Quote:
My Apprenticeship (V lyudyakh) was the second entry in Russian director Mark Donskoy’s “Maxim Gorky” trilogy. Picking up where 1938’s My Childhood left off, the story covers the years in Gorky’s life when the future writer (Alexei Lyarsky) was on his own, looking for a purpose and place in life. Before he can make up his own mind, Gorky is trapped into serfdom by a wealthy family. As he grows from his teen years to full manhood, Gorky fights his way towards freedom of thought and body. Based on Gorky’s autobiography, the film was followed in 1940 by My Universities. My Apprenticeship has also been released as On His Own and Among People. (Hollywood.com)

We thought the Russians had dealt amply with his boyhood in “Childhood of Maxim Gorky” last September, but apparently they felt they had only scratched the surface of his life in old Nizhni Novgorod. In “On His Own,” offered at the Cameo yesterday, young Maxim still is being kicked and cuffed by his elders, is looking wide-eyed at the world’s misery and seeking stubbornly for some clue to the meaning and dignity of life. (…) Director Mark Donskoy again has conjured up so vivid a picture of Russia in the last century and has presented it so naturally that one has no thought of studio or actors, but accepts it as the work of some marvelous time and space machine. (…) (New York Times, 11.13.1939)

1.38GB | 1h 40m | 716×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/A7C51B700D09650/My.Apprenticeship.1939.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.24fps.mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Russian (vobsub)

The post Mark Donskoy – V lyudyakh AKA My Apprenticeship (1939) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
This haunting, unforgettable film, based on Maxim Gorky’s 1913 autobiography, follows a 12-year-old’s journey in life against the tumultuous backdrop of 19th-century Russia. With vivid imagery, it recounts the touching relationships that develop when Gorky goes to live at his grandparents’ home. Most notable are the powerful portraits of lower-class people whose qualities of integrity and dignity shine through their hopeless circumstances. (Rottentomatoes)

This film is more than an autobiographical look at one person’s life. It is a peek through the windows of a time long since passed, a history lesson and above all a lesson in life, love and friendship. This is probably the most definitive coming of age drama I have seen. (…) It is, without doubt, pure cinematic poetry. A piece of film history which everyone would do well to try and see –it will not disappoint.(…) (Ollie @ imdb)

The late 19th century. The city of Nizhny Novgorod. Wharves, the Volga accent, songs and people – good and bad, wretched and cruel. That was the atmosphere in which Alyosha Peshkov, the future great Russian writer Maxim Gorky, spent his childhood.

His life in the Kashirin family was not easy: his uncles’ constant squabbling and fights for inheritance, beatings for a slightest fault. Only one person, his grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, pities the boy. After his grandfather got absolutely ruined, Alyosha had to earn his living himself. And he goes “into the world”…

The role of Alyosha Peshkov was the first and only film work of Alexei Lyarsky, who was killed near Leningrad in 1943. (amazon.uk)

Donskoy’s film is one of the noblest works produced in the USSR before the war… (critic Jay Leyda).

1.38GB | 1h 39m | 716×574 | mkv
https://nitro.download/view/02333A205EA9D28/My.Childhood.1938.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.24fps.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Mark Donskoy – Detstvo Gorkogo AKA Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938) first appeared on Cinema of the World.