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inapat14 · 3 years

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Preserving the history of cinema in Russia

Second part: The Eisenstein's Cabinet, preserving the heritage of a precursor

The archives of Eisenstein can be described as a bottomless ocean. For example, they hold matter for a searcher to dedicate his life to explore the relation between the works of Eisenstein and his mentor Vsevolod Meyerhold, which is to say between theater and cinema at a turning point. When Meyerhold got executed in 1940 and his memory condemned by Stalin, his archives were saved and hidden by Eisenstein.

"In the jungle of film", Sergei Eisenstein, 1924 (source: Eisenstein-Center, Moscow).

Until 2018 and the dismantling of the Museum of Cinema, to which the cabinet pertained, these archives were preserved in a small apartment on the Smolenskaya street, in Moscow. After the death of Eisenstein, in 1948, his widow, Pera Atasheva (her real name being Perl Moïsseevna Vogelman) moved from their flat in Potylikha Street to one located Boulevard Gogol, then, in 1962, in this last flat of the Smolenskaya Street, transporting each time the huge amount of documents collected or produced by her husband and covering the walls with library shelves. Of course, losses occurred during these house movings: at the time of his death, Eisenstein, an inveterate bibliophile, had accumulated more than 8 000 books, in four languages, full of his marginalia. Pera Atasheva gave a lot of it to the State in order to create an Eisenstein Museum. A lot disappeared too, years passing. But a heart of 4 000 remained along with drawings, portraits, notes and souvenirs from around the world, arranged on the furniture — original too. Moreover, Pera Atasheva recognised the importance of preserving these archives' internal logic and managed to keep a little part of it through the shifts.

Inside view of the Eisenstein Cabinet, Smolenskaya Ulitsa, Moscow (photography by Ada Ackerman, before March 2018).

Such was the trove that the young Naum Kleiman, VGIK student, discovered in 1958 in an inconspicuous flat, determined to find the truth about Eisenstein's work after he caught a glimpse of it by viewing the second part of Ivan the Terrible, forbidden since 1948 and finally allowed to be screened. This treasure was endangered, whether by thefts or water leakages. With a small group of VGIK students, he began to help the widow to edit still unpublished major theoretical writings, as Non-indifferent Nature, Montage or The Method.

As said, most of the original classification by Eisenstein was already lost, but a little part of it subsisted and suffices to show its richness for research: the tiny shelf of books about theater. On it was placed an opus of Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski about the actor's work on himself. Beside it, Eisenstein had chosen to put a bible in Old Slavic. Kleiman guesses that it was a derisive way to significate that Stanislavski isn't the only god. The next book was a French one, Les Grâces d'oraison, by the Reverend Father Poulain, found in Mexico and consisting in a commentary upon the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and the Ecstactics' lives, like Saint Therese. Its margins were full of commentaries themselves, through which we followed Eisenstein in his discovery that the Stanislavski's psychotechnical method is very similar to the Loyola's one, although for different purposes.

This, already, told us three things about Eisenstein: his mental capacity to establish links, a piece of his theoretical thinking and how much it is bound with his practice of montage. It is ultimately a true illustration of the importance of preserving the sorting of archived documents, full of meaning in itself.

The last book on this shelf discoursed on... bird migration, their routes, stops, rest areas, all exposed in their variations. Inside, a letter from Eisenstein explained why this title was there: he was studying the “instinctive staging” of birds as part of his staging research. He wrote a lot about reasoned staging, a means for the director to share his thoughts with the viewer, not neglecting the instinctive and emotional level, the real basis. He therefore studied how birds arrange themselves in flocks, move, how they know how to combine their flight with terrain variations, resting areas and the presence of water sources: a construction in time and space that the bird flock creates and which is not the shortest path.

Eisenstein used to say that, at night, books whisper to each other and that one must listen to these conversations. His cabinet was the core where the chain reaction of analogies and a physical evidence of his conception of total art, ranging from Baudelaire to surrealism occurred.

Pera Atasheva died in 1965, bequeathing the place and its content to the State, and the authorities attributed it with all the archives to the Cinematographers' Union of the USSR. The union constituted a commission, composed of critics and historians, which started in a feverish mood, conscious of the legacy of the collective letters of 1929 and 1947 and its responsibility to create a museum, to achieve the dream of Eisenstein. The institution was founded in 1969 and the construction of the Kinotsenter began, but the Cabinet remained as the archives' repository. Naum Kleiman became the curator of the Cabinet in 1967 and, under his direction, it became an international centre for studies about Eisenstein's art and theory. The construction of the Kinotsenter ended in 1989 and the Museum finally opened, Kleiman becoming its director in 1992.

