Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties

Lines of Resistanceis a major collection of little-known writings by and about Dziga Vertov, available here in English for the first time. While Vertov's uncompromising writings and his experimental features, such asMan with a Movie Camera, are known and discussed in the West, less is known about the other films he made in the 1920s, and still less about the response they provoked in the Soviet Union and abroad. Vertov liked to call his films and his essays "bombs"-and indeed the public reaction to them was nothing short of explosive. This book follows the development of his work and opinions from 1917 to 1930, and chronicles contemporary reactions to them, including such prominent personalities as fellow directors Lev Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstein, artists Aleksandr Rodchenko and Kazimir Malevich, and theorists Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer. Yuri Tsivian is a professor in the Departments of Art History, Slavic Languages & Literatures, and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. His books includeSilent Witnesses: Russian Films, 1908-1919, andIvan the Terrible.