Vsevolod Pudovkin
1893 - 1953Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage. Pudovkin's masterpieces are often contrasted with those of his contemporary Sergei Eisenstein, but whereas Eisenstein utilized montage to glorify the power of the masses, Pudovkin preferred to concentrate on the courage and resilience of individuals. He was granted the title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1948.
Иван Грозный. Сказ второй: Боярский заговор
Sergei Eisenstein
Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima Birman
This is the second part of a projected three-part epic biopic of Russian Czar Ivan Grozny, undertaken by Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein at the behest of Josef Stalin. Production of the epic was stopped before the third part could be filmed, due to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's introducing forbidden experimental filming techniques into the material, more evident in this part than the first part. As it was, this second part was banned from showings until after the deaths of both Eisenstein and Stalin, and a change of attitude by the subsequent heads of the Soviet government. In this part, as Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate him.
Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Sergei Eisenstein
Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Конец Санкт-Петербурга
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Aleksandr Chistyakov, Vera Baranovskaya
A peasant in rural Russia comes to St. Petersburg to escape absolute poverty and find work at the outbreak of the First World War. He comes to stay with his friend, a Bolshevik worker who has organized a strike at his factory. The peasant betrays his friend to the factory's greedy management, leading to the arrest of the striker. Feeling remorseful at his actions, the peasant attempts to plead for his friend’s freedom, but the situation escalates and he is imprisoned without trial and sent to fight in the war. After returning from the front, the peasant joins the revolutionary fight along with the Bolshevik worker.
The End of St. Petersburg
Новый Вавилон
Leonid Trauberg, Grigori Kozintsev
Yelena Kuzmina, David Gutman
In the short-lived Commune of Paris, a conscripted soldier falls in love with a Communard saleswoman. As the army cracks down on the revolutionaries, the soldier is forced to fight against the Commune, and the pair's love is put to the test.
The New Babylon
Убийцы выходят на дорогу
Vsevolod Pudovkin, Yuri Tarich
Mikhail Astangov, Boris Blinov
Brecht's play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".
The Murderers Are Coming
Шахматная горячка
Nikolai Shpikovsky, Vsevolod Pudovkin
José Raúl Capablanca, Vladimir Fogel
With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.
Chess Fever
Живой труп
Fyodor Otsep
Vsevolod Pudovkin, Maria Jacobini
The central character of the play, Fedor Protasov, is tormented by the belief that his wife Liza has never really chosen between him and the more conventional Victor Karenin, a rival for her hand. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't have the nerve. Running away from his life, he first falls in with Gypsies, and into a sexual relationship with a Gypsy singer, Masha.
The Living Corpse
Потомок Чингисхана
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Valéry Inkijinoff, I. Dedintsev
In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.
Storm Over Asia
Prostoy sluchay
Mikhail Doller, Vsevolod Pudovkin
Aleksandr Baturin, Yevgeniya Rogulina
As a response to criticism for the allegedly excessive “mass appeal” of his earlier epic STORM OVER ASIA (1928), Vsevolod Pudovkin unleashed his flair for experimentation in what was supposed to be the director’s first sound feature. Everything went wrong: technical problems forced him to complete the film as a silent; viewers were baffled by the lack of a recognizable plot; then, the ideological climate of the Soviet Union changed. He was now being blamed for catering to bourgeois taste! Time has come to set the record straight. Here’s lyrical cinema at its best, deliberately operatic and yet intimate as it matches the characters’ inner life with the solemn rhythms of nature, and depicted through breathtaking black-and-white photography. A sensation at last year’s Pordenone fest, Pudovkin’s long-forgotten swan song to the art of montage is resurrected by Gabriel Thibaudeau’s emotionally charged live music performance. –PCU (USSR, 1930, 75m)
A Simple Case
Суворов
Mikhail Doller, Vsevolod Pudovkin
Nikolai P. Cherkasov, Aleksandr Khanov
Primarily a biographical documentary about the military career of Alexander Vasilvich Suvorov, who was Field Marshal of the armies of Catherine the Great and Czar Paul I. After many military successes during the reign of Catherine, General Suvorov broke with her successor, Paul I, the Mad Emperor, over questions regarding army policy. He went into retirement and wrote "The Science of Victory," containing maxims such as "Swiftness of movement accompanies victory," and "the real general is he who defeats the enemy before reaching him." The czar recalled Suvorov to become the leader of the joint armies of Russia and Austria against Napoleon.
General Suvorov
Дезертир
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Boris Livanov, Vasili Kovrigin
A wise and forgiving communist leader decides to send a young worker, Karl Renn, as an international delegate to the Soviet Union after the worker had deserted a picket-line and had expressed doubts about the methods of class struggle in in his own country.
Deserter
Необычайные приключения мистера Веста в стране большевиков
Lev Kuleshov
Porfiri Podobed, Boris Barnet
Mr. West and his faithful bodyguard Jeddie visit the land of the 'evil' Bolsheviks. Through various mishaps, Mr. West discovers that the Soviets are actually quite remarkable people.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
