Mechanics of the Brain

1926 film

Mechanics of the Brain

Directed by| Vsevolod Pudovkin
Cinematography| Anatoli Golovnya

Production
company

Mezhrabpom-Rus

Release date

* 20 November 1926 (1926-11-20)

Running time

| 90 minutes (1,850 metres)
Country| Soviet Union

Mechanics of the Brain (Russian: Механика головного мозга, romanized: Myekhanika golovnogo mozga) is a 1926 Soviet documentary film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin, a popularization of Ivan Pavlov's studies in classical conditioning.[1] The picture is considered the first Russian popular science film.[2][3] The motion picture is the first independent work of Pudovkin as a director and also marks the start of his collaboration with cinematographer Anatoli Golovnya.

Pudovkin joined Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio in 1925 and, as his first job, was assigned to make a popular science film about Ivan Pavlov's work. The filming started in May 1925 and proceeded for more than a year. The many delays were caused by constant shuttling between the Pavlov's laboratory in Leningrad and the film studio in Moscow as well as difficulties with filming conditioned animals who were easily distracted by the lights and sounds of the filming process.

The film depicts Pavlov's experiments on both animals and orphans, by a variety of methods, one of which was to implement a device to collect saliva into the orphans cheek.[4]

Twenty years later, Pudovkin told an interviewer:

> The only significance this first film of mine has is that it made me realize that I could work on my own. Up to then such idea seemed absolutely impossible to me, although Kuleshov assured me that I was fully able to...[5]

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ Bryher (October 1928). "Six Russian Films – Mechanics of the Brain". Close Up. Pool Group. pp. 27–30.
2. ^ Ольга Шервуд. "Механика головного мозга". BBC News.
3. ^ "115 лет со дня рождения Всеволода Пудовкина". Russia-K.
4. ^ Olenina, Ana. ""The Junctures of Children's Psychology and Soviet Avant-garde Film: Representations, Influences, Applications," The Brill Companion to Soviet Children's Literature and Film, ed. Olga Voronina, Leiden: Brill Press, 2019, 73-99". `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
5. ^ Leyda 1960, p. 206.

## References

[edit]

* Leyda, Jay (1960), Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film, New York: Macmillan, OCLC 1683826.

## External links

[edit]

* Mechanics of the Brain at IMDb

* v
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* e

Films directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin

* Chess Fever (1925)
* Mechanics of the Brain (1926)
* Mother (1926)
* The End of St. Petersburg (1927)
* Storm over Asia (1927)
* A Simple Case (1932)
* The Deserter (1933)
* Victory (1938)
* Minin and Pozharsky (1939)
* Suvorov (1941)
* The Murderers Are Coming (1942)
* In the Name of the Fatherland (1943)
* Admiral Nakhimov (1947)
* Zhukovsky (1950)
* The Return of Vasili Bortnikov (1952)

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