Directed by Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Ivan Pravov • 1927 • Soviet Union
Starring Kuzma Yastrebitsky, Olga Narbekova, Yelena Maksimova
Returning to a pre–Russian Revolution mode of narrative storytelling, this melodrama focuses on two peasant women—one the victim to an abusive father-in-law and the other emancipated. Actor turned director Olga Preobrazhenskaia takes her time, repeating shots of objects in action, hands at work, and the dizzying movements that comprise the rituals of rural life, before ending on a hopeful note that celebrates the self-sufficient new (Soviet) woman.
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Merrily We Go to Hell
Directed by Dorothy Arzner • 1932 • United States
Starring Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Adrianne AllenOne of director Dorothy Arzner’s most fascinatingly subversive portraits of marital dysfunction stars Sylvia Sidney as a wealthy socialite who falls in love with an alcoholic writer (Fredric M...
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Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nat...
Directed by Leni Riefenstahl • 1938 • Germany
More has been written about Leni Riefenstahl's OLYMPIA than about any other sports documentary in history. Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic e...
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Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty
Directed by Leni Riefenstahl • 1938 • Germany
More has been written about Leni Riefenstahl's OLYMPIA than about any other sports documentary in history. In part two of OLYMPIA, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo...
