V–A–C Sreda online magazine publishes a special issue timed to coincide with the Festival of Films Regained, which is taking place at GES-2 House of Culture from September 18 to October 2, 2025. This festival presents Russian premieres of major auteur films from the past year alongside a special programme of classics brought back from oblivion.
In this issue, we publish a text by the film scholar Yuri Kungurov. Kungurov reflects on the current state of film criticism — its forms, intonations, and motivations — by drawing on issues of the early film magazine Ciné-Phono and comparing the critical language of the past with the ways we think and write about cinema today.
Artistic theatrical production and cinematography
Moscow, 1 December 1907.
“Like in the cinema!” (From the impressions of a viewer).
“It is said that one important firm proposes to make cinematographic shots of 22 images from Boris Godunov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theatre” (From conversations). If regarding the question of the purposes of art we can count as many opinions as there are representatives of it, then the general views all come down to one thing: the purpose of art cannot be contained by the framework of photography.
After all, if the talent of an artist expresses itself only in careful copying of real reality (decorative), then the artist could immediately be replaced with great success by a perfected photographic appartatus.
Valery Briusov, touching on a production of the Moscow Art Theatre in his lecture “On the theatre of the future,” absolutely correctly pointed out that the merits of the theatre should not be sought in decoration.
This idea becomes especially convincing after you watch Boris Godunov at the Art Theatre. Bright, artistic reproduction of the past of Russian life. 22 brilliantly decorated scenes, quickly replacing one another…
—“Like in cinematography!”—exclaims the spectator, insufficiently captivated by the brief effects of short scenes.
If in this case the Art Theatre was only a perfected photographic apparatus, skilfully guided by the “amateur-photographer” Stanislavsky, then what merit would it have in the field of the evolution of art? Criticism has provided an entirely clear answer to this question.
From conversations, we heard that one firm intended to propose making cinematographic shots of the Art Theatre’s production of Boris Godunov. We do not know how far these rumours have a serious source, but we welcome this idea, which will mark the beginning of a new direction in the field of cinematography and provide the general public with the opportunity to take pleasure in pictures of artistic reproduction of our past.
The rapid technical success of live photography is the best guarantee of the success of these beginnings.
М. А.
Russian press on cinematography
If in general history does not repeat itself, then the history of the development of cinematography in the West, like the evolution of a relationship to it in large numbers of the population, is now repeating itself here in Russia. And the mirror of public opinion—the press—has for us, like in Western Europe, already definitively expressed itself “for and against” cinematographic theatres, considering the question with due attention and seriousness.
Newspapers of all shades of thought, from the symbolic Libra to Alarm Clock have commented on theatres of living photography.
The most serious press has approached the question, first of all, from the perspective of analysis of the reasons that created the favourable conditions for the blossoming of so lush a bouquet of cinematographic theatres.
From this point of view, the passion for theatrical illusion has been defined as a sign of the times, in which the Russian layman wants to tear themselves from earthly reality and, if only for a moment, rise up and forget themselves…
This is how such newspapers Our Monday, the first to raise the question of the soil on which this passion was created, explain—entirely accurately—the passion for cinematography. Then the journal of new thoughts, Vesy, then the moderate Solvo, characteristically, not taking a purely utilitarian approach, addressed the question from the point of view of the refinement that films of a certain type can bring.
We are talking about those films in which the viewer, despite the reality surrounding him, is reminded of the secret places of good and beauty, hidden from the simple, naked eye.
We often fall into hopeless pessimism, longing for the gentle caresses of life, in place of which we receive only rough pushes…
But then suddenly, from the screen, we learn that everything is not yet lost… “A person sees how a dog saves a child and thinks: everything is not yet lost!”
Later, once cinematography had already become a fact of everyday life, newspapers took a practical point of view, considering the question from the perspective of the usefulness of this new form of theatre.
They asked themselves what could be achieved, what cinematographic theatre could bring to the general public.
Noting the generally accepted fact that cinematography serves as a cheap form of entertainment, newspapers point to the wide educational significance of cinematography. They cite films that illustrate the variety of the world, the beauty of nature. Travelogues, like shots of faraway countries in general, significantly broaden the viewer’s horizons. This is also where its pedagogical significance lies. This is how the most widespread and serious Russian press looks at cinematography. But here too, like in the West, voices against cinematographic theatres make themselves heard. But before we enumerate their arguments “against,” we must note that these voices are heard exclusively in such publications as Moscow Leaflet and Alarm Clock.
What do they accuse cinematographic theatre of?
One of the common arguments against cinema is the notorious “fire” hazard. Having accidentally learned about celluloid film catching fire, they seize upon this thought and naively think that cinematography is also to blame in a crush on a narrow staircase. Not taking into account existing fire safety measures in use in cinematographic theatres, they consider fire to be the preserve of cinematography alone.
