Mother Russia

[MrChris]

Hi Everyone

It's time for your latest assignment. Help me out on Mother Russia.
A line from this song has long intrigued me:
'A kino runner for the DDR'

Two possible meanings of 'Kino' exist, each suggesting a different interpretation. One idea of mine is that Kino means films (cinema). The second says that Kino is a certain type of drug.

Kino=films
A Kino runner for the DDR would be someone importing or exporting films for East Germany. Metaphorically, someone exporting the Western dream to the East, or the Eastern dream to the West. Runner=smuggler. Of course, in the context of the media a runner is also a general assistant, or dogsbody.

Kino=drugs
Kino is apparently an astringent drug, and the most sense I can squeeze out of this is that it may be used by athletes to improve their performance (perhaps illegally). A Kino runner would therefore be either an East German athlete using this drug to succeed (this would fit!) and win the propaganda battle for the East, or a smuggler importing the drug for East Germany.

Does anyone have any ideas about this very enigmatic line? Can anyone put me out of my misery?

Chris

[Jim]

I think all your ideas are pretty sound. That Kino is a specific drug is new to me, but having looked around I can't find any more than you've got on it. The picture I originally had was of smuggling drugs in film cannisters for East Germany. That was more of a mental picture that the lyric evoked more than anything combining DDR, Kino, and "drug runner". The fact that Kino IS a drug (albeit a pretty tame one) adds to the multi layered nature of Eldys lyrics.

To add to what you had, having been to Las Vegas in the last few months, I found they have a game in pretty much every Casino called Keno. It's like a mentally complicated version of Bingo - they play it in "Keno Lounges" and if you have a room, you can watch it on one of the channels. You pick your numbers/lines/combinations (theres hundreds) put a bet on (your choice) and the odds/winnings are figured out from all that. You can then either stay and watch the draws (every 5 minutes) or come back later (or watch it from your room).

As far as I know it's not a particularly exciting or controversial pastime (beyond the gambling element), but there are specific "Keno runners" who place your bet for you, eg if you're in a restaurant and decide to play the keno (there'll be a monitor there) you just ask the waiter/ress for a runner and one'll come over and go sort your out for you. Maybe they deal drugs on the side, I don't know.

Just adding that other angle anyway...

[MrChris]

Wayhey, I got a customer in sad, mad addicted corner. I think your 'keno runner' reference is very interesting, actually sounds very plausible. That gives me another mental image for when I listen to the song. Eldy does Bingo. Two Andies, 11!

Great avatar, by the way.
Says the man without one.

[Jim]

It looed to me like the "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" Von pose.

[sodium_haze]

hello all together,

first I want to apologize for my english, it's not the best ...

second something about me,
I was born in '82 in East-Berlin (that time DDR)
and that's where I still life today...
I think I can help you a bit with these lines...

In my opinion the previous line is the key to all:
"I'm living in films for the sake of Russia".

During the time of the DDR, there was a large organization of censorship,
each media had to pass.
And especially kinofilms had to because they had large public.
(1)In such films, we all (population of the DDR) are convinced socialists,
all young people are "Pioniere" and socialistic people are always better
than other ones in the world.
Mostly these films doesn't reflect reality, mostly they reflect the
dream of a good socialistic country.

I think that's exactely, what this line tries to say
"to live in a filme FOR the sake of Russia".

Next...
If there is a great film, we call something like this a "Renner"
(deduced from "hinrennen" -to run to), we say "dieser Film ist ein Renner".
And if you would be german you could easily get into temptation and
translate it very simple into english because a "Renner" in german
is a running Person, so in english it could become a "Runner"...

Now to, what I think this scentense means,
I would say this line tries to say in a sarcastic way, that such films,
like described above -->(1) weren't Kino Runners, weren't films everyone
wanted to watch because they don't show truth.

In my opinion this line tries to pinpoint on the fact, that the leadership
of the DDR wanted something to be in a certain way but in reality it was
mostly the other way around...



I hope, I helped you a bit, looking through the haze...

[Dave R]

drugs.

go with the drugs.

