Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Last Bolshevik

France Chris Marker

Stylized doc on the Russian filmmaker Alexandr Medvedkin, who produced an innovative work - Happiness - in the 20's and then seems to have succumbed to the pressures of the state "security" apparatus and generated pro-communist propaganda for the rest of his life.

That one film was a revelation to the French where he is considered one of the great pioneers of cinema in the same league as Eisenstein and Vertov. He is virtually unknown in the US.

Marker's voiceover was more grounded in this film than in his others and actually helped me understand the subject...instead of spiraling into metaphysics and scrambling my brain.

5

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