Three Songs About Lenin

Dziga Vertov's 1934 documentary uses three folk songs sung in Soviet Central Asia as its skeleton. Each song is a section: darkness under the veil, Lenin's death, and the construction that follows. Vertov has set aside the formal play of Man with a Movie Camera here for something more direct and more emotional. The film's own history is as interesting as its content. Vertov was made to re-edit it in 1938; references to people by then declared enemies of the people were removed, and images of Stalin came forward. A further edit in 1970 took that Stalin material back out. Which version you watch today depends on whose hands the film passed through. In that state it shows two things at once: how powerful the Soviet propaganda aesthetic of the thirties could be, and how the same material gets rewritten to fit political need. Who it's for: those interested in Soviet cinema and the history of propaganda. Who it's not for: viewers who expect neutral information from a documentary; this is the construction of a political cult from beginning to end, and it does not hide that.