Pudovkin, Vsevolod

Three Soviet Classics (Earth / The End of St. Petersburg / Chess Fever)

Mother

Russian director Vsevolod I. Pudovkin's "Mother" is the chronicle of an individual's transformation from political naivete to Marxist awareness set during the 1905 Russian Revolution. Pudovkin uses innovative montage techniques and camera angles to tell this bold story of national unrest through the eyes of a working class woman.

Storm over Asia

The last of the three great films that V.I. Pudovkin directed in the 1920s, Storm over Asia (1928) is an acknowledged classic of Soviet silent cinema. Filmed largely on location in Mongolia, the film has an authentic documentary feel, though the story is a stirring melodrama, about a young fur trapper who is mistreated by the occupying forces in the civil war and becomes a leader of the partisans. Pudovkin enjoys caricaturing the foreign (British) troops and the medieval rituals of a Buddhist temple, but it's out on the steppes that he really comes into his own, with panoramic shots of the vast landscapes. Together with Mother (1926) and The End of St. Petersburg (1927), Storm over Asia (also known as The Heir to Genghis Khan) entitles Pudovkin to be ranked with Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov as a master of the Soviet montage style, which he expounded in his book Film Technique (1929). --Ed Buscombe

Soviet master filmmaker V. I. Pudovkin's "Storm Over Asia" is a revolutionary masterpiece. Described by critics as an "epic poem," "Storm Over Asia" is set in the remote region of Mongolia where a young man is mistaken as a descendant of the great warrior Genghis Khan. When he is made a puppet ruler, he must decide where his loyalties lay.

The End of Saint Petersburg / Deserter

A giant of early Soviet revolutionary cinema, Vsevolod Pudovkin overwhelmed the film world with his masterpieces based in montage, the creation of a psychological whole from short pieces of thematically-related film. Intensely dramatic and personal, "The End of Saint Petersburg" (1927, 87 min.) follows a Russian peasant from life on a farm to union work in the big city, through the turmoil of World War I and into the Russian Revolution. In "Deserter" (1933, 106 min.), labor unrest among German workers leads one conflicted employee from a potential strike to an unforgettable journey to the U.S.S.R., where he becomes inspired to renew the cause of his fellow men. Digitally mastered from the finest elements available, these two cinematic milestones offer breathtaking examples of Pudovkin's editorial genius and fascinating multi-layered soundtracks.

Bed and Sofa

Daring for its time (or any time), Bed and Sofa is the story of a love triangle between a woman and two men living together in a one-room basement apartment in 1927 Moscow. When Liuda becomes pregnant and no one knows which husband is the father, she must determine her own future. With an involving plot, comic invention, pathos, naturalistic performances, and highly-charged use of space and objects, director Abram Room illuminates the lives of the characters but without offering a simplistic resolution. Instead he successfully uses their personal stories to probe complex issues of lingering patriarchy and female self-sufficiency in the new Society. As a bonus, this DVD also includes Chess Fever, a witty and ingenious satire on the chess craze which swept Moscow at the time of the International Tournament there.

Potomok Chingis-Khana [Region 2]

The last of the three great films that V.I. Pudovkin directed in the 1920s, Storm over Asia (1928) is an acknowledged classic of Soviet silent cinema. Filmed largely on location in Mongolia, the film has an authentic documentary feel, though the story is a stirring melodrama, about a young fur trapper who is mistreated by the occupying forces in the civil war and becomes a leader of the partisans. Pudovkin enjoys caricaturing the foreign (British) troops and the medieval rituals of a Buddhist temple, but it's out on the steppes that he really comes into his own, with panoramic shots of the vast landscapes. Together with Mother (1926) and The End of St. Petersburg (1927), Storm over Asia (also known as The Heir to Genghis Khan) entitles Pudovkin to be ranked with Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov as a master of the Soviet montage style, which he expounded in his book Film Technique (1929). --Ed Buscombe