Earth is a 1930 Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko

Alexander Dovzhenko

Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko , was a Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director of Ukrainian descent. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin.- Biography :...

, concerning an insurrection by a community of farmers, following a hostile takeover by Kulak

Kulak

Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...

 landowners. It is Part 3 of Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy" (along with Zvenigora

Zvenigora

Zvenigora, or Zvenyhora is a 1928 Soviet silent film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. Regarded as a silent revolutionary epic, Dovzhenko's initial film in his "Ukraine Trilogy" is almost religious in its tone, relating a millennium of Ukrainian history through the story of an old man...

and Arsenal

Arsenal (film)

Arsenal is a 1928 Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. It is the second film in his "Ukraine Trilogy", the first being Zvenigora and the third being Earth ....

).

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

Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...

's The Battleship Potemkin

The Battleship Potemkin

The Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...

(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

Expo '58

Expo 58, also known as the Brussels World’s Fair, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling or Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles, was held from 17 April to 19 October 1958...

 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

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

's character goes to see in Manhattan

Manhattan (film)

Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen about a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl before eventually falling in love with his best friend's mistress...

.

Cast

• Stepan Shkurat as uncle Opanas
• Semyon Svashenko as Vasil
• Yuliya Solntseva
  Yuliya Solntseva
  Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva was a Soviet film director and actress who starred in the silent sci-fi classic Aelita . She directed 14 films between 1939 and 1979...
  
  as Vasili's sister
• Yelena Maksimova as Natalya, Vasili's fiancee
• Nikolai Nademsky as Semyon "Simon"
• Ivan Franko as Arkhip Whitehorse, Khoma's father
• Pyotr Masokha as Khoma Whitehorse
• Vladimir Mikhajlov as Village priest
• Pavel Petrik as Young party-cell leader
• P. Umanets
• Ye. Bondina
• Luka Lyashenko as Young Kulak

External links

• Ray Uzwyshyn's Visual Exploration of Earth Earth (1930): Philosophy, Iconology, Collectivization