'Pudovkin and Pavlov's Dog' is concerned with a group of films which are well known but comparatively little discussed. It analyses Pudovkin's major silent films (Mother, The End of St. Petersburg, Storm over Asia and Mechanics of the Brain) and his writing on film in the 1920's, attempting to investigate how one area of work might illuminate the other and how this places Pudovkin amongst his contemporaries, notably Kuleshov and Eisenstein. The influence of Pavlov in Soviet art practice and theory is similarly frequently cited but rarely examined. This thesis attempts to answer some basic questions as to why his research should have been appropriated when and how it was. Crucial to this project is the examination of Mechanics of the Brain, showing how Pavlov was popularly (rather than academically) understood. It also tries to establish what means Pudovkin employed to assemble an adequate filmic exposition of Pavlov's scientific proof, as an opening to his notion of logical construction in general: Pudovkin repudiates Vertov's theoretical principle that the camera can simply seize material unawares from life. Pavlov was rooted in and contributed to the same intellectual tradition in which Marxism was founded, but the Soviets looked to Pavlov for scientific (that is to say, objective) corroboration of their undertakings. The thesis is organised around a number of debates in which this paradox is seen to operate, each accompanied by analysis of a particular Pudovkin film.

M.A. (History) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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