44
PARTISAN REVIEW
cinema workers. This he did in a remarkable 'keynote' speech which issued
to the cinema its marching orders for the future.
His main points may be summarized :
(1)
Beauty is to be reinstated. (But it must be "true" and not "false"
beauty. )
(2) The cinema must be "optimistic" . (But beware of "an illusory
optimism that rocks people to sleep" .)
(3) "One of the chief elements in Soviet film style is its true reflection
of life."
(4) There must be more emotion. ("Without love and hatred there
can be no art . . . One cannot separate thought from passion .. . What is
wrong with Eisenstein's theory is that he separates thought from feeling.")
(5) There must be more heroes. ("I once gave an address at the Acad–
emy of Aviation. One of the commandants asked me a question: 'When will
our artists show us the best people of the country?' I answered : 'When
the artists themselves are the best people of the country... ·)
(6) The individual must replace the mass as hero. ("Learn from
Shakespeare, in whose works the epoch becomes a man, the events of an
epoch the acts of a man.")
(7) There must be more Passion. ("One must not be afraid of being
passionate, for, after all, true Party art is truly passionate art." Dinamov
evidently uses the word in a strictly non-Hollywoodian sense.)
(8) The film must be built around the professional actor. ("The film
without a hero was only an experiment. We need actors with great passions.
Without actors we can do nothing. We cannot base our cinema on typage.")
*
(9)
It
is imporant that themes be treated correctly. Under this head–
ing, Dinamov outlined four "main points" : (a) "The first is when it pre–
sents live people." (b) "The second 'point is that one must be a scholar and
research worker." (c) "The third point
i~
that one must have real ideas–
political and artistic courage . . . In this c;onnection, I should like to give
The Youth of Maxim
as an example. This film deals with the history of
the Party. T,aking this tremendous subject, the directors were running a
certain risk, for it was an exceptionally responsible task. The birth of a
Bolshevik is a subject in which political errors are unforgivable." (d) "The
fourth point is that one must limit one's subject in order to deepen it."
(10) "The important thing now is to think about the style of the
Soviet cinema."
51
This sort of first-grade didacticism, expressed in terms so vague as
to mean literally nothing, distinguishes the estheticians of the Kremlin.
Unable even to mention the real political aims of socialist realism, they
must speak in generalities which are not even glittering. It is hard to conceive
the limitless impertinence of delivering such a harangue to an audience
which included the most sophisticated masters of cinema of our time. But
whatever these masters may have thought about Dinamov's twaddle, out-
• 'Typage' means the use of non-professional actors chosen for their symbolic value as
mass types. as the sailors
in Pouttddtl.
the milkmaid heroine of
The General Line.
