This article discusses the biography and work of Lev Kuleshov. During his life, he managed to be a screenwriter, teacher, doctor in the field of art history and a national artist of the Soviet Union. In addition, he played a significant role in the study of the specifics of filming and the development of the art of editing.
Basic data
Lev Kuleshov lived a bright and colorful life full of events. He repeatedly published autobiographical books, the most famous of which were “The Art of Cinema” and “How I Became a Director”, as well as a number of articles in the journal “Herald in Cinematography”, the main purpose of which was to convey to the readers his artistic experience.
In his works, Kuleshov was of the opinion that the actor and the scenery are of equal value, and in most cases the latter play an even more significant role. Therefore, the main figure in the process of creating a movie is not even a director, but an artist. That is why if the director does not have sufficient artistic skills, then he can never create a decent job.
As an example, Leo cited the case when a white hairpin on a maid’s hairstyle spoiled the whole impression of the game of actors playing surrounded by black velvet decorations. He believed that cinema is primarily a visual, spectacular art, so it was the artist-director who should play a major role in creating the film.
Study
Like his father, who died in 1911, Leo early felt a craving for beauty and became interested in fine art, but Lev Kuleshov could begin to study it closely only after he moved to Moscow with his mother and brother in 1914. There, after a repeated visit to an art studio, he decides to learn how to draw as well as great artists, and for this he begins to take lessons from artist-teacher I.F.Smirnov. During the training, he managed not only to instill in Leo a love of classical painting, but also to teach to distinguish outstanding works from amateur ones. It was on the recommendation of the teacher that Kuleshov also read his first books of a political orientation, for example, The Capital by Karl Marx and the works of Lenin and Plekhanov.
After completing individual studies, he enters the famous Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where not only his father, but also the famous Vladimir Mayakovsky, who graduated a little earlier, studied earlier. It is noteworthy that Kuleshov later developed strong friendships with him.
A family
No one in the family even suspected how prominent a man Lev Kuleshov would become, whose personal life was filled with a mass of events. He was born on January 1 (old style) in 1899 in Tambov. His father, Vladimir Sergeyevich, came from an impoverished noble family. At one time, disobeying his parents, Vladimir goes to study fine art at the same Moscow school, in which his son Lev will continue to study.
After graduating from it, he, unfortunately, could not start a career in the field of painting and entered the more than modest position of a remingtonist in the Tambov Territorial Administration. In fact, he combined two positions at once and was both a clerk and a typist at the same time. At the same time, the desire for creativity prompted him to start drawing in his free time. Lev's mother, Pelageya Alexandrovna, bore the surname Shubin in girlhood. She spent her childhood in an orphanage, after graduation from which she worked as a teacher in the village until her marriage. It is noteworthy that her portrait, made at one time by her father, still hangs in the apartment of Lev Kuleshov. It is noteworthy that Kuleshov had an older brother Boris, who died during the Second World War.
Passion for the theater
Like most creative personalities, Lev Kuleshov did not pass the hobby for the theater.
While still a student of the artist-teacher I.F.Smirnov, he was able to get the job of creating the scenery for one of the acts of the play "Eugene Onegin" for the Zimin Theater, but for independent work in the Kuleshov Theater, which was not yet known in creative circles, so no one invited. That is why, despite all his efforts, the dream of theatrical activity never came true.
Carier start
Kuleshov Lev Vladimirovich first encountered film activities in 1916, when he managed to get a job as an artist-decorator at the film factory A. Khanzhonkov. Not the least role was played by the patronage of the mother of one of his school friends, who introduced Leo to the film director A. Gromov, who already helped him get a job at the film factory. It was here that the young man's talent managed to unfold in full force. Under the leadership of director Eugene Bauer, whom he met at work, Leo quickly learns the basics of a new profession. In one of his autobiographical books, Kuleshov mentions that working with Bauer was significantly different from working with other directors, since he did not limit Leo’s work in any way, allowing the young man to fully reveal his talent.
Later, while working with other directors, the manner of execution of Kuleshov acquired a more masculine character. Despite the fact that at that time he was only 18 years old, he was already gradually beginning to take the first steps to develop his own style when making films with decorations.
First successes
Despite the existence of his own theories in the field of filming, Lev Kuleshov, whose films will be extremely popular in the future, remained primarily a practitioner. So, at the beginning of his career, he staged a joint film with the director V. Polonsky, which was called "The Song of Love Unfinished." However, unfortunately, the film of this film has not survived to the present day.
In 1918, he puts on his own film, entitled "Project Engineer Priest." Unfortunately, this work was preserved in fragments, but the name Kuleshov is mentioned twice in the credits: both as a director and as an artist. He tries to display ordinary strong and healthy people who live in the real world, so most of the actions in the film were shot at factories, train stations and educational institutions. Shortly after this film was released, Kuleshov got a job in the film department of the People's Commissariat for Education as the head of the film editing section and part-time director of newsreels.
The most famous films
The events unfolding on the political front in 1918-1920 were reflected in the films that Lev Kuleshov shot. His filmography is extensive. The most famous chronicles:
- "The autopsy of the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh."
- "Revision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the Tver Province."
- Ural.
- "The First All-Russian Subbotnik."
Between the filming of the films “On the Red Front” and “The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Bolshevik Country, ” Kuleshov, who managed to successfully establish himself as a director, manages to create his own film workshop, write a number of articles and work as a teacher in a state film school.
Awards
Despite the fact that Lev Kuleshov shot many of his own films, his real creative take-off occurred only at the end of his directorial career:
- 1933 - The Great Comforter.
- 1942 - “The Oath of Timur” according to the script of A.P. Gaidar.
- 1943 - “We are from the Urals”.
In 1941, Kuleshov’s capital work was published under the title Fundamentals of Film Directing, which was translated into many foreign languages and had a significant impact on the development of the cinematic process.
After that, Leo decides to devote himself entirely to teaching at VGIK in order to be able to teach young directors the art of making films.
Kuleshov effect
If anyone was able to directly influence the technology of shooting films, it was Lev Kuleshov, the installation of which for the first time made it possible to combine separately captured fragments from each other in combination with the face of a person who allegedly was experiencing and comprehending a number of different emotions. In the cinematic world, this concept is called the “Kuleshov effect”.
A later interpretation of the effect was that the sound sequence was superimposed on the visual, and that, in turn, was polyphonic and, depending on the color, expressed its content differently.
