Without Veretov

For a long time lost and found recently, in 2005, the film by Mikhail Kaufman-brother and permanent operator Dziga Vertov-completes the program of silent Soviet cinema in the Museon Art Park tomorrow, August 12. Living musical accompaniment is an acoustic embossed Rafael Anton Irisarry.

“A student of Gik, shoots cinema and photo, knows a car business, familiar with electrical engineering, blacksmith and locksmith work, is inclined to experiments,” wrote Jiga Vertov in the characteristic of Mikhail Kaufman. Three brothers from the modest Polish place Bialystok: David (Dziga), Boris, Mikhail. And each in his own way went down in the history of cinema. Mikhail became famous for the operator work on the films of Dzigi Vertov. You look at the Vertov masterpieces and are perplexed: where is the operator, where is the director? So inextricably linked in them the plan with embodiment. Communist decoding of reality, according to Vertov himself. And if communism is the Soviet government plus the electrification of the whole country, then “spring” is the operator work of Kaufman minus electricity - the Talent of Vertov.

What remains? Oh, this Kaufman was also a daredevil! At school, he fell for the fuss with the camera in the lessons. And when he grew up, he ran with the camera racing, taking off his skiers, not the shore of his heart, worked in hot workshops so close that the metal burned holes on the skin with drops. Having quarreled with the helicopter, I decided to prove that it might not worse make a non -heating film without words. An amazing thing! The operator who played a man with a film equipment in the film of the same name, himself disliked his work: “... I consider a“ person with a movie camera ”of our creative failure. <...> Already in the process of working on the film, I felt that our plan is not realized. After the selection of facts in the film, chaos remained again. From my point of view, not a single episode in which the idea was clearly expressed was built. ”

So said after the release of the film and many modern critics. Not soon Mikhail Yampolsky will write an article about the helicopter with the eloquent name "meaning in the world."

Well, Kaufman has its own meaning and its own world. His own joy of little discoveries. Thalai water runs in streams, runs, runs, “runs two parts” (as they joked about Dovzhenko). People work: a blow, another blow. Here is a cat on the window, here is a dog in a boat. A little tedious accumulation of homogeneous materials. A blow, another blow. How does the kaufman not enough for a solid director's hand, how there are not enough scissors of the Swilova installer!

But his camera lovingly peers into the smallest details, whether it be the blooming of the kidneys, birds in the nest or snails crawling around the tree. This was written by Nikolai Ushakov in the book “Three Operators”: “The snail of Kaufman is beautiful as Greta Garbo, and the battle of ants for the cocoon is perceived as a tragedy.” Kaufman does not have this titanic desire to embrace the whole world, to express inexpressible. He is the creator of small forms. Even the Church, which he removes, turns out not by a building - a layout. And all cash reality is easily placed in a pocket. Grachikha tamed that so that he was not afraid of the camera. It doesn’t matter that non -partisan!

So in 1929, Vertov was explained at the discussion of the film “spring”: “Regarding the pigeons that they are not all in the Communist Party. We are not going to emasculate reality so that everyone resolutely has a picture of a photo with a signature. We take into account the overall set of exposure not in the frames, but between the frames. If this picture completely and completely caused you aversion to religion, to how the celebration of religious holidays is furnished, and at the same time satisfaction, the joy of the fact that the youth, which is coming with the spring, is vigorous ahead, then this picture is justified a thousand times more than the game paintings, and in response to the accusation, I would ask for what kind of game picture can be presented with what game picture can be presented as a game picture as a game picture Reply to all the requirements that you are making? ”

Kaufman really has no revolutionary transformation of reality. Vertovskoye “it became”, “and you, sitting in this hall” - is not all about him. His world is full of joy simply from the fact of his being. From puddles, from brilliant icicles, from a couple walking along the boulevard. And there was an evening, and there was a morning: and he saw that it was good.