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Mikhail Kaufman is a Actor, Assistant Director, Director of Photography and Cinematography born on 5 september 1897 at Białystok (Pologne)

Mikhail Kaufman

Mikhail Kaufman
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Birth 5 september 1897 at Białystok (Pologne)
Death 3 november 1980 (at 83 years) at Moscow (Russie)

Mikhail Abramovich Kaufman (Russian: Михаи́л Абра́мович Ка́уфман; 1897 – March 11, 1980) was a Russian cinematographer and photographer. He was the younger brother of filmmaker Dziga Vertov (Denis Kaufman) and the older brother of cinematographer Boris Kaufman.

He was born into a family of Jewish intellectuals living in Białystok in Grodno Governorate, at the time when the Białystok region was a part of the Russian Empire.

In 1920s, after Mikhail Kaufman returned from Russian Civil War, Vertov offered him to participate in his newsreel series Kino-Pravda as a cameraman.

Mikhail Kaufman directed photography for several films, including the 1929 Man with the Movie Camera.
The film is built around meta-reference and is full of innovative visual effects: in it, Kaufman acts as a cameraman and is seen shooting the film while walking on high bridges, hanging off the side of a train, climbing a smokestack and crawling underground with miners – all in order to get the best shot. His brother's wife, Yelizaveta Svilova, was editor and part of the "Council of Three" who "proclaimed a 'death sentence' on the cinema that came before, faulting it for mixing in 'foreign matter' from theater and literature."

Mikhail Kaufman also directed two films: "Moscow" (1927) and "In Spring" (1929). Shortly after the filming of Man with the Movie Camera, Kaufman and Vertov fell out over artistic differences. The two would never work together again.

Kaufman died in Moscow.

Usually with

Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
(2 films)
Ilya Kopaline
Ilya Kopaline
(1 films)
Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
(1 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Mikhail Kaufman (2 films)

Display filmography as list

Actor

Man with a Movie Camera, 1h20
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Origin Russie
Genres Drama, Documentary
Themes Films about films
Actors Mikhail Kaufman
Roles The Cameraman
Rating82% 4.1444654.1444654.1444654.1444654.144465
Une journée de la vie quotidienne à Odessa: un opérateur filme, une monteuse visionne ses images, des spectateurs regardent le film qui est fait.

Director

A Sixth Part of the World, 1h13
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Origin Russie
Genres Documentary
Themes Politique, Political films
Roles Assistant Director
Rating71% 3.581723.581723.581723.581723.58172
Vertov starts by showing us, with intertitles in giant Cyrillic characters, what he sees (Вижу) about the capitalist West with its foxtrot and black minstrels, and then switches his attention to the audience (Вы) and then the individual viewer (Ты). In one self-reflexive moment, Vertov even shows cinema-goers watching an earlier piece of the film (‘And you sitting in the audience’). He takes us on a tour of the vital importance of agricultural production, which generates export revenue (shot of the ship’s nameplate ‘Greenwich’) so that Russia can buy machines to build more machines (shots of a milling machine). This gives him the pretext to take us on a Cook’s tour of the extremities of the Soviet Union: we see the icebreaker Lenin (amazing shot downwards from above the prow) delivering new dogs to the Samoyeds on Novaya Zemlya, and their being invited on board to listen to a gramophone recording of the great man himself. We go to Bukhara where one of the mosques is looking very dingy and crumbled, and to Leningrad where the trams run down the middle of broad empty boulevard as a horse-drawn carriage turns out. We see a Kirghiz with a giant eagle perched on his arm, a bear encircled by yapping dogs, a fox caught in a trap and another one that is a child’s pet, guillemots, gulls, a man shooting a sable in the top of a pine tree, a pine marten, sheep being dragged into the sea for a wash and other sheep being obliged to jump into a stream for the same purpose - the intertitles are surreal: (“You – whether you are washing your sheep in the sea (film) or whether you are washing your sheep in the river (film)…”, We see trappers bringing their furs to the Госторг (Gostorg) trading post in exchange for manufactured goods, everyone contributing to the national economy. Ironically, the furs are destined for the Leipzig fair (ярмаркт). In an amazing stop-frame sequence, rows of oranges align themselves in a packing box, wadges of packing material shuffle along and jump on top of them, and then the lids close (you can just see the line pulling one of the sides). We see coke being quenched also, as well as electricity pylons and insulators, and the village electricity co-op. We see sturgeon being hoiked out of tanks to make caviar. We see barrels of butter – 'it is yours!' We see wheat being threshed, linen being spun and cotton being ginned. We see the country being modernised, although there are still some people who trust in Mohammed (film) or Christ (a man telling his rosary) or Buddha (film) and we are shown a Siberian shaman looking remarkably like a North American Indian, and even a reindeer being slaughtered (by axe blows to the neck) as a sacrifice. We see crowds of women in full-face veils, but also a modernising country as a woman lifts her veil. And we see some tundra-dwellers eating raw reindeer meat.

