Konstantin Stanislavski on the professional and ethical education of the film actor: based on the silent films of Boris Sushkevich, Yakov Protazanov, Aleksander Sanin, and Yuri Zhelyabuzhski

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stanislavski’s attitude to the cinematic art in general and acting in particular changed throughout his life. On the one hand, Stanislavski’s initial negative position on filming actors from the MAT for the first silent films is well-known, but on the other, numerous colleagues who worked at the interface of theatre and cinema confirmed Stanislavski’s attention to the actor’s play within the then emerging movie art, and the adoption of professional and ethical standards in both. One of the co-founders of the Russian film company Rus’, Moisei Aleynikov, highlighted in his memoirs Stanislavski’s profound conviction that “cinematography carri[ed] in it some new laws of performing art” and that in order to research cinematographic art and the professional and ethical development of film actors one had to carry out “hard, systematic experimental work”, comparable with what Stanislavski conducted in the theatre. Because of his time-consuming involvement in theatre, Stanislavski postponed and then delegated the exploration of filmmaking to Leopold Sulerzhitski, months before his sudden death froze the research again. Notwithstanding the absence of such research, from 1915 Stanislavski regularly involved his best actors and directors in filmmaking. Subsequently, early silent films starring theatre actors were assessed by Stanislavski, directly or indirectly. The results of his assessment can be found in the works of the first Russian creators of feature films. Focusing on the works of the four filmmakers included in its title, this paper aims to explore the development of Stanislavski’s attitude to the professional and ethical education of the film actor.