Film Chronicle of the First World War: Meanings and Significance

Abstract

The article analyzes newsreel footage filmed by Russian cameramen during the First World War and now deposited in the Russian State Archives of Film and Photo Documents. As a rule, previously all such footage was approached from a historical point of view. At the same time, the emphasis was put on films created by the Skobelev Committee. What seems more relevant nowadays, is the analysis of the footage from the perspective of cinematographic technique and stylistic peculiarities.
This analysis is what determines the novelty of the work. It allows one to compare how battle was filmed in the early days of the war with the dynamism and drama filling the shots by the end of 1916. At the same time, new shooting techniques were mastered. The paper also takes into consideration the content of the film footage. Previously unexplored details and particularities are considered, such as the religious ritual performed during the war in all troops and divisions of the Russian army.
The methodological approach of the study consists in a detailed examination of film documents which are currently stored in the archives - often without a detailed identification of facts, events and circumstances. This makes it possible to reveal the internal logic of the film footage, to attribute unidentified fragments and episodes. The article looks at the ways of organizing filming at the front-line and at those who took part in it, describes the previously unknown fact of the very first shooting made on the South-Western Front in September 1914, and the scandal that followed.
Documents dating back to 1916, found in the State Archives of the Russian Federation, made it possible to determine with absolute accuracy the original montage construction of the film “The Capture of Trebizond” and to identify a number of new fragments in the Archives of Film and Photo Documents related to this film and considered lost. A number of film documents relating to the final stage of the Brusilov Offensive in 1916, known as the Bukovinian breakthrough, have been revealed.
The article comes to a logical conclusion that the skills acquired by the filmmakers provided the effective basis for the innovative practices of the emerging Soviet documentary.