The Hand That Turns the Handle: Camera Operators and the Poetics of the Camera in Pre-Revolutionary Russian Film

Abstract

Is there any real necessity for you?What are you?A hand that turns the handle.Couldn't they do without this hand?Couldn't you be eliminated, replaced by some piece of machinery?'I smiled as I answered: 'In time, Sir, perhaps.'1The person who turns the handle of the camera-apparatus, and who is therefore responsible for the poor-quality print, is called the 'operator'.There are good and bad operators.The good ones are foreign; the bad ones are Russian.The art of the camera operator is still at an embryonic stage, and for this reason is difficult to describe.2

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