The Childhood of Maxim Gorky
About The Childhood of Maxim Gorky
After his father dies, Alexei Peshkov arrives in Nizhny Novgorod with his mother Varvara to live with her parents. Grandmother Akulina dances at the welcome. Grandfather Vasili walks in and the uncles fight over the dye shop. The uncles set cousin Sacha on Alexei. The apprentice Vanya shields him from the grandfather's beatings, then dies after the uncles make him carry a stone cross up a hill. Varvara leaves. The dye shop burns and the family moves. A chemist lodger tells Alexei to write down his grandmother's stories, then disappears ahead of the police. Alexei gives his pet mouse to a paralyzed boy, Lenka. When his grandfather throws him out, he sees the chemist in a chain gang and walks off with the poorer children.
Cast & crew
More about The Childhood of Maxim Gorky
Mark Donskoy directed and wrote the script with Ilya Gruzdev from the first part of Gorky's autobiography My Childhood, published 1913–1914. Ivan Stepanov produced it at Soyuzdetfilm. Pyotr Yermolov photographed it. Lev Shvarts wrote the music. Soyuzdetfilm released it in the Soviet Union on 18 June 1938. It runs 98 minutes. Gorky had died in 1936. Aleksei Lyarsky plays Alexei. Varvara Massalitinova plays Akulina. Mikhail Troyanovsky plays Vasili.
Themes
Background
Gorky died in 1936. Donskoy's film of the childhood book came two years later, from a studio set up in 1936 to make pictures for children.
Making
Donskoy shot the childhood in Nizhny Novgorod, the town in the book. He used the children's own memories to get a reaction instead of drilling them.
Reviews
The Times in 2003 called the trilogy a staple of art-house triple bills until 1956. After a 1943 British showing of this first part, Sight and Sound polls in the 1950s and 1960s placed it in the critics' top 12.
Look
Pyotr Yermolov photographed the Nizhny Novgorod streets, the dye shop, and the hill where Vanya carries the stone cross.
Music
Lev Shvarts wrote the score.
Preservation
A print survives. Wikimedia Commons holds a copy under the Russian title Детство Горького.
Notes
- Daniil Sagal plays Vanya, billed as the Gypsy. K. Zubkov plays the blind brother Grigori. Igor Smirnov plays Lenka.
- Donskoy kept rehearsals short with the children and sometimes rolled the camera before they knew a take had started.
- The first part was shown in Britain in 1943. Sight and Sound critics' polls through the 1950s and 1960s kept it in the top 12.
- In 1955 the Edinburgh festival gave Donskoy its first Richard Winnington Film Award for the Gorky trilogy.
- The Times wrote in 2003 that the three films were staple art-house triple bills until 1956.
- An IMDb biography dates Lyarsky's death to 8 February 1943, killed near Demyansk and buried at Kipino. He was born in 1923.
- My Apprenticeship followed in 1939. The Russian film encyclopedia dates My Universities to 1939 and its release to 27 March 1940.
Awards
- Richard Winnington Film Award, Edinburgh Film Festival, 1955, to Mark Donskoy for the Gorky trilogy
Scenes
- Akulina dances at Varvara's return until Vasili arrives and the uncles fight over the dye shop.
- Vanya dies after carrying a stone cross up the hill.
- Alexei hands his mouse to the paralyzed boy Lenka.
- He passes the chemist, now in a chain gang, and leaves town with the other children.
Influenced by
- Maxim Gorky's My Childhood (1913–1914)
Influenced
- My Apprenticeship (1939)
- My Universities (1940)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1938. Детство Горького.webm)
