(imdb)
A failed Russian Revolution succeeded magnificently on screen., 3 June 1999
Author: Theodore J. van Houten from Haamstede, 4328 ZG 1 Netherlands

S.V.D. was released in August 1927. A beautiful costume drama, it is on the other hand a somewhat expressionistic, poetical fantasy. Its photography and images are more important than its desired political contents. The script, written by the inspiring historian Yuri Tinyanov (director Leonid Trauberg [1901-1990]could speak about Tinyanov for hours) supplied a failed love story, a political intrigue involving two czars, and a traveling circus background. The picture glorifies the 1825 ‘Decembrists’ uprisal: officers in the imperial Russian army are fed up with the new czar’s autocracy. The main character is a traitor, the Scotsman Maddocks (Medoks). He has won a ring gambling. It carries the initials S.V.D. – the secret union of the ‘Big Deed’ (overthrowing the czar). Maddocks expects the ring to protect him. He is desparate to enter the circles of political power in St. Petersburg hoping a former lover (Sofia Magaril) will introduce him there. A wounded revolutionary officer is on the run, finding refuge in a circus. This setting enabled cinematographer Andrei Moskvin to film a sequence on a galloping horse ‘holding only the camera’. One of the most imaginative scenes takes place on the skating rink. The picture suddenly turns into an ice crystal created by using mirrors. The skater now waltzes his rounds all over the picture. S.V.D. introduces several pessimistic symbols: night clouds, a turtle suggesting how slowly the wounded revolutionary can move, etc. It is an extremely beautiful film, its narrative less important than its image qualities. An un-Russian revolution that failed but turned out a success on screen. It is clear that Kozintsev & Trauberg were ready for their next costume drama THE NEW BABYLON, now considered their great masterpiece. S.V.D. was restored by the German TV-station ZDF ca. 1980. For this version German composer Hamel wrote a new electronic music score, not very fitting apart from the skating rink waltz.

702MB | 1:09:28 | 608×448 | avi

https://nitroflare.com/view/F1DBB36CC7AAEB3/S.V.D._-_soyuz_velikogo_dela_1927.avi
https://nitroflare.com/view/81DD19D421500DE/soyuz_velikogo_dela_1927.ENG.04.srt

Language:Silent
Subtitles:English

The post Grigori Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg – S.V.D. – Soyuz velikogo dela AKA Union of the Great Cause (1927) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Overcoat is a 1926 Soviet film directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, based on Nikolai Gogol stories Nevsky Prospekt and The Overcoat.

A young clerk, disappointed in love in early life passes his life in paper work. He centres his interests in a new overcoat but is robbed and assaulted on the way home. He gets sick and dies.

1.01GB | 1 h 6 min | 738×570 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/4E4A32451603130/The.Overcoat.1926.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language:Russian Intertitles
Subtitles:English

The post Grigoriy Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg – Shinel AKA The Overcoat (1926) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Paris Commune was an epic phenomenon in the early history of the socialist movement. The Commune was located in the workers quarters within the centre of Paris. An important location was the emporium LA NOUVELLE BABYLONE, still existing at Metro Babylone. The main character in the film is Louise, a salesgirl in the shop. She is a communard. Her counterpart is a soldier that helps to wipe out the Commune. Thus, the enormous social and dialectic complications and contrasts between the workers on one side, and bourgeoisie and army on the other side, are projected on two characters. And of course they fall in love. Louise is a fierce heroine. Jean a naïve soldier, a farmer who is ordered and abused. In the end they meet not in bed but on the barricades. Jean is a conscript in the army that defeats the Commune fighters in the bloody week in June 1871. Thousands of the Communards were killed in action or shot at Père Lachaise cemetery.

NEW BABYLON was based on Karl Marx’s report on the Commune, contemporary novels by Zola (La debacle, Nana, Au Bonheur des dames) and also inspired by Offenbach’s operettas and Chapentier’s opera Louise, by paintings by Millet, Delacroix, Goya, Daumier and Rembrandt. To catch the atmosphere directors Kozintsev & Trauberg went to Paris and met some of the old communards. They also shot some footage, on top of a Notre Dame tower, but only a fragment ended up in the film, of which two versions were cut.

NEW BABYLON was Kozintsev & Trauberg’s last film. They wanted original music for it and engaged 22 year old cinema and theatre pianist and composer Dmitry Shostakovich. He may have written his best score for NEW BABYLON, although his music for ODNA, Kozintsev & Trauberg’s next film, was equally shattering. Shostakovich made a pasticcio of unknown quality, at the same time a parody on run-of-the-mill cinema music. He quoted Offenbach (Cancan, La belle Hélène), the Marseillaise (counterpoint to Cancan) and songs from the French Revolution. Shostakovich would compose scores for all the later Kozintsev & Trauberg’s films, and the later films directed by Kozintsev alone. The partnership of Kozintsev, Trauberg and Shostakovich ended when Trauberg was attacked during Stalin’s post-war ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ campaign.

NEW BABYLON is one of the finest examples of early Soviet avant-garde cinema. If the theme was not revolutionary, at least the form should be. It was a perfect synthesis of avant-garde eccentricism and expressionism and Marxist theory. The film was both hailed and criticized, in the USSR itself and abroad. At the time Shostakovich’s music did not last long. Orchestras nor conductors could handle it. It was revived in the 1970’s and 80’s in France, England and Holland in particular.

Abroad the film was prohibited (UK), censored and cut. A TV screening at the occasion of the Paris Commune’s centennial was barred by President Pompidou himself. In Holland (1929) it passed the censor, though a shot of a young drunken girl had to be cut.

NEW BABYLON shows the struggling hungry workers in 1870 Paris and their political creativity setting up the Commune. The cinematography was in the hands of the best Russian cameraman ever, Andrey Moskvin. The political topic did not stop Kozintsev & Trauberg from adding absurd humor and grotesque eccentric characters. The collective struggle of the anonymous mass of communards was handed over to recognizable individuals.

http://nitroflare.com/view/31F4AD3FE2045D4/The_New_Babylon.mkv

Language(s):Russian intertitles
Subtitles:English

The post Grigori Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg – Novyy Vavilon AKA The New Babylon (1929) first appeared on Cinema of the World.