Kandinsky and the Russian House

After a long and torturous route this film has finally been completed and released on Amazon as DVD. It is the sixth film in a series about the Russian avant-garde by Copernicus Films and the director Michael Craig. The film took longer than expected for many reasons. Firstly it was necessary to interrupt the editing to finish the film David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde(Also part of the series). secondly when it came to editing the material it was obvious that there would be a need to shoot more material. Also in a strange sense I wasn’t sure how the film should look or be. After making four films about the Russian avant-garde where the style was relatively similar, now I was confronted with a set of material and a subject which required a different approach and a different look but at the same time should integrate with the over all series. For this reason I embarked on finishing David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde and leaving the editing of Kandinsky until later.

As it turned out this was a good idea. When I returned to the Kandinsky film I had fresh ideas which were incorporated into the film. One of the central ideas of the film was a sequence where Kandinsky enters his studio and is struck by the sight of one of his paintings bathed in rays of light. He doesn’t know whether the painting is upside down or what the painting is supposed to depict. It was at this moment that Kandinsky took a leap forward in his search for abstract forms in art. In the editing of this sequence all the threads and various elements of the film came together.

The idea was to show the state of Kandinsky’s consciousness at the particular moment of illumination and to illustrate the accompanying transformation in his consciousness. How Kandinsky’s understanding of his own art transformed itself qualitatively to a new level.

From here the film became much easier to edit and eventually complete.