Richard Bossons
Richard is a film and camera historian in Oxford, England. He has a particular interest in the Debrie Parvo 35mm hand-cranked camera and the film that it stars in, ‘Man with a Movie Camera’. His research into different aspects of Dziga Vertov’s 1929 Ukrainian masterpiece has included discovering the locations used in the film, establishing a definitive timeline of the early screenings, and describing the cameras that feature in the film. He has also investigated the trains seen in ‘Man with a Movie Camera’, a theme of Vertov’s work since his first film in 1918.
Richard has recently collaborated with the composer Dr Leo Geyer on a project to reconstruct the only known contemporary accompaniment for the film based on cue notes for the cinema orchestras at its Moscow premiere in April 1929. The first performance of the music by the Luxembourg Kammerata, with a screening of the new Eye Filmmuseum print of the film, took place at the Rainy Days contemporary music festival in the Luxembourg Philharmonie on November 23rd 2024. The 400 page score has been accepted by the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive for its digital depository of silent film scores. The accompaniment has been recorded by the Constella Orchestra, conducted by Dr Geyer, and the accompanied film will be available on the Eye Film Player streaming platform later this year.
The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv is translating several papers into Ukrainian for its website.
[My thoughts are with my friends and their colleagues at the Centre during this barbaric attack on their country. It will be remembered that the period of independent Ukrainian cinema that the Centre is devoted to was ended by Moscow over 90 years ago and many of its leading figures were imprisoned or executed]
"...an extraordinary and exciting piece of research...", Professor Julian Graffy, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
"You've opened up the film in all sorts of amazing ways...", Professor John MacKay, Yale University (Dziga Vertov's biographer).
"...bravo pour votre très beau travail de recherche", Laurent Mannoni, la Cinémathèque française, Paris.
"An impeccable feat of research and a huge step ahead in our knowledge of MWAMC", Professor Yuri Tsivian, University of Chicago.
"A tremendous project...a great contribution to the scholarship of silent film music", Dr Kendra Leonard, Director of the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive.
An award-winning new book has been published based on Richard's research on the filming locations in Odesa.
'Man with a Movie Camera: Odesa Filming Locations', authors Yevhen Volokin, Richard Bossons, Olha Shcherbakova. Full details on the link below. Contact me via Academia email for ordering.
https://viknaodessa.od.ua/old-photo/?lyudyna-z-kinoaparatom-odeski-mistsya-kinozyomok
Address: Oxford, England
Richard has recently collaborated with the composer Dr Leo Geyer on a project to reconstruct the only known contemporary accompaniment for the film based on cue notes for the cinema orchestras at its Moscow premiere in April 1929. The first performance of the music by the Luxembourg Kammerata, with a screening of the new Eye Filmmuseum print of the film, took place at the Rainy Days contemporary music festival in the Luxembourg Philharmonie on November 23rd 2024. The 400 page score has been accepted by the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive for its digital depository of silent film scores. The accompaniment has been recorded by the Constella Orchestra, conducted by Dr Geyer, and the accompanied film will be available on the Eye Film Player streaming platform later this year.
The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv is translating several papers into Ukrainian for its website.
[My thoughts are with my friends and their colleagues at the Centre during this barbaric attack on their country. It will be remembered that the period of independent Ukrainian cinema that the Centre is devoted to was ended by Moscow over 90 years ago and many of its leading figures were imprisoned or executed]
"...an extraordinary and exciting piece of research...", Professor Julian Graffy, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
"You've opened up the film in all sorts of amazing ways...", Professor John MacKay, Yale University (Dziga Vertov's biographer).
"...bravo pour votre très beau travail de recherche", Laurent Mannoni, la Cinémathèque française, Paris.
"An impeccable feat of research and a huge step ahead in our knowledge of MWAMC", Professor Yuri Tsivian, University of Chicago.
"A tremendous project...a great contribution to the scholarship of silent film music", Dr Kendra Leonard, Director of the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive.
An award-winning new book has been published based on Richard's research on the filming locations in Odesa.
'Man with a Movie Camera: Odesa Filming Locations', authors Yevhen Volokin, Richard Bossons, Olha Shcherbakova. Full details on the link below. Contact me via Academia email for ordering.
https://viknaodessa.od.ua/old-photo/?lyudyna-z-kinoaparatom-odeski-mistsya-kinozyomok
Address: Oxford, England
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Papers by Richard Bossons
The author has other papers on Academia about different aspects of 'Man with a Movie Camera' including the early screening of the film, the movie cameras, and the trains.
The author has other papers on Academia about different aspects of 'Man with a Movie Camera' including the film locations, the cameras, and the trains.
The author has other papers on Academia about different aspects of 'Man with a Movie Camera' including the film locations, the early screening of the film, and the trains.
The author has other papers on Academia about different aspects of 'Man with a Movie Camera' including the film locations, the early screening of the film, and the movie cameras.
The author has other papers on Academia about different aspects of 'Man with a Movie Camera' including the film locations, the early screening of the film, the cameras, and the trains.
There have been many attempts to provide a score for Man with a Movie Camera but this is the only documented accompaniment to the film. Surprisingly, it has not been recreated before now. The composer Leo Geyer and film historian Richard Bossons have collaborated to turn the cue sheets into a score to accompany a new print of the film by Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam, to mark the 95th anniversary of the premiere in 2024. This is as close as possible to what might have been seen and heard by the audiences in the Tverskaya 46 and Hermitage cinemas in April 1929.