Oscillations between the collective and the individual—or divergent heavings toward one or the other conceptual polarity—are evident nearly everywhere in the arts of Russia's early twentieth century, most self-consciously so in the years just after the Revolution. And “of all the arts” (Vladimir Lenin), cinema, then a form still emphatically in its infancy, seems to express this ambivalence literally: the tension between individual and collective was not only a common thematic strain in early Russian and Soviet cinema, but also a practical, institutional dilemma. Who should qualify as “the filmmaker”? Who are the artists, and who part of the technical and administrative team? Who should be credited individually? Is cinema the product of collective efforts or of individual achievements? And yet, early scholarship on Russian cinema tended to foreground the individual filmmaker-director, then to build knowledge of auxiliaries within the filmmaking apparatus from this position (Elizaveta Svilova via Dziga Vertov; Natan Zarkhi via Vsevolod Pudovkin, etc.).

In the last decades, however, several studies have taken another approach, successfully evoking the oscillation between collective and individual, and decentralizing the auteurist tendency in dedicated histories of, for example, the cinematographer (Philip Cavendish) or the screenwriter (Anke Hennig, Maria Belodubrovskaya). And in her 2016 essay “Cinema and the Art of Being,” a brief but detailed first analysis of early set design in Russia, Emma Widdis called for more extensive research into the role of production designers. This challenge is answered thoroughly and imaginatively by Eleanor Rees in Designing Russian Cinema: The Production Artist and the Material Environment in Silent Era Film.

Rees's confidently composed monograph brims with archival research and thoughtful analysis of the coordinates shaping the evolution of set design in the first decades of Russia's film industry, up to the advent of sound cinema in 1930. The book clarifies the parameters of activity of the film worker commonly referred to in Russian as khudozhnik, and the institutional mark left on the developing film industry by the people performing this role. The author's most conspicuous intervention comes in the title itself: by translating khudozhnik as “production artist,” Rees avoids confusions arising from inexact equivalencies with similar roles performed in other national cinemas (equivalencies have previously been made to the production designer or art director of Hollywood cinema) while, compellingly, aligning this work with the discourse surrounding the influential “production art” of Russian constructivism. Thus, the author allows for a multivalent set of aesthetic and practical responsibilities to emerge around the profession. Although Rees works from the clear intention not to “provide a comprehensive study of the work of particular individuals” but rather to “establish a typology” (3–4) of those who worked as production artists, this emphasis on collective type is, happily, offset by the surfacing of several fascinating figures who recur throughout the volume. From those with reputations built on other endeavors in film (such as Evgenii Bauer or Lev Kuleshov, known primarily as directors) to less celebrated names associated with major works (such as Evgenii Enei, Vasilii Rakhals΄, or Sergei Kozlovskii), a full and textured pantheon of Russian and Soviet production artists emerges.

Designing Russian Cinema assumes neither an overriding chronological narrative nor a biography-focused throughline. Instead, Rees presents five thematic chapters. The first is an eye-opening discussion of the commonalities in background of early production artists, the ways in which they were recruited into cinema work, and how they helped define their role within the industry. The four subsequent chapters each address case studies of specific common film sets and their material substance: Ch. 2 leads us into rural environments (landscapes, huts, farms); Ch. 3 reads domestic interiors for their alternating suggestions of captivity and shelter; Ch. 4 shows us sets of workplaces—especially private studies—and finally, Ch. 5 considers spaces of aesthetic creation (artist studios, theaters, and circuses). In all of this, Rees rigorously analyzes the work of production artists, with pertinent examples from both lesser-known films (such as Mikhail Kozhin's for The Dying Merchant, 1909) and well-known ones (such as Kozlovskii's for Aelita, 1924).

What emerges is a survey of activity performed and influence exerted by early Russian and Soviet production artists as well as clear evidence of the vitality of their collaboration with film workers who have, typically, been better documented. Indeed, Rees's history is not just a rehabilitation of forgotten filmmakers but is also a needed adjustment to the mythologies by which we imagine the processes of early filmmaking. It is a highly valuable resource for research and teaching, and no doubt will appeal to scholars of cinema beyond the Russian and Soviet space. As a serious supplement to the history of the silent era and to knowledge of production practices of the time, the book certainly deserves a place alongside those of Philip Cavendish and Maria Belodubrovskaya.