Making Films In Latvia - First Motion

emotional temperature that would be comprehensible without special explanation. For
instance, to film a girl who is writing a letter to her beloved soldier, assistant
cameraman Mikola Gnisuk (Микола Гнисюк) spent several days in a post office often
visited by soldier´s brides waiting for the expression that would be able to transmit the
mood of this situation. Collective analysis of the photographs from the exhibition
“Family of man” helped camera men and assistant directors to understand the concept
of the emotional temperature. This exhibition was curated by Edward Steichen. It was
first shown in Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955 and travelled all over the
world. Exhibition included 503 images made by photographers from 68 countries
Most of the images were dedicated to universal human experiences like birth, life in
different age groups, love and joy. 21 In Braun’s opinion most of them were boiling
with passion and artistry that is an opposition to cool and impersonal approach of
“factual documenting”. Exhibition catalogue was multiplied and given to the
members of the filming group who were supposed to look for the events able to arise
common humane emotions (like feeding an ice cream to the baby or cutting long hair)
and characters that one could easily associate with surrounding people (when filming
the guard of the grave of the Unknown soldier it was important to capture a personal
essence of this young man so that he could remind spectator of a brother, fiancé or
friend). 22 Initial intention to create a panoramic overview of the country transformed
into a group portrait. It is also evident from the metamorphosis of the film’s name. In
the early documents it is called a documentary art film “49 th step”. 23 During the
conceptual stage it was renamed in “USSR – year 1966,” later in “235 000 000 faces”
and finally it became „235 000 000.” This number refers to the population of USSR at
that time.
A minor story line that depicted actual collective events (also known as Sensation
line) was interwoven between the episodes of human life. It supposed to illustrate a
link between people´s private life and common national events. “Story of a Human is
film’s spine, Sensation – an insertion. Cameras have to look for a maximal distinction
between the expression modes capturing intimate, sensual and personal issues of
21
See official website of the „Family of man” exibition at http://www.family-ofman.public.lu/
22
Author´s interview with Uldis Brauns, unpublished
23
Record of the meeting of the creative comitee of Riga Film sutdio issued on 22nd of
December 1965 testifies that application of Uldis Brauns and Herz Frank non-fiction
„49th step” (Худжественно – документальный фильм «49 шаг») was approved.
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