Earth (1930 film)

Earth
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alexander Dovzhenko
Written by	Alexander Dovzhenko
Starring	Stepan Shkurat Semyon Svashenko Yuliya Solntseva Yelena Maksimova Nikolai Nademsky
Music by	Levko Revutsky Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov
Cinematography	Danylo Demutsky
Editing by	Alexander Dovzhenko
Release date(s)	8 April 1930
Running time	76 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Silent film Russian intertitles

Earth (Russian/Ukrainian: Земля, translit. Zemlya) is a 1930 Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko, concerning the process of collectivization and the hostility of Kulak landowners. It is Part 3 of Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy" (along with Zvenigora and Arsenal).

Plot

The film begins with the final moments of grandfather Semyon (Simon) Opanas beneath a pear tree. Next local kulaks, including Arkhyp Bilokin, contemplate the process of collectivization and declare their resistance to it, while elsewhere Semyon's grandson Vasyl (Basil) and his komsomol friends also meet to discuss collectivization, although his father is skeptical.

Later, Vasyl arrives with the community's first tractor to much excitement. After the men urinate in the overheated radiator, the peasants plow the land with the tractor and harvest the grain. A montage sequence presents the production of bread from beginning to end. That night Vasyl dances a hopak along a path on his way home, but a dark figure attacks and kills him.

Vasyl's father turns away the priest who expects to lead the funeral, declaring his atheism. He asks Vasyl's friends to bury his son in a new way without priests and "sing new songs for a new life." The villagers do so, while Vasyl's fiancee, Natalya, mourns him painfully and the local priest curses them as impious. At the cemetery, Bilokin's son Khoma (Thomas) arrives in a frenzy to declare that he will resist collectivization and that he was the one who killed Vasyl, but the villagers pay him no attention. One declares that Vasyl's glory will fly around the world like a new communist airplane. The film ends with a downpour of rain over fruit and vegetables.

Reception

Earth was simultaneously lauded and derided by Soviet authorities due to its fairly ambiguous political message. Soviet influence is clear if one looks for it, particularly in the nearness to the "earth" of the peasants, but exactly why or how the symbol functions is unclear. Indeed, the film also deals with subjects such as death, destruction, and poverty.

Earth is usually considered Dovzhenko's best film, and is often cited alongside Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin (1925) as one of the most important films of the Soviet era.

It was named #88 in the 1995 Centenary Poll of the 100 Best Films of the Century in Time Out Magazine. The film was also voted one of the ten greatest films of all time by a group of 117 film historians at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair and named one of the top ten greatest films of all time by the International Film Critics Symposium.

It's also the first film in a double-feature which Woody Allen's character goes to see in Manhattan.

Cast

• Stepan Shkurat as Uncle Opanas
• Semyon Svashenko as Vasyl
• Yuliya Solntseva as Vasyl's sister
• Yelena Maksimova as Natalya, Vasili's fiancee
• Nikolai Nademsky as Semyon "Simon"
• Ivan Franko as Arkhip Bilokin (Whitehorse), Khoma's father
• Pyotr Masokha as Khoma Bilokin (Whitehorse)
• Vladimir Mikhajlov as Village priest
• Pavel Petrik as Young party-cell leader
• P. Umanets
• Ye. Bondina
• Luka Lyashenko as Young Kulak

External links

• Earth at the Internet Movie Database
• Earth at AllRovi
• Ray Uzwyshyn's Visual Exploration of Earth Earth (1930): Philosophy, Iconology, Collectivization