Zemlya (1930)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Aleksandr Dovzhenko

Writer:

Aleksandr Dovzhenko (writer)

Release Date:

17 October 1930 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.

Plot Keywords:

Death | Communism | Farm | Tractor | Nudity

Cast

Stepan Shkurat	...	Opanas (as S. Shkurat)
Semyon Svashenko	...	Vasili 'Basil' Opanas (as S. Svashenko)
Yuliya Solntseva	...	Vasili's sister (as Yu. Solntseva)
Yelena Maksimova	...	Natalya, Vasili's fiancee (as Ye. Maksimova)
Nikolai Nademsky	...	Semyon 'Simon' Opanas (as N. Nademsky)
Ivan Franko	...	Arkhip Whitehorse, Khoma's father (as I. Franko)
Pyotr Masokha	...	Khoma 'Thomas' Whitehorse (as P. Masokha)
Vladimir Mikhajlov	...	Village priest (as V. Mikhajlov)
Pavel Petrik	...	Young party-cell leader (as P. Petrik)
P. Umanets	...	Chairman of the village Farm Soviet
Ye. Bondina	...	Farm girl
Luka Lyashenko	...	Young Kulak (as L. Lyashenko)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
V. Krasenko	...	Old Peter (uncredited)
M. Matsyutsia	...	Farm girl (uncredited)
Nikolai Mikhajlov	...	The Pope (uncredited)

Directed by
Aleksandr Dovzhenko

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Aleksandr Dovzhenko		writer

Original Music by
Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov		(1971) (as V. Ovchinnikov)
Lev Revutsky		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Daniil Demutsky

Film Editing by
Aleksandr Dovzhenko		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Vasili Krichevsky

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Lazar Bodik	....	assistant director
Yuliya Solntseva	....	assistant director

Music Department
Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov	....	conductor (1971 restored version) (as V. Ovchinnikov)

Other crew
Stephen P. Hill	....	intertitler: English (1975 version)

Production Companies

• Wufku

Distributors

• Amkino Corporation (1930) (USA) (theatrical) (English intertitles)
• Kino Video (1991) (USA) (video) (1971 'restoration' with 1975 English intertitles)
• Image Entertainment (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Kino Video (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Grapevine Video (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• absolut MEDIEN (2006) (Germany) (DVD)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1977) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Punto Zero (2007) (Italy) (DVD)
• Seagull Films (2006) (USA) (theatrical)
• Video Yesteryear (????) (USA) (VHS)

Other Companies

• Kino International  1991 us copyright author, video release
• Mosfilm  1971 restoration studio facilities
• The Eastin-Phelan Corp.  1975 copyright author, us subtitled version

Also Known As:

Земля (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Earth (USA)
Soil
Erde (Germany) [de]
Jorden (Finland: Swedish title) [sv]
La terre (France) [fr]
La tierra (Spain) [es]
Maa (Finland) [fi]
Terra (Brazil) [pt]
Zemlja (France) (alternative transliteration) [fr]
Ziemia (Poland) [pl]

Runtime:

75 min | USA:73 min (1991 Kino video)

Country:

Soviet Union

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (1956) | Finland:S (1972)

Company:

Wufku

Trivia:

This film was voted one of the ten greatest films of all time by a group of 117 film historians at the 1958 Brussels World Fair.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Life as a Dream (2007) (V)

A great classic

"The Earth", Dovzhenko's last silent movie, and it is also his best. With a simple story of a young farmer from an Ucranian village, Dovzhenko works the lyrical expression of an universal theme: the life circle of a person. The movie is developed with a constant counterpoint between pictures of life and death, being the images of death and social changes extremely powerful. The arrival of a tractor is the turning point of all the social changes in the farm, as it is gradually shown in the movie. Yes, it is a movie from former USSR, but that shouldn't make us build a preconceptcion of the movie (in fact this movie was censored by the USSR). In short, one sentence for this movie: Death not as an end, but as a natural process. Watch it!