There were attempts to declare cinematography harmful to the eyes, but here medical experts came forward and denied this danger. Then they began to invent accusations.
Moscow Leaflet announced the danger to which the artist’s art is exposed. Instead of drama played by the best artists, and instead of opera performed by skilful voices, we receive in cinematography only a simulation of both. The screen*has replaced the stage and people, gramophones simulate the human voice.
Yes. And so what? Who is considering the possibility of replacing naturalistic theatre with cinematographic theatre? Both forms of theatres must complement each other, and the development of the new theatre is undoubtedly leading to this. The screen creates illusions and magical sights that the stage cannot provide. The same can be said about the singing machines that simply reproduce the human voice. Then come a series of crude accusations of corruption and even… plunder. “Mind your pockets!” cry the tabloid press. But one can hardly take such accusations seriously, which arise from incomprehensible malice, narrow-mindedness, and impotence?
One can and should talk about the improvement of programmes, the proper setting up of business, criticise one or another cinematographic entrepreneur, but one can’t just blame everything on others.
From the outside.
The introduction of discussion of film into school education. Questions of distribution and censorship. Discussions of the influence of film on “upbringing.” Of film as entertainment. Discussion of the latest rumours and scandals. Remarks on the (highly noxious) influence of film on vision. On the superiority of the quantity of released films over their quality. Texts written under a pseudonym and without an author. Complaints about the existential difficulties of the film press and the absence of financing. Fantasies on the theme of what will be a hundred years from now. The workings of the national film press in 2025? Let’s try rewinding 118 years back in time. And we will see exactly the same formulations (leaving aside archaic letters). We are not talking specifically about the texts cited above: they are proposed as examples of the mood, pathos, and authorial strategy of the magazine in question.
It must be said that we (or, at least, I—refusing to extrapolate the dream to all—but, still, really, I think we) really lack a Russian-language Brief History of Film Criticism. Or perhaps A Brief History of Russian Film Criticism. The Ciné-Phono magazine, first published in 1907, would have a particular place in this history. Let’s open the first issues and leaf through them. And think about what they can give us today.
From the first issue, a kind of programmatic epistle to the reader would appear on the first page of Ciné-Phono. “Serving the general sector of cinematography” for want of a specialised national press on the topic, announcements of the newest practical and scientific discoveries in the field—timid steps in the pursuit of this goal are outlined by the editorial staff from the beginning. “Awakening the attention of those far beyond the bounds of those immediately concerned” designates the audience. To ease the work of cinematographers and unite the “manufacturers” and “demonstrators”—a motto not lacking in nobility is formulated.
This and the following openings of issues can be seen as epistles not just to contemporary readers and colleagues, but also to readers of the future, that is, to readers of our present. This perspective has by no means been thought up by us.
Let us turn our attention to a text from the sixth issue of 1908, “From the diary of a dreamer” (instead of an author, “from the outside” is indicated). The text models reality a hundred years in the future: February of 2008. This is a case in which the fantasies of a text a hundred years in the past have entirely come true today and moved from the realm of fantasy into everyday life. The author of this entirely artistic, science-fictional text—in a film magazine!—describes their amazement following a visit to the Central Station for the Observation of the Earth: you can see what is going on in other cities and countries, listen to life on the opposite end of the Earth—tele-cine-photo-chromography allows you to transmit moving photographs and sound effects from a distance. In general, everything that a tiny smartphone does today without any Central Station. There is a single conceptual difference between reality and this text: the text is run through with the pathos of Man’s achievements, a feeling of his supremacy due to the evolution of technology. This positive feeling can hardly correlate with everyday attitudes today, when man is most often thought of as a pest or a betrayer, and by no means the ruler of the world.
The discussion of technologies not fantasised but already invented anticipated by the first introductory words of the editorial team truly becomes the leitmotif of Ciné-Phono issues. Today, for the reader-humanitarian, the magazine is more an object of history or useful artefact then fascinating reading: these are often texts of technological and mathematical pathos. Let us cite two titles from the first two issues of the magazine: “Relationship between lens, distance of screen from camera, and size of the resulting image” and “The arc lamp as a light source in cinematography”—the latter, actually, was written by an engineer-practitioner. This pathos of the practical necessity of the text extends to retellings of films (the “New Films” section): at first, they are often purely plot-based, without commentary or expression of authorial attitude. Later, the nascent form of everyday criticism would gradually emerge from this—retellings with a note of often sarcastic appraisal—though this element already ran through certain retellings in the first issues. Here, for example, the retelling of Cock Fight in Seville is prefaced by evaluative judgement: “the cruel fun is not without interest,” while here, in the second issue, an assessment of the Waterfalls of Tequendama is given: a “magnificent” shot provides a full picture of waterfalls in “all their magnificent beauty.”…
Is there anything a person who reflects on film on paper today can learn from the authors of the “New Films” rubric, which informed the reader, with all the spoilers, about what was new at Pathé and Gaumont? At the very least, one can examine examples of meticulous immersion in the diegesis of a film. I want to write “accuracy in retelling,” but as a minimum in the case of lost films we cannot check this accuracy. Let’s say: audacity, though of two types. Audacity A: to provide a retelling that is meticulous and aspires to recreate a picture of a film for a contemporary who has not seen the material. Audacity B: to send a message into the future (we will return to the theme of fantasy legitimised in the magazine) for a reader who will perhaps never be able to see the lost film, and will judge it based on the retelling.
