ABSTRACT

Now we have NEP. In film circles people have been waiting a long time for it. They have waited to organise 'production' because it is very profitable. 'Cinema' was and is considered to be one of the easiest and surest ways of making money. Before the Revolution even the largest film studios were backward. In the period of general collapse they were ruined. They are trying to 'repair' them but they will be worse repaired than they were before they were ruined. If, a few years ago, they were significantly less well-equipped than less backward foreign studios, now that they have been restored their backwardness in comparison with the new foreign studios will be as great as it could be. Even if we suppose that we can find directors who are well aware of how to make a film, people who can pose very well in front of a camera, and cameramen who can film adroitly and painstakingly, the poor technical equipment of the studios and laboratories, even life itself, will still place production for the time being within the very narrow confines of the NEP economy, NEP transport and NEP life. We cannot guarantee now that one day you will turn up in the right place to shoot, get everything you need and have everything you require. Consequently if film studios do come into being they will be compelled to construct their work along chamber lines. Shooting a chamber film in cinema is like driving a powerful racing car to get some milk from a dairy that is two doors away. Chamber cinema is like firing a salvo from the heavy artillery of a fortress to kill a flea that is sitting on your sleeping friend's forehead.