Friends, Romans… The “great work” has finally come to a conclusion: my translation of Esfir’ Shub’s My Life is the Cinema is now available through Sticking Place Books. This is the first complete translation of her memoir, statements, unrealized projects, and correspondence (as they appeared in the 1972 Russian Edition of her work) with a couple of letters between her and Alexei Gan, which—to my knowledge—have never before appeared in English. It includes images you have definitely never seen previously. It also includes an essay by me entitled, “She’s no Dziga Vertov,” about her relationship with Vertov as frenemies in the world of soviet non-acted film and the fallout from that relationship in the historical evaluation of her work.There is also a critique of what is sadly the only monograph yet to appear on Shub, though other ones and possibly better ones appear to be in the offing.
In case her name does not ring a bell, Shub is the filmmaker behind Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, one of the first feature-length compilation documentaries, i.e. a film made of other films. She is also the director of one of the earliest Soviet Sound Films, KShE, among other films and one of the few women of the era to achieve the status of director/author for her work. Oh, and she is the one who taught her friend Segei Mikhailovich Eisenstein the fundamentals of editing. Further information can be had by clicking on the link below: https://stickingplacebooks.com/books/my-life-is-the-cinema My Life is the Cinema stickingplacebooks.com https://stickingplacebooks.com/books/my-life-is-the-cinema Please consider institutional or individual purchase. It’s available through Amazon, but it’s cheaper if you go through the Sticking Place website via Ingram, who prints locally in the US and the UK. I’m not sure if Ingram ships to Europe, of course the dreaded Amazon does. If this mass-email is an annoyance, let me know and I will try to remove you from any further mailings. Due to record keeping anomalies you may receive this or a similar announcement more than once. Apologies in advance are in bad taste, so I will reserve them for an offense committed. Onward! Keith Sanborn -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: https://www.nettime.org # contact: [email protected]