Until this point we have avoided or minimised the use of the term “film critic.” Here we will briefly digress from Ciné-Phono as such, and turn to the subject itself. To the nature of reflection on film in the form of text. Today, the question of the vulnerability of discussion of film in the form of text is not infrequently raised—they say that the audiovisual ought to be spoken about in a congenial audiovisual language. That is, film a film about film and, by this logic, avoid a voice-over, act with the help of an exclusively audiovisual narrative. There is logic to this statement—but we will say a few words in defence of the text as such, and of logocentrism in general. These words need urgent discussion.
A person who makes the study of and reflection on film their profession often—and in various circumstances—finds themselves in the tiresome situation of having to justify themselves, frequently of further explaining what they do. This is familiar to literary and other scholars, but in the case of film, the discussion is accompanied by a particular stigmatisation. Let’s assume that there isn’t need for extensive explanation of what a music critic’s specialised knowledge lies in—the structure of a triple fugue cannot be explained without specialised knowledge. Whereas the logic of the structure of film, elegantly appearing to be the most accessible form of encounter with art, can to one extent or another be analysed by anyone. These and dozens of other annoying questions without a single unambiguous answer haunt those who enter the business of reflecting on film, regardless of how they identify themselves: as a film scholar, a film critic, a film journalist, or a film blogger.
Searching for answers to such questions is not very interesting in itself: they quickly become tiresome. It is more fruitful to the think about where the value of this reflection lies, not for effective formulation, not for explanation to another, but for oneself.
Once, the expression used by the music critic Marina Raku in a book on Wagner to explain why the composer of cosmic scale actively and intoxicatedly engaged in criticism struck me as consoling: “one of the most famous composers in human history refutes the everyday, philistine view according to which he who can does and he who cannot teaches (read—“write”). However, this is not enough. We do not know whether the rollicking passages of Wagner’s criticism would be so interesting to us today were we not interested in them in relation to our interest in the figure of Wagner the composer. In film this figure—in terms of scale, odiousness, and cosmos of thought—is best compared to Eisenstein.
In our discussion about the inadequacy of a person reflecting on film compared to a person making film, we propose not to search for consolation, but avoid the necessity of answering. After all, in order to refute the assertion given above “he who can’t do it writes,” one has to refute the everyday (and harmful) belief that “just” writing does not mean to do.
It makes sense to consider reflection on film, on the one hand, as pleasure. The pleasure of embodying audiovisual images in text, of verbalising that which eludes formulation. The delight of accompanying viewing with reading about what one has seen, of correlating one’s experience with that of another, of taking pleasure in coincidence or divergence. Joy in the discrepancy between your personal interpretation or appraisal of a film and the divergent collective opinion repeated by colleagues. The enthusiasm with which one runs a personal blog.
On the other hand, one can just as easily consider reflection on film as an experience of suffering. The primitivity, the unavoidable cliché of the review form, the necessity of searching for the words to retell the plot. The searches for euphemisms murderous to analysis, for safe formulations to denote censored things—to protect, first of all, the authors of the work, who don’t at all need additional critical accent on bold elements. The agony of rereading a text after some time and finding vulnerabilities within it. The other side of the personal blog: the unbearable burden of responsibility for the multiplication of entities, the loss of understanding of how much of the real you remains, or just a mask. The occasional feeling of the pointlessness of one’s own work.
One can audaciously consider reflection on cinema, criticism, or cinema-writing as a coat of armour, as a means defending oneself against the world. As an escapist means of immersing oneself in the laws of in-frame logic, where—in the best and only cases deserving of attentive study—there is far more order and harmony of forms than there is in reality. To take a sharp quill as a weapon, to make a habit of a ruthless attitude to the analysed text.
To the same extent, reflection on cinema can be considered, on the contrary, as a means of opening up to the world. Of finding solace in many-houred discussions of the subject of film, in reflections often more captivating then the experience of viewing. Of comprehending the experience of encounter with film as the experience of searching for one’s own identity. Of indulging a blind OCD, to a lesser degree through grading, giving marks to films, to a greater degree through compiling and joyfully rereading lists of watched films (I hope some readers will recognise themselves here).
