Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Year: 1926
Run-time: 1 hr 29 min
Source: Youtube
The Soviet director Pudovkin isn't as well-regarded as Eisenstein, and his films don't have the same force of impact, but he played a crucial role in the development of cinema. Working in a similar rapid-fire editing style as Eisenstein (an approach which is known as montage, although that term has a different connotation now), Pudovkin strayed a bit from his contemporary's communalist ideal, and focused his stories on strong characterization.
That's somewhat relative - Mother doesn't name its main character, the titular "Mother". The crux of the film is how she responds to the death of her husband (and eventually, her son) in the failed 1905 revolution (also the setting of Eisenstein's first two films) by devoting her life to the proletariat's cause. Pudovkin never actually shows her making that decision - it's an internal story told almost entirely through external effects. Pudovkin's style has more in common with Eisenstein than any other director, and in a way, he shows how versatile that style could prove to be.
The story itself is based on a Maxim Gorky novel, and the basic premise would be so irresistible to the Soviet ideology that they would adapt it two more times. (There's even a modern Tamil-language adaptation.) Despite it being so clearly propagandistic, it's still an effective tale. Most interesting to me are the moments, very similar to Eisenstein, when the tragic events are edited along scenes of nature, in this case ice floes on a river. This may be me reaching here, but I wonder if the intention is to show how class struggle is inevitable in the course of history.
Year: 1926
Run-time: 1 hr 29 min
Source: Youtube
The Soviet director Pudovkin isn't as well-regarded as Eisenstein, and his films don't have the same force of impact, but he played a crucial role in the development of cinema. Working in a similar rapid-fire editing style as Eisenstein (an approach which is known as montage, although that term has a different connotation now), Pudovkin strayed a bit from his contemporary's communalist ideal, and focused his stories on strong characterization.
That's somewhat relative - Mother doesn't name its main character, the titular "Mother". The crux of the film is how she responds to the death of her husband (and eventually, her son) in the failed 1905 revolution (also the setting of Eisenstein's first two films) by devoting her life to the proletariat's cause. Pudovkin never actually shows her making that decision - it's an internal story told almost entirely through external effects. Pudovkin's style has more in common with Eisenstein than any other director, and in a way, he shows how versatile that style could prove to be.
The story itself is based on a Maxim Gorky novel, and the basic premise would be so irresistible to the Soviet ideology that they would adapt it two more times. (There's even a modern Tamil-language adaptation.) Despite it being so clearly propagandistic, it's still an effective tale. Most interesting to me are the moments, very similar to Eisenstein, when the tragic events are edited along scenes of nature, in this case ice floes on a river. This may be me reaching here, but I wonder if the intention is to show how class struggle is inevitable in the course of history.
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