Zvenigora

{{short description|1928 film}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}} {{Infobox film | name = Zvenigora | image = Плакат к фильму «Звенигора» (Воронов, Евстафьев).jpg | caption = Film poster | director = Alexander Dovzhenko | producer = | writer = Maik "Mike" Johansen Yurtyk (Yuri Tiutiunnyk) Alexander Dovzhenko | starring = Semyon Svashenko Nikolai Nademsky Georgi Astafyev Les Podorozhnij | music = | cinematography = Boris Zavelev | editing = Alexander Dovzhenko | studio = VUFKU<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dovzhenkocentre.org/|publisher=dovzhenkocentre.org|title=Національний центр Олександра Довженка|access-date=1 December 2016}}</ref> | distributor = Mosfilm | released = {{film date|1928|4|13|df=y}} | runtime = 91 min. | country = Soviet Union | language = silent film Russian intertitles | budget = }} thumb | ''Zvenigora'' (1928) by Alexander Dovzhenko '''''Zvenigora''''' ({{langx|ru|Звeнигopа}}) is a 1928 Soviet silent film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko, first shown on 13 April 1928.<ref name="comm">{{cite news|url=http://comments.ua/life/246840-zvenigora-stavshaya-golgofoy.html|title=Звенигора, ставшая Голгофой для Александра Довженко|last=Маевская|first=Тереза|date=13 April 2011|work=Комментарии|access-date=20 July 2013}}</ref> This was the fourth film by Dovzhenko, but the first one which was widely reviewed and discussed in the media. This was also the last film by Dovzhenko for which he was not the sole scriptwriter.

== Cast == * Georgi Astafyev as Scythian leader (as G. Astafyev) * Nikolai Nademsky as Grandpa / General * Vladimir Uralsky as Peasant * Aleksandr Podorozhny as Pavlo - second grandson (as Les Podorozhnij) * Semyon Svashenko as Timoshka - first grandson * I. Selyuk as Ataman * L. Barné as Monk * L. Parshina as Timoshka's wife * P. Sklyar Otawa as Okasana — Mountain Princess * A. Simonov as Cossack Officer

==Production== The script was originally written by Maik "Mike" Johansen and Yurtyk (Yuri Tiutiunnyk), but eventually Dovzhenko heavily rewrote the script himself and removed Johansen and Tyutyunnyk's names from the screenplay and did not include them in the film credits.<ref name="comm"/> Pavlo Nechesa, head of the Odesa film studio VUFKU ({{langx|uk|Одеська кінфабрика ВУФКУ}}) recalls: ″We were discussing the screenplay for Zvenigora … Almost everyone was against the script … Dovzhenko said ″I’ll take and make …″. As a project, Zvenigora got its start in June 1927.<ref name="issuu">{{cite web |title=УКРАЇНСЬКЕ НІМЕ / UKRAINIAN RE-VISION by Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre - issuu |url=https://issuu.com/dovzhenkocentre/docs/ukrainian_silent |url-status=dead |access-date=29 November 2016 |publisher=issuu.com |archive-date=27 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161127084915/https://issuu.com/dovzhenkocentre/docs/ukrainian_silent }}</ref>

==Plot== Regarded as a silent revolutionary epic, Dovzhenko's initial film in his ''Ukraine Trilogy'' (along with ''Arsenal'' and ''Earth'') is almost religious in tone, relating a millennium of Ukrainian history through the story of an old man who tells his grandson about a treasure buried in a mountain. The film mixes fiction and reality.

Although Dovzhenko referred to ''Zvenigora'' as his "party membership card",<ref name="comm"/> the relationship between the individual and nature is the main theme of the film, which is highly atypical of Soviet cinema of the end of the 1920s with its avant-garde influences. Dovzhenko states that full submission to nature{{clarify|date=August 2015}} made humanity powerless in the face of it, and understanding and control of nature is required to make progress. For him, the October Revolution brought about such an understanding.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.km.ru/kino/encyclopedia/dovzhenko-aleksandr-petrovich|script-title=ru:Довженко Александр Петрович|publisher=Кирилл и Мефодий|language=ru|access-date=21 July 2013}}</ref>

==Reception== In 1927, even before the film's release, the newspaper ''Kino'' (''Cinema'') sharply criticized the screenplay, calling it "bourgeois" and "nationalistic".<ref name="comm"/>The film made the young director famous and made a great impression on Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, but the innovative methods in the work of the director of the future VUFKU representatives in Moscow say about Zvenigora: "No one can understand anything."{{fact|date=April 2023}} Eisenstein said after watching Zvenigora: “Today, for a moment, it was possible to dim the lantern of Diogenes: a man stood in front of us ...”, “Master of his face. Master of his genre. A master of his individuality… a man who created something new in cinema.”{{fact|date=April 2023}}

In the 2012, Sight & Sound Director's Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, Guy Maddin placed it on his top ten list, describing the film as "mind-bogglingly eccentric!"<ref>{{cite web|last1=Maddin|first1=Guy|title=The Greatest Films Poll, Sight & Sound, 2012 Poll: Guy Maddin|url=http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/voter/963|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120825225305/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/voter/963|url-status=dead|archive-date=25 August 2012|website=BFI: Sight & Sound|publisher=British Film Institute|access-date=19 October 2015}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Bibliography== * ''Histoire du cinéma ukrainien (1896–1995)'', Lubomir Hosejko, Éditions à Dié, Dié, 2001, {{ISBN|978-2-908730-67-8}}, traduit en ukrainien en 2005 : ''Istoria Oukraïnskovo Kinemotografa'', Kino-Kolo, Kyiv, 2005, {{ISBN|966-8864-00-X}}

==External links== * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bBa4SdYwXA Zvenigora, Odesa Film Studios] *{{IMDb title|0019611}} *{{Internet Archive film|id=Zwenigora|name=Zvenigora}} *Ray Uzwyshyn [http://rayuzwyshyn.net/dovzhenko/Zvenyhora.htm Zvenyhora: Ethnographic Modernism]

Category:1928 drama films Category:1928 films Category:1928 Soviet films Category:1928 Russian-language films Category:Russian-language fantasy drama films Category:Soviet silent drama films Category:Soviet black-and-white films Category:Russian black-and-white films Category:Soviet fantasy drama films Category:Russian fantasy drama films Category:Films directed by Alexander Dovzhenko Category:Russian Civil War films Category:Films set in the 20th-century Russian Empire Category:Odesa Film Studio Category:Soviet silent feature films Category:Russian silent feature films Category:Soviet-era Ukrainian films Category:All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration films Category:Ukrainian black-and-white films Category:Ukrainian silent feature films