Melody Maker 1997 - September.

It's the drugs, that and the French Rugby Team.....

don't ask................

[doc P]

Hi Everyone

It's time for your latest assignment. Help me out on Mother Russia.
A line from this song has long intrigued me:
'A kino runner for the DDR'

Chris

A Kino runner is a blockbuster movie

nothing more nothing less

that´s all folks

[Quiff Boy]

@ sodium_haze:

welcome to heartland. that's a very interesting interpretation and one of the few that sounds cool as well as being plausable

and don't worry - you're english is better than my deutsch

[mh]

And one cool avatar too!!!

[mugabe]

Now to, what I think this scentense means,
I would say this line tries to say in a sarcastic way, that such films,
like described above -->(1) weren't Kino Runners, weren't films everyone
wanted to watch because they don't show truth.

In my opinion this line tries to pinpoint on the fact, that the leadership
of the DDR wanted something to be in a certain way but in reality it was
mostly the other way around...

Hallo, und herzlich willkommen.

I recently watched Good Bye Lenin, which was a very good movie on this theme. Worth checking out.

[MrChris]

Living in films for the sake of Russia / a kinorenner for the DDR

Now it all makes more sense. Thank you very much, "Sodium Haze" !!

[sodium_haze]

Thanks for the nice welcome...

[pikkrong]

Welcome, hazy one

(my English is worse than yours, by the way )

[sodium_haze]

It doesn't matter !!!

If I understand you and you understand me, we are nearly sisters...

[pikkrong]

It doesn't matter !!!

If I understand you and you understand me, we are nearly sisters...

You mean Sisters like that?

[Loki]

Welcome, hazy one

(my English is worse than yours, by the way )

But she/he ain't got the postcard ...

[sodium_haze]

Sisters,
in the way of getting closer
by overcomming simple borders like the language...

(itself in german it took me a few minutes to find corresponding
words for the thought behind what I wanted to express by
"sisters". And I think it's still not well enought described...)

[Black Planet]

Your analysis was very good. It makes sense in terms of context.

Thank you

[James Blast]

You mean Sisters like that?

Mr. E was a Rock Star then, where did it all go wrong?

[mh]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kino-Pravda

Kino-Pravda ("Film Truth") was a newsreel series by Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman.

Vertov referred to the twenty-three issues of Kino-Pravda as the first work by him where his future cinematic methods can be observed.

Working mainly during the 1920s, Vertov promoted the concept of kino-pravda, or film-truth, through his newsreel series. His driving vision was to capture fragments of actuality which, when organized together, showed a deeper truth which could not be seen with the naked eye. In the "Kino-Pravda" series, Vertov focused on everyday experiences, eschewing bourgeois concerns and filming marketplaces, bars, and schools instead, sometimes with a hidden camera, without asking permission first.

The episodes of "Kino-Pravda" usually did not include reenactments or stagings (one exception is the segment about the trial of the Social Revolutionaries: the scenes of the selling of the newspapers on the streets and the people reading the papers in the trolley were both staged for the camera). The cinematography is simple, functional, and unelaborated. Twenty-three issues of the series were produced over a period of three years; each issue lasted about twenty minutes and usually covered three topics. The stories were typically descriptive, not narrative, and included vignettes and exposés, showing for instance the renovation of a trolley system, the organization of farmers into communes, and the trial of Social Revolutionaries; one story shows starvation in the nascent Marxist state. Propagandistic tendencies are also present, but with more subtlety, in the episode featuring the construction of an airport: one shot shows the former Czar's tanks helping prepare a foundation, with an intertitle reading "Tanks on the labor front".

Vertov clearly intended an active relationship with his audience in the series — in the final segment he includes contact information — but by the fourteenth episode the series had become so experimental that some critics dismissed Vertov's efforts as "insane".

The term kino pravda, though it translates from Russian as "film truth", is not to be confused with the cinéma vérité movement in documentary film, which also translates as "film truth". Cinéma vérité was similarly marked by the intention of capturing reality "warts and all", but became popular in France in the 1960s.

"Living in films for the sake of Russia".