Frustrated over the form that Man with a Movie Camera had taken, and stung by the fact that he had been excluded from its editorial process, Mikhail Kaufman (1897–1980) broke ties with his brother and longtime collaborator and released In Spring (1929). This city symphony of Kiev, produced by VUFKU, the Ukrainian film authority, was a follow-up to his earlier solo project Moscow, but Kaufman also intended it to be a direct response to Man with a Movie Camera, and a film that might serve to put the Kino-Eye movement back on track.
Kaufman saw himself as more of a technician and less of a poet than his brother, and he had a preference for clarity and logic. There’s no question that In Spring is a much less self-consciously avant-garde film than Man with a Movie Camera, but it is still a showcase for cinematographic and editorial virtuosity, and it is distinguished by its frequent use of unusual and disorienting perspectives, including extreme high- and low-angle shots and canted angles, aerial shots, and trick shots, split-screen compositions, multiple exposures, time-lapse, reverse-motion, and stop-motion, as well as a conscious avoidance of intertitles. In Spring might not be as frenetic and challenging as Man with a Movie Camera, but it was still highly adventurous and demanding.
As the film’s title suggests, this is not a portrait of one day in the life of Kiev, but instead is a seasonal portrait of the city, documenting its emergence from winter and its embrace of spring. Thus, shots depicting a typically brutal Russian winter make way for shots of the arrival of the thaw, the breaking up of the ice, and flooding, before windows begin to open, spring cleaning begins to take place, and children and young couples venture out into the sunshine. While the theme of spring persists throughout much of the film, the film simultaneously depicts the emergence of a modern, industrialized and revolutionary society, one characterized by its active factories and construction sector, its healthy and active citizenry, and its jubilant May Day celebrations.
Two years later, Kaufman published his most important theoretical work, an essay entitled “Film Analysis.” Here, he described a philosophy of cinema that was very much in line with Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Eye theory, as well as with Kaufman’s cinematography from the time of Kino-Eye (1924) onward, but he used examples from In Spring to illustrate his essay.
Anthony Kinik
further reading
Kaufman, Mikhail, “An Interview with Mikhail Kaufman,” October 11 (1979): 54–76.
Tsivian, Yuri (ed.), Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties (Gemona and Udine: Le Giornate del cinema muto, 2004).
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