When a Photograph of Trees Is Almost like a Crime : Rodchenko, Vertov, Kalatozov

Abstract

When the Russian artist and photographer Alexander Rodchenko was accused of plagiarism and formalism in an anonymous article in 1928, it was clear that his very existence was at stake. In 1920s Russia, an accusation like this had the sole goal of causing political disgrace. Among the examples chosen to illustrate this charge was one of Rodchenko s photographs of pine trees. There followed a heated public debate, which revolved around nothing less than the function of art. This controversy was so well known that any subsequent use of Rodchenko s perspective must be interpret-ed as more than a mere citation it must be seen as a political commentary. In other words, what is at issue is the politics of images under Stalinism. Now, it is interesting to note that there are two films, in particular, in which shots of pine trees taken from Rodchenko s perspective are employed at prominent points: Dziga Vertov s Three Songs about Lenin and Mikhail Kalatozov s The Cranes Are Flying. The transformation of a photograph into a cinematic image brings an entire politics of images along with it.