Cameraman

Man with a Movie Camera, 1h20
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Origin Russie
Genres Drama, Documentary
Themes Films about films
Actors Mikhail Kaufman
Roles Director of Photography
Rating82% 4.1444654.1444654.1444654.1444654.144465
Une journée de la vie quotidienne à Odessa: un opérateur filme, une monteuse visionne ses images, des spectateurs regardent le film qui est fait.
A Sixth Part of the World, 1h13
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Origin Russie
Genres Documentary
Themes Politique, Political films
Roles Director of Photography
Rating71% 3.581723.581723.581723.581723.58172
Vertov starts by showing us, with intertitles in giant Cyrillic characters, what he sees (Вижу) about the capitalist West with its foxtrot and black minstrels, and then switches his attention to the audience (Вы) and then the individual viewer (Ты). In one self-reflexive moment, Vertov even shows cinema-goers watching an earlier piece of the film (‘And you sitting in the audience’). He takes us on a tour of the vital importance of agricultural production, which generates export revenue (shot of the ship’s nameplate ‘Greenwich’) so that Russia can buy machines to build more machines (shots of a milling machine). This gives him the pretext to take us on a Cook’s tour of the extremities of the Soviet Union: we see the icebreaker Lenin (amazing shot downwards from above the prow) delivering new dogs to the Samoyeds on Novaya Zemlya, and their being invited on board to listen to a gramophone recording of the great man himself. We go to Bukhara where one of the mosques is looking very dingy and crumbled, and to Leningrad where the trams run down the middle of broad empty boulevard as a horse-drawn carriage turns out. We see a Kirghiz with a giant eagle perched on his arm, a bear encircled by yapping dogs, a fox caught in a trap and another one that is a child’s pet, guillemots, gulls, a man shooting a sable in the top of a pine tree, a pine marten, sheep being dragged into the sea for a wash and other sheep being obliged to jump into a stream for the same purpose - the intertitles are surreal: (“You – whether you are washing your sheep in the sea (film) or whether you are washing your sheep in the river (film)…”, We see trappers bringing their furs to the Госторг (Gostorg) trading post in exchange for manufactured goods, everyone contributing to the national economy. Ironically, the furs are destined for the Leipzig fair (ярмаркт). In an amazing stop-frame sequence, rows of oranges align themselves in a packing box, wadges of packing material shuffle along and jump on top of them, and then the lids close (you can just see the line pulling one of the sides). We see coke being quenched also, as well as electricity pylons and insulators, and the village electricity co-op. We see sturgeon being hoiked out of tanks to make caviar. We see barrels of butter – 'it is yours!' We see wheat being threshed, linen being spun and cotton being ginned. We see the country being modernised, although there are still some people who trust in Mohammed (film) or Christ (a man telling his rosary) or Buddha (film) and we are shown a Siberian shaman looking remarkably like a North American Indian, and even a reindeer being slaughtered (by axe blows to the neck) as a sacrifice. We see crowds of women in full-face veils, but also a modernising country as a woman lifts her veil. And we see some tundra-dwellers eating raw reindeer meat.

Team

Man with a Movie Camera, 1h20
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Origin Russie
Genres Drama, Documentary
Themes Films about films
Actors Mikhail Kaufman
Roles Cinematography
Rating82% 4.1444654.1444654.1444654.1444654.144465
Une journée de la vie quotidienne à Odessa: un opérateur filme, une monteuse visionne ses images, des spectateurs regardent le film qui est fait.
A Sixth Part of the World, 1h13
Directed by Dziga Vertov
Origin Russie
Genres Documentary
Themes Politique, Political films
Roles Cinematography
Rating71% 3.581723.581723.581723.581723.58172
Vertov starts by showing us, with intertitles in giant Cyrillic characters, what he sees (Вижу) about the capitalist West with its foxtrot and black minstrels, and then switches his attention to the audience (Вы) and then the individual viewer (Ты). In one self-reflexive moment, Vertov even shows cinema-goers watching an earlier piece of the film (‘And you sitting in the audience’). He takes us on a tour of the vital importance of agricultural production, which generates export revenue (shot of the ship’s nameplate ‘Greenwich’) so that Russia can buy machines to build more machines (shots of a milling machine). This gives him the pretext to take us on a Cook’s tour of the extremities of the Soviet Union: we see the icebreaker Lenin (amazing shot downwards from above the prow) delivering new dogs to the Samoyeds on Novaya Zemlya, and their being invited on board to listen to a gramophone recording of the great man himself. We go to Bukhara where one of the mosques is looking very dingy and crumbled, and to Leningrad where the trams run down the middle of broad empty boulevard as a horse-drawn carriage turns out. We see a Kirghiz with a giant eagle perched on his arm, a bear encircled by yapping dogs, a fox caught in a trap and another one that is a child’s pet, guillemots, gulls, a man shooting a sable in the top of a pine tree, a pine marten, sheep being dragged into the sea for a wash and other sheep being obliged to jump into a stream for the same purpose - the intertitles are surreal: (“You – whether you are washing your sheep in the sea (film) or whether you are washing your sheep in the river (film)…”, We see trappers bringing their furs to the Госторг (Gostorg) trading post in exchange for manufactured goods, everyone contributing to the national economy. Ironically, the furs are destined for the Leipzig fair (ярмаркт). In an amazing stop-frame sequence, rows of oranges align themselves in a packing box, wadges of packing material shuffle along and jump on top of them, and then the lids close (you can just see the line pulling one of the sides). We see coke being quenched also, as well as electricity pylons and insulators, and the village electricity co-op. We see sturgeon being hoiked out of tanks to make caviar. We see barrels of butter – 'it is yours!' We see wheat being threshed, linen being spun and cotton being ginned. We see the country being modernised, although there are still some people who trust in Mohammed (film) or Christ (a man telling his rosary) or Buddha (film) and we are shown a Siberian shaman looking remarkably like a North American Indian, and even a reindeer being slaughtered (by axe blows to the neck) as a sacrifice. We see crowds of women in full-face veils, but also a modernising country as a woman lifts her veil. And we see some tundra-dwellers eating raw reindeer meat.