Dovzhenko - Zemlia, subtitles

[Sylvia Swift]

for simon krysl and other interested bystanders:

> a lot of dialogue appears to go on on the screen, mouths moving,
>characters reacting to
>each other - that (this is a silent movie) never appears on the intertitles,
>not even as a 'summary,' so the viewer is left in wonderment what kind of
>conflict(s), what kind of crises are brought into the open.
yes, this happens a lot in silent cinema, not just russian (or
ukrainian) silent cinema.

>But as this is a "transition-era" film (between silent and sound film too),
maybe less transitional than you think.  see denise youngblood's
_movies for the masses_ (especially pp. 32-33) and _soviet cinema in
the silent era_  (look for the table of silent v. sound
production).    there wasn't much soviet sound film until the
mid-30's.

> has this been written about regarding Dovzhenko?

one thing that is interesting about this film is that dovzhenko took
the trouble to write out a scenario/novelization/treatment for the
film more than 30 years after the shooting script (which survives, i
think, only in fragments) and the film.  it is available in ukrainian:

>Dovzhenko, Oleksandr Petrovych, 1894-1956. Tvory v piaty tomakh /, Oleksandr
>Dovzhenko. Kiev : Dnipro, 1964. 5 v. : plates ; 21 cm.
>Language: Ukrainian
>
>Dovzhenko, Oleksandr Petrovych, 1894-1956. Zemlia; kniga - film.,
>[Sostaviteli: IU. Solntseva i G. Mariamov. Oformlenie G. Dmitrieva. Moskva,
>Biuro propagandy sovetskogo kinoiskustva, 1966] 185 p. illus.
>Language: Ukrainian

english:

>Zarkhi, Natan Abramovich, 1900-1935. Mat. English. Mother,, a film by V. I.
>Pudovkin. Earth, a film by Alexander Dovzhenko. New York, Simon and Schuster
>[c1973] 102 p. illus. 21 cm. $2.75
>Series title: Classic film scripts
>
>Zarkhi, Natan Abramovich, 1900-1935. Mat. English. Mother,, a film by V. I.
>Pudovkin; Earth, a film by Alexander Dovzhenko. London, Lorrimer Pub. [1973]
>102 p. illus. 21 cm. #1.25
>Series title: Classic film scripts no. 41

and i'm not sure, but the russian is probably in:

>Dovzhenko, Oleksandr Petrovych, 1894-1956. Sobranie sochinenii. [Moskva,
>Iskusstvo, 1966]-69. 4 v. illus., ports. 22 cm.
>Language: Russian

i have seen the film several times, with and without subtitles.  it
has logical and narratological lacunae, some of which are filled in
in this "scenario."

probably more to the point is what georges sadoul says dovzhenko said
about the film (cited in english in carynnyk's _alexander dovzhenko:
the poet as filmmaker:  selected writings_,  the original is in
sadoul's _dictionnaire des films_):   "I wanted to show the state of
a Ukrainian village in 1929, that is to say, at the time it was going
through an economic transformation and a mental change in the
masses.  My principles are :  1.  Stories in themselves do not
interest me; I choose them in order to get the greatest expression of
essential social forms . . . ."  it is an open text, and the dialogue
that is not rendered in intertitles for the non-lip-reading audience
is not the only ambiguity.

lots, as you may already know, has been written about dovzhenko.   in
russian, a good (but dated) bibliography of works by and about him is
in

>Stsenaristy sovetskogo khudozhestvennogo kino. 1917-1967. Spravochnik. Moskva,
>"Iskusstvo," 1972. 439 p. 21 cm.
>Language: Russian

immediately following the headnote on his life.

there was a wonderful one- or two-day conference on _earth_ that i
happened to sit in on (moscow '94?  petersburg '97? it was some kind
of jubilee year for the film or the filmmaker), but i can't find my
notes and i don't know if the proceedings were published.

i never think musing about dovzhenko is beside the point.  good luck
with your project.

sylvia swift
madonna at socrates.berkeley.edu
--

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