Aleksandr Dovzhenko

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – The Cultural Heritage [Disc 1] (1926 – 1928)

    1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoArthouseSilentUSSR

    Love’s Berries 1926
    The mistress of hairdresser Jean Kovbasyuk throws a baby up to him. Jean decides in any method to be delivered from a “natural” child…Getting a call to the judicial investigator, Kovbasyuk is given up to search a child. A mistress labours for in the court of people’s “justice”. However much it turns out after registration of marriage, that Jean and in actual fact was not the father of child. But lately…Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Arsenal (The Cultural Heritage) [Disc 2] (1928)

    Drama1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoArthouseUSSR

    In Arsenal, Alexander Dovzhenko, perhaps the most radical of the Soviet directors of the silent period, altered the already extended conventions of cinematic structure to a degree greater than had even the innovative Sergei Eisenstein in his bold October. The effect of this tinkering with the more or less accepted proprieties of motion picture construction produced a work that is actually less a film than it is a highly symbolic visual poem. For example, in a more linearly structured piece like October, the metaphors, allusions, and analogies that arise through the construction of the various montages replace rather than comment on essential actions within the film. In Arsenal, however, the symbolism is so purposely esoteric, with seemingly deliberate barriers established to block the viewer’s perception, that the relationship of individual symbols or sequences to the various actions of the film is not immediately clear.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Zemlya – versions of 1930 & 1971 (The Cultural Heritage [Disc 3]) (1930)

    1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoArthouseDramaUSSR

    Earh (1930) 59 min.
    Poetic cinema story about events related to collectivization in Ukraine at the end of 20th years of the last century, about creation of the first of a collective farm communes, about class enmity on a village.
    The best film Dovzhenko and one of the best films in history world to the cinema.
    A film “Earth” on the World exhibition in Brussels of 1958 was adopted among the twelve best films of all times and people as a result of questioning, conducted Belgian cinematic among 117 film critics andconnoisseurs of the films from 26 countries of the world. During many subsequent years “Earth” was multiple included in the various lists of the best films of the world of XX century.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Michurin AKA Life in Bloom (1949)

    1941-1950Aleksandr DovzhenkoDramaPoliticsUSSR

    The film is about the life and work of the prominent Russian biologist Ivan Michurin. Reports of gardener-Michurin’s extraordinary experiments with plants reach far beyond the borders of the Russian empire. Trying to persuade him to move to the United States, a group of Americans comes to the village where Michurin lives. They promise him all kinds of benefits. But Michurin, despite his lack of recognition by the government, is devoted to Russia. Overcoming obstacles created by the tsarist bureaucracy, the scientist continues with his experiments on natural selection and dreams of the time when all people will be able to take full advantage of his achievements. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 makes his dreams come true and Michurin’s orchard in Kozlov becomes a center of Soviet experimental biology.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Arsenal (1928)

    1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoDramaUSSRWar

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    Set in the bleak aftermath and devastation of the World War I, a recently demobbed soldier, Timosh, returns to his hometown Kiev, after having survived a train wreck. His arrival coincides with a national celebration of Ukrainian freedom, but the festivities are not to last as a disenchanted.

    In Arsenal, Alexander Dovzhenko, perhaps the most radical of the Soviet directors of the silent period, altered the already extended conventions of cinematic structure to a degree greater than had even the innovative Sergei Eisenstein in his bold October. The effect of this tinkering with the more or less accepted proprieties of motion picture construction produced a work that is actually less a film than it is a highly symbolic visual poem. For example, in a more linearly structured piece like October, the metaphors, allusions, and analogies that arise through the construction of the various montages replace rather than comment on essential actions within the film. In Arsenal, however, the symbolism is so purposely esoteric, with seemingly deliberate barriers established to block the viewer’s perception, that the relationship of individual symbols or sequences to the various actions of the film is not immediately clear.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko & Yuliya Solntseva – Pobeda na Pravoberezhnoi Ukraine i izgnaniye nemetsikh zakhvatchikov za predeli Ukrainskikh sovietskikh zemel AKA Victory in Soviet Ukraine (1945)

    1941-1950Aleksandr DovzhenkoDocumentaryUSSRWarYuliya SolntsevaYuliya Solntseva and Aleksandr Dovzhenko

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    Describes the Russian attack against the Germans, which drove them away from the Dneiper river, and finally out of Ukraine.Read More »

  • Yuliya Solntseva & Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Poema o more AKA The Poem of the Sea (1959)

    1951-1960Aleksandr DovzhenkoDramaUSSRYuliya Solntseva

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    Summary:
    This is a movie-poem with philosophic and lyric contemplations about the construction of Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, closure of the Dnieper, creation of Kakhovskoye Sea and also about human destinies involved in this great overturn of the region’s life. The action takes place in 1956-57. To the farm chairman’s call the people born in the village located near the Dniepr river that is to be flooded come to say good-buy to their birthplace. It is very hard for the senior generation to destroy their native houses and demolish the gardens as their memories of happy peaceful life and of the dreadful war are associated with them. The young people on the contrary smash down everything old with enthusiasm being sure that it brings nearer the bright future. Spring waters of the Dniepr are out and the Ukrainian village sinks to the bottom of the new Kakhovskoye Sea…
    Source : www.mosfilm.ruRead More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Zemlya AKA Earth (1930)

    1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoAmos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtEpicSilentUSSR

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    Quote:
    Dovzhenko was commissioned to make what was intended to be a minor propaganda film to encourage the establishment of farming collectives. Under Dovzhenko’s lyrical montage and photography what emerged far exceeded propaganda; Earth has repeatedly made every international top ten film list.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Aerograd (1935)

    1931-1940Aleksandr DovzhenkoClassicsDramaUSSR

    Quote:
    A Russian outpost in Eastern Siberia comes under threat of attack by the Japanese in this patriotic film from 1935. Aerograd is a new town with a strategically located airfield of vital interest to the government. Work on the new outpost is complicated when tensions develop between workers and a religious sect. The sect threatens to give their support to a band of marauding samurai warriors who battle for control of the region. Relations between the two countries are further strained in the days before World War II, dating back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. In this feature, the Russians are victorious as airplanes throughout the country come to the aid of the beleaguered new town. Director Alexander Dovzhenko, long considered a giant in Russian classic cinema, also wrote the screenplay for this feature.Read More »

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