Synopses & Reviews
This history of the turbulent destiny of Kino ("film" in Russian) documents the artistic development of the Russian and Soviet cinema and traces its growth from 1896 to the death of Sergei Eisenstein in 1948. The new Postscript surveys the directions taken by Soviet cinema since the end of World War II. Beginning with the Lumiere filming of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, Jay Leyda links Russia's pre-Revolutionary past with its Communist present through the observation of a major cultural phenomenon: the evolution of the Soviet film as an artistic and political instrument. The book contains 150 drawings and photographs and five appendices, including a list of selected Russian and Soviet films from 1907 to the present.
Review:
Certainly the most important appraisal of Russian film ever made in book form.
Review:
Exceedingly interesting, authoritative and well-documented.
About the Author
Jay Leyda (1910-1988) was a leading film historian and filmmaker who studied directing with Sergei Eisenstein at the Moscow State Film School. He was a correspondent for "Theatre Arts Monthly" and "New Theatre" and an art critic for the "Moscow News". He is the translator of Mussorgsky's correspondence and editor of Eisenstein's "Film Essays and a Lecture" (Princeton) and "Film Form" and "The Film Sense". With Zina Voynow, he wrote and compiled "Eisenstein at Work".
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