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[AVANT-GARDE CINEMA] Chelovek i kino: Estetiko-sotsiologicheskii etiud [i.e. Mankind and Cinematography: An Aesthetic and Sociological Study]

Levidov, M.

Moscow: Kino-izdatelstvo RSFSR Kinopechat, 1927. Item #283

112 pp. 13,5 x 17,5 cm. Original illustrated photomontage wrappers. Tiny tears of the spine, Georgian stamp on the title page ‘From books of Nico Mitsishvili’. Otherwise very good.

Very rare. First and only edition. One of 3500 copies.
The constructivist edition by Mikhail Levidov (1891–1942) who was well-known Soviet writer and journalist of 1920s. Levidov was the author of the articles on cinema, literature and theatre. He worked with the avant-garde magazine LEF. In 1926 Levidov devised the ‘Big Five’ of early Soviet cinema consisting of Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Vertov and Room.

This book is about a part which cinema had in the lives of Soviet people and people from capitalistic countries. He also systematized American cinema dividing it into four categories and explain the reason why these categories were unsuitable for Soviet viewers.
Nico Mitsishvili (1896–1937) was well-known Georgian writer and poet, the member of the Georgian symbolist group Blue Horns. He compiled and published in Russian the book ‘Poets of Georgia’ (1922), which included translations of Blue Horn poets by Osip Mandelstam. He met Mandelstam in Batumi in 1920 when he escaped from Civil War to Georgia and was detained. These memories were written in Mitsishvili’s ‘Shadow and Smoke’ (1930). He was also the chief editor of the publishing house of the Russian-language newspaper Zaria Vostoka where Vladimir Maiakovskii and Sergei Esenin worked.

Worldcat locates 6 copies in US libraries (Columbia, MOMa, USC Libraries, University of Illinois, University of Chicago, LACMA).

Status: On Hold