A comprehensive history of the film in Russia, and a full account of film's development as an art in the Soviet Union in the service of that society.

Kino: History of the Russian and Soviet Film

Humor & Entertainment

Leyda, Jay

Movies

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The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson by Jay Leyda.

The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson, (2 Volumes) (Unabridged)

Archon Books

Sergei Rachmaninoff A Lifetime in Music Sergei Bertensson and Jay Leyda, with the assistance of Sophia Satina With a new introduction by David Butler Cannata An indispensable and captivating document, now back in print!
Throughout his career as composer, conductor, and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was an intensely private individual. When Bertensson and Leyda’s 1956 biography appeared, it lifted the veil of secrecy from several areas of Rachmaninoff’s life, especially concerning the genesis of his compositions and how their critical reception affected him.
The authors consulted a number of people who knew Rachmaninoff, who worked with him, and who corresponded with him. Even with the availabilty of such sources and full access to the Rachmaninoff Archive at the Library of Congress, Bertensson, Leyda, and were tireless in their pursuit of privately held documents, particularly correspondence. The wonderfully engaging product of their labors masterfully incorporates primary materials into the narrative. Almost half a century after it first appeared, this volume remains essential reading.
Sergei Bertensson, who knew Rachmaninoff, published other works on music and film, often with a documentary emphasis.
Jay Leyda wrote extensively on Russian music and film, as well as on American literature.
David Butler Cannata is Professor of Music at Boyer College of Music, Temple University.
Sophia Satina was Rachmaninoff’s sister-in-law and cousin.
Russian Music Studies―Malcolm Hamrick Brown, founding editor

Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music (Russian Music Studies)

Biographies & Memoirs

Bertensson, Sergei

Arts & Literature

Indiana University Press

Throughout his career as composer, conductor, and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) was an intensely private individual. When Bertensson and Leyda's 1956 biography appeared, it lifted the veil of secrecy from several areas of Rachmaninoff's life, especially concerning the genesis of his compositions and how their critical reception affected him.The authors consulted many of Rachmaninoff's associates. Given full access to the Rachmaninoff Archive at the Library of Congress, they were tireless in their pursuit of privately held documents, particularly correspondence. David Cannata's new introduction summarizes what has happened in Rachmaninoff scholarship since the book was first published.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music (Russian Music Studie)

Dianying;: An account of films and the film audience in China

MIT Press]

Films have for some time been an important element in Chinese art and society, and filmmaking is a strenuous business—characterized by "the old problem of official Chinese sensitivity about Chinese reality," by deep conflicts, and by the necessity of designing films for and transporting them to millions of peasants throughout the Republic.  Because he worked with the Chinese film industry in Peking from 1959 to 1964, Jay Leyda has had access to more Chinese films and relevant documents than any other Western scholar. In Dianying he describes both historic and current film production, using the films themselves as primary source material. He covers the film industry (the rise and fall of film studios, the influence of foreign filmmakers, the problems of film distributors), gives synopses of important and representative films, and introduces us to the notable filmmakers, actors, and actresses of China. Dianying also throws light on the larger social and political scene in twentieth-century China. It reveals a dramatic and astonishing period of Chinese film history during which an underground group of revolutionaries made films that continued to reach large audiences despite Kuomintang and Japanese oppression. What is significant, Leyda points out, is that the most expressive and lasting Chinese films resulted from these bitter and often bloody circumstances—films that were superior to what came before and in many respects superior to films made well after the triumph of the Chinese revolution.  Almost all periods of film development have yielded something of value: "Seeing a steady quantity of Chinese films," Leyda remarks, "I found myself imagining, too easily, that if there had been films in the Middle Ages, this is what they would have looked like. Here are the conformity, the self-satisfied and defensive insularity, the almost scientific reduction of personal interpretation to its minimum, the rigid stratification of social groups..., the fixed place for each individual, and the molding of people to types that we find in medieval arts, with rare exceptions. There are the same rare exceptions in Chinese cinema, I'm glad to see, for it's only from such brave exceptions, recognizing the value of humanity and art, that we can expect any progress to grow—or a socialist cinema to tear itself away from feudalism. These exceptions make me hopeful for China's future and film future; without this hope there would be little point in this book."

Dianying-Electric Shadows: An Account of Films and the Film Audience in China

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Mit Pr

Gathers selections from interviews with directors, actors, actresses, composers, designers, writers, and cameramen in which they discuss their film work

Film Makers Speak (voices Of Film Experience) (Da Capo Paperback)

Tomlinson, Doug

Da Capo Press

Eisenstein at Work

Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of production photos and film stills as well as Eisenstein's own notes and sketches, Eisenstein at Work offers a rare behindthe-scenes look at one of this century's most creative filmmakers - Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948). Written and compiled by Jay Leyda, Eisenstein's lifelong friend and associate and a leading authority on his life and work, Eisenstein at Work is the definitive study of this innovative filmmaker's revolutionary career. Bringing together Eisenstein's own notes, sketches, and letters with film stills and original photos of Eisenstein instructing his actors and production crews and setting up his shots, Leyda and co-author Zina Voynow have created a startlingly original montage, a book that goes beyond biography to present a director's sketchbook of visions, themes and methods. From Eisenstein's earliest theatrical work, the book moves film by film through his masterpieces - Strike, Battleship Potemkin, October, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible - to the legendary projects he never completed, such as An American Tragedy and Que Viva Mexico! Drawing on the collection of the Eisen-stein Committee in Moscow and of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, it presents a wealth of visual material that will change forever the way Eisenstein's films are viewed.

EISENSTEIN AT WORK

Pantheon

Methuen Publishing, Ltd.

This history of the turbulent destiny of Kino ("film" in Russian) documents the artistic development of the Russian and Soviet cinema and traces its growth from 1896 to the death of Sergei Eisenstein in 1948. The new Postscript surveys the directions taken by Soviet cinema since the end of World War II. Beginning with the Lumiere filming of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, Jay Leyda links Russia's pre-Revolutionary past with its Communist present through the observation of a major cultural phenomenon: the evolution of the Soviet film as an artistic and political instrument. The book contains 150 drawings and photographs and five appendices, including a list of selected Russian and Soviet films from 1907 to the present.

Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film

Princeton University Press

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