Along with Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Ukrainian filmmaker Alexander Dovzhenko (1894-1956) is one of Soviet-era cinema's undisputed masters. This retrospective, featuring new 35mm prints, includes his lyrical classics as well as rarely seen documentaries made at the height of the U.S.S.R.'s war against Nazism.
* Wed, Jan 8 / 7:00 pm _Earth_ _Arsenal_ Live piano accompaniment by Brian Casey (Alexander Dovzhenko)
The series begins with two dazzling silent films: Dovzhenko's undisputed masterpiece, Earth (1930), and the explosive Arsenal (1929).
"Astonishingly beautiful...unlike anything else in movies." -- J. Hoberman, Village Voice
_Earth_ is a ravishingly lyrical study of rural Russian life, evoking the cycles of life, death, social transformation, and eroticism left unaffected by Soviet-style farming. As one critic noted, the silent film is "a pre-requisite to viewing anything by Tarkovsky or Kiarostami." (62 mins.)
An explosive recreation of the 1918 struggle between Bolsheviks and White Russians at a Kiev munitions factory, _Arsenal_ is Dovzhenko's most dazzling silent film, one that balances propaganda with moral ambiguity. (92 mins.)
* Wed, Jan 15 / 7:00 pm _Love Berry_ _Diplomatic Pouch_ _Zvenigora_ Live piano accompaniment by Brian Casey (Alexander Dovzhenko)
A trio of silents showcasing Dovzhenko's lyrical vision of Soviet life.
Dovzhenko's first film, _Love Berry_, a slapstick satire about an illegitimate offspring (a "love berry") remarkable in its ultrapermissive sexual politics. (1926, 30 mins.)
_Diplomatic Pouch_ is an amusing international spy thriller involving villainous British diplomats scheming against their virtuous Soviet counterparts. (1927, 60 mins.)
Dovzhenko referred to _Zvenigora_ as his "Party membership card," but it's an almost religious epic, distilling a millennium of Ukrainian history and folklore. The Village Voice called it "a masterpiece of magic realism made well before the term was invented." (1927, 65 mins.)
* Wed, Jan 22 / 7:00 pm _Aerograd_ _Ivan_ Double Feature (Alexander Dovzhenko)
"Personal, operatic grandiloquence...a jaw-dropping masterpiece" -- Jonathan Rosenbaum on _Aerograd_
_Aerograd_ made a remarkable impression on American leftists when it was released here as Frontier in 1936. The story follows the epic construction of an entirely new city on Russia's Pacific rim. (1932, 93 mins.)
Dovzhenko's first sound film, _Ivan_ is an extraordinary balancing act between lyricism and monumentality. It follows three separate characters, all named Ivan, against the backdrop of another construction project, a gigantic dam being built on the Dnieper River. (1932, 90 mins.)
* Wed, Jan 29 / 7:00 pm _Battle for Soviet Ukraine_ _Victory on the Right Bank Ukraine_ Double Feature (Alexander Dovzhenko)
Two Dovzhenko documentaries offer a passionate, powerful view of the Soviet struggle against the Nazis.
Dovzhenko's first WWII documentary, _Battle for Soviet Ukraine_ incorporates German footage of the Ukraine captured by Soviet forces, as well as a rare sequence of Czechoslovakian troops on the battlefield. (1943, 80 mins.)
_Victory on the Right Bank Ukraine_ follows the western movement of the Soviet army after the Germans had been driven from the Ukraine, documenting the terrible destruction caused by the Nazis. (1944, 1973 mins.)
$5 general public $4 senior citizens $4 members $4 students $2 children under 12
<http://www.wexarts.org/fv/index.php?area=fv&eventid=541&featureid=541> *****
George O. Liber, _Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film_: <http://www.bfi.org.uk/bookvid/books/catalogue/details.php?bookid=401> & <http://www.ucpress.edu/books/bfi/pages/PROD0366.html>
George O. Liber, "Death, Birth Order and Alexander Dovzhenko's Cinematic Visions": <http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/liber001.htm>
Vance Kepley, Jr., "Ukrainian Pastoral: How Alexander Dovzhenko Brought the Soviet Avant-Garde Down to Earth": <http://www.filmlinc.com/archive/fcm/5-6-2002/dovzhenko2.htm> -- Yoshie
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