Stollery, Martin (1994) Alternative empires : Soviet montage cinema, the British documentary movement & colonialism. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This is a study of Soviet montage cinema and the British
documentary movement of the 1930s which brings together two
usually divergent methodologies: postcolonial theory and "new"
film history. The first chapter develops new insights into Eisenstein's
October and Vertov's The Man With the Movie Camera, The second
analyses two less well-known Vertov films, One Sixth of the Earth and
Three Songs
of Lenin, from the perspective of postcolonial theory,
The third considers Pudovkin's Storm Over Asia and traces its reception
in both the Soviet Union and England. The fourth and fifth chapters
expand general issues and themes raised by the first two, and pursue
specific questions raised by the third. These final chapters resituate the
work of the British documentary movement in relation to the culture
of British imperialism. This shift of focus entails the analysis of the
production and contemporary critical reception of a number
of films which have been marginalised in most retrospective
historical accounts of the movement.
By recontextualising these two groups of films, this study attempts
to demonstrate how their various representations of the non-Western
world are intertwined with and necessarily involve considering other
issues, such as: periodisation within film history; the "influence" of Soviet
montage on the British documentary movement; the construction
of authorship; the division between "high" and "low" culture; the
relationship between politics and film aesthetics; the postcolonial
challenge to Marxism; cinematic internationalism. The first two
chapters also integrate an ongoing critique of certain trends within
post-1968 film theory and criticism, which developed in close
association with a retrieval and revaluation of Soviet montage
cinema and Soviet avant-garde culture of the 1920s, One of the
aims of this thesis is to question some of the assumptions of this work,
whilst at the same time demonstrating that historical research, even
as it attempts to reconstruct former contexts, need not consign its
objects of study to the past, but can be used instead to raise
questions relevant to the present. In this respect, the thesis tries to
remain closer to the spirit of post-1968 than does much of the more
recent, "new" historical research into Soviet cinema and the British
documentary movement, to which it is nevertheless greatly indebted.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Motion Pictures
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Montage, Motion pictures -- Soviet Union, Documentary films -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
Official Date:	April 1994
Dates:	Date Event April 1994 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Film and Television Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Dyer, Richard, 1945- ; Krämer, Peter, 1961-
Extent:	vii, 408, [18] p.
Language:	eng

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