The historic first public cinema screening of The History of the Civil War (1921), long-lost sophomore film by Russian master Dziga Vertov, in Amsterdam’s Tuschinski Theatre, was a glorious event and an archival triumph, if at times somewhat slow. That said, uninspiring scenes of parading soldiers were offset by an excellent live score, striking war footage and scattered hints of Vertov’s later genius.
A triumph of filmmaking over censorship. That is how Orwa Nyrabia, artistic director of IDFA, introduced the first public presentation ever of Dziga Vertov’s second feature documentary, 1921’s The History of the Civil War (Istoriya graždanskoi voiny), long presumed lost. Vertov had made the film as a young man, one hundred years ago, but it had never before been screened publicly in a cinema.
The film had only been shown once at the 1921 World Congress of the Comintern to an audience of Communist officials and concurrently outside, on the streets, where presumably few passers-by watched the film in its entirety. It is possible, even likely, that political decisions determined the pulling of the movie. In fact, many of the Communist leaders seen in the documentary would fall from grace soon after.
Nyrabia garnered applause in Amsterdam’s sold-out Tuschinski Theatre when he declared, “Let’s hope it is filmmaking that will outlive censorship. And not the other way around.”
There are other factors than censorship to be considered, though. Vertov’s film presents a rough and chaotic picture of the Red Army’s advances in the Russian Civil War and, as the propaganda film it was supposed to be, might simply have been deemed a failure. Another possibility, mentioned during a post-screening Q&A with Russian film historian and archival specialist Nikolai Izvolov who worked for two years on the film’s reconstruction (after having already rediscovered and restored Vertov’s 1918 debut feature Anniversary of the Revolution, presented at IDFA in 2018), is that Vertov himself, who often reused scenes from one movie to the next, cut up what might have been the only copy that was made. As we know from his diaries, Vertov himself could not find an intact copy even in early 1930s.
And a third factor might have been that the film – at least, as it seems to this modern viewer – is at times rather sluggish and longish. Originally it was even longer, but some parts remain lost – including scenes with Joseph Stalin. We do see Leon Trotsky firing up the Bolshevik troops (“Trotsky liked to be shot very much,” Izvolov explained earlier to Business Doc Europe). But we also get a lot of repetitive shots of marching troops, burnt-out buildings, and people hanging around. Although there are cinematic flourishes throughout, most of The History of the Civil War feels more like a newsreel than a fully-fledged feature from the genius who, a few years later, would give us Man with a Movie Camera(Chelovek s kinoapparatom, 1929), named best documentary of all time by the authoritative Sight & Sound poll.
The absence of the Stalin reel, plus the element of interpretation (given how, as Izvolov explained, the reconstruction of the film was partly based on secondary sources, including journalistic reports) mean that this cannot be called the definitive version of The History of the Civil War. But it might be the best we’ll ever have.
Which determined that the projection of the film at Amsterdam’s Tuschinski Theatre, also exactly one hundred years old (and recently voted the most beautiful cinema in the world by Time Out magazine), was a glorious occasion. Any rediscovered film by the great Dziga Vertov is a sensation for cinephiles. And equally fascinating for historians, not only of cinema but also of the Russian Civil War. Vertov travelled extensively for his film and recorded devastation across the region, visiting the trenches of Crimea (which resembled Verdun, according to the intertitles), portraying Red Army soldiers steering captured English ‘tanks’ (a brand new technological marvel which, as the intertitles proudly announce, they quickly learned to operate), and turning up at various places near the front.
Vertov’s camera immortalised ruins still smoking, buildings recently collapsed, vehicles destroyed, and people killed in the streets, as well as soldiers lingering further away from the frontline. An excellent live score by The Anvil Orchestra, alternately martial and mournful, with rousing percussion, intimate piano and harmonica, and a sorrowful musical saw, did much to heighten the drama, and also to ease the audience past the less captivating parts of the movie.
One of the big questions beforehand, of course, was: would The History of the Civil War hint at Vertov’s later masterpieces? Would we see any foreshadowing of the sensational stylistic inventiveness and extreme experimentation of Man with a Movie Camera? Well, yes, maybe, but these are at best “modest attempts,” as Izvolov admitted. He noted some experimentation in the editing, for example. Vertov at one point uses an iris shot, but for no apparent reason. Another time, he applies the classic binoculars frame.
Sometimes Vertov approaches the soldiers in medium shots and close-ups, creating a more intimate and energetic sense of presence, although mostly he stays at a distance. There is some movement of the camera, mostly minor adjustments (although an 180-degree pan of the landscape impresses), plus a handful of shots from moving vehicles, including a ship at sea. A shot of soldiers departing, while beneath them, on the side of their ship, we see the shadows of soldiers who remain waiting on the quay and outside the frame, has a more formal and symbolic beauty, but could just as easily have been a happy accident.
But some stylised shots from inside a relaunched metal foundry do impress with their stark contrasts and clear composition. And another shot, of a ship’s cannon filmed head-on from the ship’s bow, surprisingly seems to foreshadow Sergei Eisenstein’s iconic and similar shot in Battleship Potemkin (1929). Except that in Eisenstein’s case, the cannons are triumphant. In Vertov’s film the ship is burning.
The History of the Civil War features many fires and explosions, war machinery and victims, which convey something of the horrors that took place one hundred years ago. But the film comes much more alive when it focuses on individuals. There is a relatively long scene in which a soldier, who is lying on the ground and at first seems deceased, unexpectedly moves and then gets helped by a medic. There are shots of soldiers getting a haircut and shave on their day off, where the eye automatically starts to wander, picking out one soldier, then another, and thus lifting them, for a moment, out of historical anonymity. There are also animals who simply walk through the frame, blissfully unaware of any historical significance at all. And then there’s the little girl, peaking out from between a line of soldiers and immediately being pulled back. For a moment, it made me consider the small chance that she, or some other small child in the crowds, might actually still be alive.
The History of the Civil War is clearly a propaganda film, lauding the decisions of the Central Committee, denouncing the White Army, and warning members of their own troops not to disobey orders (of which Bolshevik commander Mironov is accused during a longish court scene). Some scenes might have been partly or wholly staged, such as when troops, supposedly at the frontline, are crossing an open terrain towards some windmills, silhouetted picturesquely on the horizon. But as in any documentary, life cannot help but intervene. See the attractive commander with his big grin, flirting with the camera while shaking up his bountiful curls. He still connects directly with the audience, raising a smile after all these years, even though he must have passed away decades ago – if not the following day.
In the end, the presentation of The History of the Civil War was to me above all an archival triumph. Of rediscovering what seemed lost. Of fighting against time, against disappearance, against oblivion. And against the forces that keep pressing for cuts in cultural budgets whenever they get the chance. How wonderfully appropriate then to premiere this restoration in the Tuschinski, itself opened in 1921 and thus just as old as Vertov’s film, and also recently restored. With its shared sense of historical significance, of safeguarding cultural artefacts for future generations, it was the perfect location for the rediscovery of The History of the Civil War.
The History of the Civil War will get an extra screening November 24, 2021. Check IDFA.nl for times and tickets.
Soviet-Union, 1921, 94 minutes
Director Dziga Vertov
Restoration Nikolai Izvolov (2021)
Production Grinberg Brothers (2021)
Producer Konstantin Grinberg Vertogradsky (2021)
Script Dziga Vertov
Music The Anvil Orchestra, featuring musicians Roger Miller and Terry Donahue (2021)
With Leon Trotsky, Ivar Smilga, Fyodor Raskolnikov, Larissa Reissner, Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny, Sergo Ordzhonikidze
