimental cinematic techniques that are a sheer delight to behold. Indeed, this dazzling 1929 silent movie seems like a Soviet counterpart to the visual extravaganzas of Hollywood’s silent screen comedies made by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. In Movie Camera Vertov strives to create a completely filmic language. Its radical techniques and viewpoints are the pinnacle of what happened in the new Soviet Union when the artistic and political avant-garde joined forces. See why “Dziga Vertov” translates as “Spinning Top” in this eye-popping motion picture tour de force of pure cinema and movie magic. (68 minutes.)

A year before he directed the full length revolutionary classic MotherV.I. Pudovkin made his fiction film debut with the 1925 short Chess Fever, a comedy about obsession with the board game. (28 minutes.)

Two years before his first feature film Strike, in 1923 Sergei Eisenstein directed Glumov's Diary as part of his stage production of Alexander Ostrovsky's Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man. This is believed to be the first time film was combined with a play. Eisenstein’s playful premiere in the motion picture medium shows he was born to make movies. (4 minutes.)

What: The Man with the Movie Camera; Chess Fever; and Glumov's Diaryscreening; length: 100 minutes.

When: Friday,7:30 p.m., Sept. 22, 2017.

Where: The L.A. Workers Center, 1251 S. St. Andrews Place, L.A., CA 90019.

This screening is the eighth in a monthly film series running through November 2017 to commemorate and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the February and October 1917 Revolutions in Russia, and 1905’s mass uprisings. All 10 films screened during these 10 months are Soviet cinema classics, among the greatest political films ever made. See the entire schedule at: http://hollywoodprogressive.com/russian-revolution/. 

Before each screening at the L.A. Workers Center a speaker briefly introduces each film and filmmaker. After the movie the speaker will make additional remarks, followed by a Q&A. Light refreshments are served. These black and white, silent films, with English subtitles, and musical soundtracks, are screened under imperfect conditions, although this is a chance to see them projected on a big screen. Admission is free, although donations and potluck contributions are accepted. Screenings start at 7:30 p.m. on the fourth Friday of each month. Film historian/critic Ed Rampell, author of Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States, is the series’ programmer/co-presenter. For info: laworkersedsoc@gmail.com.