From the great precursors' legacy to future generations, the transmission of the cinema's history was finally ensured. And not any history: the project of Eisenstein inscribed itself in a peculiar context, an alternative path, with dimensions larger than Russia — an internationalist one.

Bufi Octave

#cinema #cinematheque #russia #sergei eisenstein #kleiman #VGIK #USSR #theatre #staging #montage #history

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4rhealth · 7 years

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Coconut Oil Bad for You?

No. Just the opposite.

Given the evidence favoring coconut oil, why is a new report from the American Heart Association (AHA) promoting this falsehood? And why is the media spreading it with headlines like “Coconut Oil Isn’t the Miracle Food You Thought It Was” and “Coconut Oil Isn’t Healthy. It’s Never Been Healthy.”

None of this is a departure for the AHA; they’ve been saying the same thing since the early 1960’s: saturated fats are bad because they raise low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, which the AHA claims is a leading cause of atherosclerosis (plaque building up in arteries). The Association also believes saturated fats should be replaced with polyunsaturated fats like margarine and vegetable oils, and, in their new report, they claim this switch can reduce cardiovascular disease risk by 30%.

This is a stunning finding, but stunningly wrong.

One of the four big studies the AHA points to as “proof” that saturated fat is “bad” and polyunsaturated vegetable fats are “good” is a study from 1969. Although the AHA rightfully points out that the number of men dying of a heart attack was greater in the men getting a “standard American diet” than the vegetable oil diet, it fails to mention that total deaths were the same in both groups. That’s because men on the vegetable oil diet died of cancer at almost twice the rate of the ones on the standard American diet. Further, the researchers attributed the beneficial effect of vegetable oil to its vitamin E content, not the fact that it was polyunsaturated fat.

The AHA has arrived at its conclusions by ignoring a mounting pile of scientific evidence — all more recent than 1969— that exonerates saturated fat as the cause of heart disease and death. Recently, raw, unpublished data from a double blind, randomized controlled trial conducted between 1968 and 1973 with ten thousand participants, making it the largest trial of its kind, was re-reviewed. The results? When researchers analyzed the old data, they found that polyunsaturated fats did reduce cholesterol, but this didn’t result in improved health.

The research actually showed that the lower the cholesterol, the higher the overall risk of dying. Other studies show the same thing, which is especially concerning given the overuse of statins, which not only reduce cholesterol, but also bring side effects such as muscle damage (the heart is a muscle) and diabetes.

Other large trials similarly show that cutting saturated fat doesn’t help you live longer, including the Oslo Study, the London Soybean Oil trial, and the US Multiple Risk Factor Intervention trial. Some of the trials did show a slight decrease in coronary heart disease from replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils, but mortality from all other causes was higher when saturated fat was cut. (For even more on the scientific analysis of why the AHA is wrong, check out the write-up from our friends at ANH-International and this analysis from science writer Gary Taubes.)

What about coconut oil, in particular? The AHA recommends flat out against using it because of its high saturated fat content. Once again, they have it all wrong. It’s been proven many times over that virgin coconut oil is a super food and one of the best things you can eat. It contains polyphenols which have many benefits, including reducing inflammation, protecting your cardiovascular system, fighting free radicals, inhibiting the growth of tumors.

Coconut oil also has promise in protecting against and reversing Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. And it is a key tool in a ketogenic diet, which helps people lose weight, control blood sugar, and generally improve health., and can also be used as part of a program of dental hygiene.

Virgin coconut oil also contains lauric acid, a medium-chain fatty acid. A recent study shows that lauric acid does not make people fat—just the opposite. It normalizes weight and blood lipids in heart patients and when given to mother mice, lowers the weight of their offspring.

The AHA couldn’t be more wrong about saturated fat in general and coconut oil in particular. The question must then arise: why are they saying these things in the face of such strong scientific evidence rebutting them? We hate to say this, but once again we have to look at their donors. Like many other such organizations, they are supported by Big Food companies, which have an interest in promoting the oils that the AHA advocates. And the media depends on Big Food for advertising.

Suffice to say, if you’re looking for the most up-to-date dietary advice, it would be best to look elsewhere, such as a advisors certified by the Board of Nutrition Specialists, integrative doctors, including four year trained Naturopaths. A superb on-line source is mercola.com.

from The Alliance for Natural Health http://ift.tt/2smvL8M via Aloe for Health

#The Alliance for Natural Health

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