The general line
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The General Line Alternative: The Old and the New German distribution title: The fight for the earth |
| Original title | Генеральная линия (Generalnaïa Linïa) alternatively: Старое и Новое (Staroye i Novoye) |
| Country of production | Soviet Union |
| original language | Russian |
| Publishing year | 1929 |
| length | 121 minutes German post-war version: 93 restored version: 131 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Sergei M. Eisenstein |
| script | Sergei M. Eisenstein, Grigory Alexandrow |
| camera |
Eduard Tisse , Vladimir Popov |
| occupation | |
| |
The General Line (original title: Генеральная линия , Generalnaïa Linïa ), alternatively the old and the new (original title: Старое и Новое , Staroye i Novoye ), originally also The Battle for Earth , is a Soviet silent film by Sergei Eisenstein from 1926 to 1926 Was produced in 1928.
action
The film, commissioned by the Soviet state, promotes the new, socialist order of land distribution and forced collectivization in propaganda form .
In the center of the action is the young farmer Marfa, who is de facto playing herself. When her father dies, all that leaves her with distributing the inheritance is a cow and a tiny piece of land that is hardly worth cultivating. To get at least a minimal return, they ask a wealthy kulak for some help. All she needs is a horse to work her small field. But the hard-hearted man doesn't even listen. Out of sheer desperation, Marfa wonders whether there can be other ways to a promising agriculture.
So one day the revolutionary wakes up in Marfa. She founds her own kolkhoz with four other farmers who are in a similarly precarious situation . Again and again there are setbacks, but gradually the benefits of this production community for everyone involved are becoming apparent. The cooperative is becoming a prime example of effective agriculture, and more and more farmers in the area are joining it. Soon you can even afford a tractor and optimally cultivate the fields for everyone's benefit. On the other hand, many others around them, such as the deeply believing and the priest, appear like a gradually dying, archaic relic of times long past.
Production notes
The shooting of the film began in 1926 and dragged on for almost three years. In 1927, Eisenstein stopped filming to shoot his revolutionary film October - Ten Days that Shook the World . The world premiere was on November 7, 1929, and the film opened in Germany on February 10, 1930. While the film was shown for the first time in Germany under Der Kampf um die Erde (the title in the Illustrierte Filmkurier, No. 1351), after 1945 it was almost exclusively known in Germany under the literal translation of one of the two original titles, Die Generallinie . It was performed again under this title in Germany in 1962.
After his triumph with the Battleship Potemkin , Eisenstein was more or less free to make decisions in the still young Soviet state. “The government gave him every credit, every opportunity, every freedom to shoot 'Die Generallinie' ( the old and the new ). He worked on it for four years, destroyed the almost completed work, started it again, used 100,000 meters of raw film to keep only 2,500 meters of it. "
Eisenstein explained the goals he was pursuing with Die Generallinie in an interview. The German specialist publication Der Film read: “The film speaks of the machine, animals and milk; but while speaking of them, he is primarily aiming at the most responsible object of collectivization, people . "
Grigory Alexandrov , who worked on the film's script, was also Eisenstein's assistant director. Another assistant director was Maxim Schtrauch , who can also be seen in a short scene.
Reviews
Despite the staging and creative merits, The General Line is considered to be a somewhat forgotten side work of Eisenstein. Nonetheless, the art-loving film critics in particular have dealt intensively with the film for decades. Here are a few examples:
“Eisenstein's new film has many advantages. He has a fable, people and a clear storyline. […] The main role is played by the farmer Marfa Lapkina. Wherever it conformed to the principles of the “type”, the viewer accepted its representation without reservation. But when she tried to play, artistic dissonances arose. The film was a beautiful work in its visual design. Nobody before Eisenstein and Tisse has described the Russian village in such a poetic and lyrical way. The procession was a small masterpiece in the composition of the individual settings and in their assembly. The scenes, charged with satirical pungency, when Marfa argues with the bureaucrats in office, are excellent. "
“For the first time, Eisenstein put an individual at the center of a film. […] But the plot aims again at the glorification of collective efforts and achievements. Eisenstein exposes the situation of the individual farmers right from the start by panning the camera over the miserably small plots under an infinitely wide sky. He scorns conservatism and religion in a great rain procession in which the participants hope in vain for a miracle; this miracle happens right next door at Marfa Lapkina, where the milk separator of the cooperative delivers the first cream. According to this film, the breeding bull Foma and later the tractor become mythically exaggerated and in places quite naive symbols for success and the new era. "
“The film found a negative reception in the USSR. Eisenstein's depictions of peasantry have a satirical tone that has been perceived as offensive, and because of the brilliant, witty montage he has been accused of 'formalism'. His ambivalent relationship to religion is also evident in the lengthy depiction of a rain-making ceremony performed by priests and in the semi-mystical admiration for the work of the new milk separating machine. On the other hand, Staroje i novoje is Eisenstein's only film about a warm-hearted, identifiable person: Marfa Lapkina's portrayal exceeds the principle of type after she has been selected and lends the political message attractive human qualities. "
“As for form, the 'montage of collisions' resulted in metaphors that are difficult to understand or naive. [...] Despite these imperfections, the general line is one of the greatest achievements in the art of silent film, which is coming to an end. […] He followed Lumière's and Wertow's slogan by other means: 'Taken from life' and defined his goals as follows: 'To reproduce life in its truth, in its nudity and to work out its social scope, its philosophical meaning.' The general line means a further development compared to the documentary form of the Potemkin . In addition to the mastery of montage and image, to the violence of the 'collisions', there is the leitmotif, the modification of the forms, the counterpoint of the images, the rich metaphor. And the development of the individual hero begins. "
“In symbolic scenes of strong expressiveness, the story of a Russian farming community is told, which after initial difficulties [...] organized itself into a cooperative and took its fate into its own hands. The anthemic praise of technical progress may now seem a bit naive; nevertheless an outstanding document of the political and film aesthetic development "
Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film from an Anglo-American point of view:
"A slight piece of propaganda, put together with all of Eisenstein's magnificent cinematic resources: the cream separator demonstration is one of the most famous montage sequences in cinema history."
"A light piece of propaganda, put together with all the wonderful cinematographic means that Eisenstein has at his disposal: the demonstration of the cream separator is one of the most famous assembly sequences in the history of film."
Web links
- The general line in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Georges Sadoul : History of the cinematic art. Extended German language edition. Schönbrunn-Verlag, Vienna 1957, p. 183.
- ↑ The film. No. 17, dated September 1, 1929.
- ↑ Jerzy Toeplitz : History of the film. Volume 1: 1895-1928. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1972, p. 315.
- ^ Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski : Reclams film guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-15-010205-7 , p. 62.
- ↑ Liz-Anne Bawden (ed.): Buchers Enzyklopädie des Films. CJ Bucher, Lucerne a. 1977, ISBN 3-7658-0231-X , p. 422.
- ^ Georges Sadoul: History of the cinematic art. Extended German-language edition. Schönbrunn-Verlag, Vienna 1957, p. 184.
- ^ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexicon of international films . The complete range in cinema and television since 1945. 21,000 short reviews and filmographies (= Rororo. Pocket books 6322). Published by the Catholic Institute for Media Information eV and the Catholic Film Commission for Germany. Volume 3: G - H. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-499-16322-5 , p. 1287.
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide. 7th edition. Grafton, London et al. 1989, ISBN 0-246-13207-8 , p. 393.