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List Price: $24.99Amazon.com's Price: $21.99 You Save: $3.00 (12%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0014381141122
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 22, 2002
Running Time: 101 minutes
Sales Rank: 47245
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: October 17, 1930
Editorial Review:
Description:
Alexander Dovzhenko, one of the four giants of early Soviet revolutionary cinema, shattered the film world with his silent masterpiece 'Earth,' even though few outside the director's native Ukraine connected with its specific references to place and topic. But the deep feeling and poetic imagery of this film transcends locale and era, moves strong men to tears and has frequently won it a place on critics' lists of the greatest films of all time.
Amazon.com:
Some Soviet films from the 1920s occasionally feel like work, but not this one. By general consensus, Earth is among the most exalted of all silent films. Alexander Dovzhenko drew upon memories of his rural Ukrainian childhood for this lyrical ode to peasants (in true Soviet fashion, they are radicalized by the arrival of a new tractor). What is so remarkable about the film is not merely the visual poetry, but Dovzhenko's earthy (there is no other word for it) appreciation for the human being: a grandfather pauses in his dying to gobble up a ripe pear, farmers urinate into the radiator of the overheated tractor, a child happily munches on a melon after a tragic death. Dovzhenko embraces it all, and his image of a man dancing alone on a moonlit road is one of the cinema's great expressions of simple joy. This is a true masterwork. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Painful
As a lover of silent movies, I really expected to be blown away by this movie (especially based on nearly everything I've read about it online). So, I was more than a bit surprised to find myself totally bored with this movie. More than boring, I actually found this movie painful to sit through.
I've read about how progressive/inventive this movie is/was - and tried very hard to "get into it" for those reasons. But - in spite of some beautiful photography - the movie left me cold. ... Read More
Rating:  - For the Ages
Stalin may have wanted an ode to collective agriculture; what he got instead was a hymnal to mother nature and the toiling offspring who dwell in her bosom. Those opening shots of pulsating fields waving in the wind have no equal for sheer evocative power. Earth is revealed at once as a living, breathing being and bountiful provider. Flower, fruit, decay, renewal -- nature's timeless cycle. The soundless imagery is at times so wonderfully lyrical that contemporary viewers may be led to recognize ... Read More
Rating: - Classical Ukrainian Beauty
Earth was supposed to be a Russian propaganda film promoting collectivism. Instead, Aleksandr wrote a love story extolling the beauty of the Ukrainian countryside and promoting the cycle of life and death there amidst the natural beauty and plentiful bounty of nature.
You can see the basic outline that the Russians wanted. Backwards farmers resist tractors coming in to make their life better. Rich landowners are upset at upstart farmers coveting their lands. But look beyond that, to the ... Read More
Rating: - A film hungry for recognition
One of the lesser known and less appreciated juggernauts of Soviet silent cinema, Alexander Dovzhenko nowadays represents a truly distressing case in that his legacy, which has endowed film history with some of the most expressive visual poetry the world will ever lay eyes on, may forever remain buried in the dusty obscurity of academic discourse and, in its most accessible context, film-buff encomium. Of course, it would be hopeless (and, frankly, a bit ridiculous) to insist that a film like Earth, ... Read More
Rating: - About the Image DVD version of EARTH
The Image DVD version of the 1930 Russian silent film EARTH has a disappointing video transfer. It is made from the same video source that was used for Kino's VHS tape version released in 1991 ... . The image is replete with scratches, dirt, and looks out of focus (which often indicates duplication from another source). Fortunately, the film's artistic audacity -- its striking compositions and innovative editing -- makes it watchable despite of the poor video quality.
The DVD also includes ... Read More
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