The hand that turns the handle: camera operators and the poetics of the camera in pre-revolutionary Russian film

This article seeks to chart the evolving nature of the camera operator's function at a time when Russian cinema was facing the challenge of self-definition, not only in relation to other art forms, but also in relation to world cinema. It will challenge the conventional notion of the cameraman as merely a ‘hand that turns the handle’, a technician (if not automaton) who was responsible only for the correct speed of shooting and exposure of the print. If camera operation started out as a rudimentary craft, one that was nevertheless valued because the mechanisms of the cinematograph were little understood, it rapidly became an art-form as the language of silent cinema acquired sophistication. This article will analyse the evolving nature of the relationship between the director and the camera operator, and the development of certain conventions which pertained to the role of the camera and controlled the expression of dramatic ideas in visual form. It will also seek to identify the reasons for a number of major aesthetic shifts which took place in Russian cinema during the period concerned, and the importance of the visual arts—in particular painting and still photography—in determining those shifts

Anvil of Ceres: The Confederate Foundry at Waller Creek

Waller Creek Working Grou

Empirical regularities in the poverty-environment relationship of African rural households

Analysis of rural households and environmental resources is beset by inadequate data, especially in Africa. Using purpose-collected panel data from Zimbabwe, we demonstrate seven empirical regularities in the rural poverty-environment relationship. Most importantly, environmental resources make a significant contribution to average rural incomes. Poorer households also depend heavily on these resources, which contribute c.40 percent to their incomes. However richer household use greater quantities of environmental resources in total. Finally, considerable differentiation exists in the economic characteristics of environmental goods. These results demonstrate the considerable economic significance of environmental resources to rural households. Surveys which ignore them miscalculate rural incomes and welfare.Africa; Zimbabwe; Poverty; Rural Households; Environment; Common Property Resources

Poverty, inequality and environmental resources: quantitative analysis of rural households

Rural households have been suspected to rely heavily on goods and services freely provided by environmental resources. However, there has been no adequate quantitative analysis of this issue due to a lack of appropriate household data sets encompassing economic and environmental data. We use a purpose-collected 213 household data set from rural Zimbabwe to investigate the impact of incorporating this missing source of household welfare on quantitative analysis of the measurement and causes of rural poverty and inequality. Incorporating environmental income in the household accounts results in dramatic and significant reductions in measured poverty, 50 percent or more over income as conventionally measured. Environmental income is also strongly and significantly equalising, bringing about roughly a 30 percent reduction in measured inequality. So access to commons resources has a substantial impact on poverty and inequality. However, including the value of environmental utilisations leaves analysis of the causes of rural differentiation unchanged: these resources do not alleviate the poverty trap.

Winter for Purehearts

The worst judicial opinion ever written issued from Florida on an anonymous day in 1864. The opinion discussed slavery. More accurately, it cherished slavery—lionizing the then extant practice in the way the British sing of the sea. As a legal precedent, it was a dangerous opinion because it was presented as something basic, fundamental and inexorable, something not to be questioned. It was dangerously simple when conveyed to accepting minds in the way a cold knife is dangerous in angered hands. The opinion, Miller v. Gaskins, is a vital study for researchers surveying the lines of human fallacy that in the American past have demarcated those regions of thought where the pretense of law dissolves real legal foundational principles like freedom and justice. Improbably, this article is the first ever to study it

A Phenomenological Study of Military Veteran Student Attrition at Western Virginia Community Colleges

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experience of “discontinued enrollment” for military veteran students at western Virginia community colleges. The theory guiding this study was Schlossberg’s (1981) transition theory, as the military veteran students were in transition from the military to the community college. The research questions were, how did military veterans describe their experiences at the community college, and what factors did military veterans identify as influencing their decision to discontinue enrollment? The methodology chosen was transcendental phenomenology which followed a focused structure and data collection methods including interviews, a questionnaire, member checks, and collection of related documents. The study purposefully selected United States military veterans with at least 12 consecutive months of active-duty service, who were in transition after September 11, 2001. These military veteran students subsequently enrolled full-time at a western Virginia community college and discontinued enrollment. Data analysis was structured but emergent, beginning with theme development and followed by coding to develop and describe the “essence” of the participants’ experience and their influences at western Virginia community colleges. The research found discontinued enrollment was a result of peripheral v. primary goal disagreement, insufficient preparedness for community college, and a lack of social connectedness

'Superior to Disney': Colour Animation at Lenfil'm, 1936-41

This article examines the phenomenon of colour-film animation at Lenfilm during the period 1936–1941. It discusses the development of colour technologies at the studio during the 1930s and the ways in which its artists responded to the aesthetic challenge of colour. Three of the seven short films produced during this period have been selected as case studies; they are examined here in the context of filmed animations in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, in particular the debates prompted by the screening of three Disney animations in Technicolor at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1935. The formal analysis of the case studies is based on the digital restorations in recent years at the Russian State Film Archive (Gosfilmfond), but also the inspection of one nitrate-positive of Mstislav Pashchenko’s Dzhiabzha (1939), which has survived intact at the archive. The technical difficulties posed by the hydrotype process developed at Lenfilm, as well as the challenge of producing sufficient prints for mass distribution, also form part of the discussion