Three Soviet Classics (Earth / The End of St. Petersburg / Chess Fever)
by Vsevolod Pudovkin, Mikhail Doller
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Actor: Aleksandr Chistyakov, Aleksei Davor, Ivan Chuvelyov, Vera Baranovskaya, Vladimir FogelDirector: Mikhail Doller, Vsevolod Pudovkin
Brand: Kino International
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 186 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-13
Audience Rating: Unrated
Model: 2982
Studio: Kino Video
Product features:
- EARTH/END OF ST. PETERSBURG/CHESS FEVER (DVD MOVIE)
DVD Reviews of Three Soviet Classics (Earth / The End of St. Petersburg / Chess Fever)
DVD Review: The golden age of the Russian silent cinema
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not the greatest expert on Russian silent cinema, but still have a Masters degree from USC Cinema in History-Criticism. The three great filmmakers of Russian silents were Eisenstein, Podovkin, and Dovzhenko. They could not be more different. Eisenstein told a story cinematically in masterpieces like STRIKE (1924) and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925); note the poetry in his powerful editing and dynamic visual compositions. Podovkin loved film technique, especially dynamic cutting, to tell a story. But in a classic, like THE END OF ST. PETERSBURG (1927), he does not forget to tell a gripping factory management vs. labor story. In complete contrast, Dovzhenko was Ukranian and ignored the story in favor of showing beautiful Ukraine landscapes, wheat fields and rivers, and especially the haunting faces of peasants working on their farms. His greatest film may be the silent EARTH (1930).
Which one Russian silent to recommend if you only have time for one? I am saving STRIKE and POTEMKIN for Labor Day Weekend. They are certainly the most famous films here, movies that "wrote the book" on camerawork and editing. But I like THE END OF ST. PETERSBURG quite a lot and find it very appropriate for Labor Day. In 1927, Lenin commissioned Podovkin and Eisenstein to each make a movie commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The results are Eisenstein's OCTOBER and Podovkin's END OF ST. PETERSBURG. Dynamically edited and excitingly shot, ST. PETERSBURG has a factory in 1917 where management dictates a longer work day to meet increased productivity. When the workers all go on strike, a whole city of scab workers go to work at the factory. This results in considerable bloodshed.
Over ten years, Russia goes to war--World War One, portrayed in all of its vivid brutality. The striking workers eventually go back to work, goaded on by rugged earth mother wives with babies, both of whom need food and milk. ST. PETERSBURG is unsurpassed at showing the horrors of war and the desolation of defeat. I again do not know the politics here very well, but gather that the war makes the capitalists rich and the working class more poor.
But by 1927, the Russian Revolution between peasants and weathy landowners somehow helps the working class and deprives the landowner capitalists of their money. A new Russia is born, run by Lenin as the glory of Communism in the new city of Leningrad. Podovkin is a major Russian filmmaker to be reckoned with in terms of both great filmmaking and potent storytelling. He is at his best in THE END OF ST. PETERSBURG which, incidentally, you should buy or rent in a 35mm archive print from Kino Video. Happy Labor Day Weekend!
(REVIEWED ON VHS VIDEOCASSETTE, but EARTH is a masterpiece also, one of the great films of world cinema. CHESS FEVER I am unfamiliar with.)
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Description of Three Soviet Classics (Earth / The End of St. Petersburg / Chess Fever)
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