Gessner visits Moscow

Gessner enters a doorway through two Red Army soldiers after one looks at his papers. 01:05:40 WS of the House of the Unions [Дом Союзов] in Moscow, Russia. Sign beneath reads ““Всесоюзный Съезд Советских писатепей”[All-Soviet-Union Meeting of the Soviet Writers].Three other banners hang from the building with quotes from Maxim Gorky Писатели- Это Инженеры Человеческих Душ [Writers are Enginеers of Human Souls]. 01:05:48 Gessner walks through a doorway again, pulling out his papers to show to the soldier. He looks back at the camera and flashes his papers. A young boy and girl talk to each other in front of a board with portraits of the classics of the Russian literature (Nekrasov, Gogol, Griboedov, Pisarev, and others) mounted. The camera shows more boards with portraits of Russian writers. A man observes.The young boy and girl sit down at an outdoor table. The girl attempts to grab a paper from beneath the menu of the person next to her, but then is handed a paper. Soviet Propaganda posters of books with covers in Russian like “Mаркс” [Marx] and “Сталин” [Stalin], "Ленин" [Lenin]. Very young children. One lightly hits another. Young boys play with a ball. A group of older men at the entrance to Moscow Choral Synagogue. Some smile, others just stare. Two men in the street look up at the camera. More of the group of men. Two men standing outside, one wears the Jewish prayer shawl (tallit). Blurry CU of a bearded man wearing a tallit. More men talking outside the Moscow Choral Synagogue. Robert Gessner was born on October 21, 1907 in Escanaba, MI. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1929 and a M.A. from Columbia University in 1930. He started teaching at New York University in 1930. He married Doris Lindeman on May 27, 1938 and had two children, Peter and Stephen. Mr. Gessner was a screen playwright and the author of several books, including "Massacre" (1931); "Broken Arrow" (1933); "Some of My Best Friends are Jews" (1936); "Treason" (1944); "Youth is the Time" (1945). He was a pioneer educator in motion pictures as an art form. Gessner founded the Motion Picture Department (now Cinema Studies) at NYU in 1941, the first four-year film curriculum leading to a B.A. degree in motion picture studies in the United States. He finished his book "The Moving Image, A Guide to Cinematic Literacy" before he died in June 1968.