Alexander Medvedkin / Emma Widdis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Widdis, Emma, 1970-

Series:

KINOfiles film companions ; 2.

KINOfiles filmmakers' companions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medvedkin, Alexander--Criticism and interpretation.

Medvedkin, Alexander.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

154 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2005.

Summary:

'Today I saw how the Bolshevik laughs,' wrote Sergei Eisenstein after viewing Alexander Medvedkin's 1935 film, Happiness. For him, the film had a place alongside Soviet cinema's greatest works. Some thirty years later, at a retrospective in Brussels, the radical French director Chris Marker had a similar revelation: 'There was an unknown film, made by an unknown, a superb film, as good as Eisenstein - astonishing', he later recalled. Marker was quick to spread the news, and Medvedkin's satirical eccentricity and revolutionary vision made him a cult figure for the young generation of French filmmakers in the 1960s. Even the young Jean-Luc Godard was not immune to his influence.

This, the first English language book dedicated to this most neglected of directors, draws on previously unknown archival sources including Medvedkin's diaries and notebooks, alongside close readings of his key films, to reveal his startling originality to a new audience. Looking particularly at those films which represent the pinnacle of his career - Happiness, The Miracle Worker (1936) and New Moscow (1939) - Emma Widdis traces his complex and fluctuating relationship with the political ideals and realities of soviet art.

While his lifelong commitment to the Bolshevik cause is beyond doubt, Widdis draws out the ambivalence and the contradictions of Medvedkin's work and life and shows how, against the odds, he strived to use comedy - specifically satire - to serve the most serious aims. Giving a vivid impression of Medvedkin's drive, ambition and, above all, his unique vision, she shows how his creative life was marked by the challenges of his commitment to that most capricious of regimes.

Contents:

Curriculum Vitae 5

1 Political Satire 7

2 The Film-Train 22

3 Happiness 35

4 The Accursed Force: A Cursed Film 57

5 The Miracle Worker 69

6 New Moscow 92

7 Journeys in the Lands of Evil 111.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [153]-154) and filmography.

ISBN:

1850434050

OCLC:

56640299

Publisher Number:

9781850434054