Silent Films
Silent Films Project
British Film Institute's "Sight and Sound"magazine review:
"Nearly a century ago, the beauty of Ukraine was captured by the man with a movie camera...The film was sensitively accompanied by a pair of Ukrainian musicians, Roksana Smirnova on piano and Misha Kalinin on electric guitar. As the piano lines deftly followed the musicality of the film itself, the rhythms of nature and the movement of the people of Kyiv, Kalinin’s guitar brought an expansive range of sounds and textures to this moment of change, captured for posterity. It was the perfect match of music and image; clearly this duo had an affinity for silent cinema, and this film in particular".
read more here:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/long-take-kyiv-symphony
GENERE: The urban symphony is a unique genre that was born in the 1920s when cinema was experiencing its first boom. Then, on the wave of enthusiasm for a new kind of art, films began to appear, documentary in essence, experimental in content and poetic in mood.
The directors sought to look at the life of the city from new and unexpected angles, to create a movie without actors, main characters, or even a familiar plot. They sought to make films in which the city would become the main character, defining the poetics of the film.
So the directors, including Dziga Vertov, Mikhail Kaufman, Evgeny Deslav, Alberto Cavalcanti, Walter Ruttman, Joris Evans, sought not only to convey the spirit of the modern city, but to portray its characteristic features using avant-garde film language - the eclecticism of Berlin, the night magic of Paris or the street cacophony spring Kiev.
SOUNDTRACKS FOR FILMS:
In Spring / Навесні. Director Mikhail Kaufman, USSR (Ukraine), 1929
Earth / Земля. Director Alexander Dovzhenko USSR (Ukraine), 1930
Electric nights / Les nuits electriciques. Directed by Eugene Deslav, France, 1929
Man With a Movie Camera / Людина з кіноапаратом. Directed by Dzyga Vertov, USSR (Ukraine), 1929
Etudes of movement / Études de mouvements. Directed by Joris Ivens, France, Netherlands, 1927
Bridge / De brug. Directed by Joris Ivens, Netherlands, 1928
A game of light reflections and speed / Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse. Directed by Henri Chaumette, France, 1925
Berlin - The symphony of the big city / Berlin - Die Sinfonie der Großstadt. Directed by Walter Ruttmann, Germany, 1927
Cosmopolitan London / Cosmopolitan London. Directed by Harry B. Parkinson, Frank Miller, UK 1920
Manhattan / Manhattan. Directed by Charles Schiller, Paul Strand, USA, 1921
About Nice / A Propos de Nice. Directed by Jean Vigo, Boris Kaufman, France, 1930