Text is not little, and far from “just.” A verbal text on an audiovisual text is a lot contained in a deceptive little. All of this was already prefigured by the early issues of Ciné-Phono, through which it is more interesting today to stroll through, as though through a gallery, then it is to read individual texts. Citing one of them: “everything flows, everything changes. Views change, programmes also change.”
***
It’s hard to pass by such a subtitle. The second magazine of 1907. We see: “Petersburg. Censorship of cinematographers.” We will not deny ourselves the pleasure of citing an extensive extract:
Petersburg. Censorship of cinematographers
The Mayor of St. Petersburg has issued the following order. “Of late, a large number of theatres and cinemas have opened in St. Petersburg, however, it has become clear that in many of them films are not infrequently shown without the required permission. As a consequence of this, I propose that officials keep unrelenting watch over what is shown in these theatres and ensure that those films that do not have a permission signature are under no circumstances shown to the public. I lay the responsibility for the declared order on officials of the Printing House Inspectorate and special assignment district officials.
(Petersburg Leaflet)
There aren’t yet jaw-dropping legal formulations and today’s drama over distribution certificates—but there is a discussion of “required permission,” of observation, and of “permission signatures.” As if by chance in the “News from the Cities” section.
Here the demonstrator Levitov admits that he, unfortunately, is musical, and laments how difficult it is to hear the music at film screenings—and how disappointed he is by the limitations and meagreness of the possibilities of musical material: “in the most powerful dramas depicting the most varied twists and turns of human life, representing the most delicate turns of the human soul, the pianist plays one and the same thing all the time”: you long, the demonstrator complains, for the end of the tedious music, and with it all the film. And is this really so different from the melancholy brought about for the most part by contemporary film music—technically far removed from the labour of the ballroom pianists of silent films, but not having gone far compositionally or structurally.
We presented two texts as preambles. In the first, “Artistic theatrical production and cinematography,” the authorial signature “M.A.” conceals the cinematographer Moises Aleinikov. The second, “Russian press on cinematography” is signed “From the outside.”
The detailed texts from Ciné-Phono, Pegasus, Projector, and other early national magazines are interesting both as artefacts and as independent reading. Often very sarcastic reading, which only became more and more the case over the years: the texts of the 1910s, especially those about film adaptations of pulp fiction, provide a real school of slander. Here the staff reviewer of Projector magazine discusses Alexander Volkov’s film Evil Spirits (1910), based on the eponymous novel by Evdokia Nagrodskaya (reissued, by the way, for the first time in decades in 2025 by the Inspiria publishing house: demand for so-called pulp fiction is inexhaustible, which is quite curious). “Nagrodskaya on the screen, even in the best conditions, cannot be higher then Nagrodskaya in literature. Pathetic trumpery of loud words behind which shallow content hides, cheap aestheticism and demonism adapted to the demands of the market—for the mass reader—these are the foundations of the “creativity” of Ms. Nagrodskaya, of Verbitsky, etc.” Articles of this kind cannot be found in early Ciné-Phono: it is notable for its texts of a more neutral, but not entirely toothless nature.
Moises Aleinikov, reflecting on the interrelations of and differences between the apparatus of theatre and cinematography, knew what he was doing. The future prominent producer, then the secretary of Ciné-Phono's editorial staff, would later work actively on screen adaptations of literature in practice, and here he already formulates a particular programmatic principle.
Rhetorical questions to which one can try to find concrete answers come to his, as well as to the author of the second note’s aid. Are the desires of Russian citizens to “tear themselves from earthly reality” to rise up and forget themselves, directly related to their passion for cinema? Entirely possible. Do film screenings pose a potential physical and psychological danger to the viewer? Undoubtedly. “But you can’t just blame everything on others”—an extremely optimistic, and far from naive answer to questions that seem lightly naive today.
***
Subscription to Cine-Phono is open, we see from the first page of issue 19 of 1908. Subscription for the second year of publication (1908-1909). The introductory article gives two impulses. On the one hand, with palpable bitterness, it announces that it is no longer possible, as before, to send out issues to interested parties across Russia free of charge: the editorial budget cannot stretch to that. On the other hand—joy is expressed and hopes are outlined. Joy at having found an audience and the already accumulated portfolio of specialised articles. Hope for the continuation of activity. And in each further issue, it is promised to enclose a half-page from the book Study of Electricity and Light, Applied to Cinematography; a full theory of these "two main elements” of cinema.
How hauntingly this resembles the position of Isskustvo Kino today, turning to crowd funding. Or Film-critical Notes, released in modest print runs. Consoling in this question are not the print runs, but the quality and causes that live on. Ciné-Phono existed until 1918. And reprints of the journal remained with us and turned out more lively then other pre-revolutionary films.
Later there were different times—and different shores.