The General Line
About The General Line
Marfa Lapkina, a poor peasant, gets no help from the richer farmers. She joins the collective. A cream separator is demonstrated for the village. The collective acquires a bull. A tractor arrives, breaks down, and is put back to work. The film follows her from the old field to the machines.
Cast & crew
More about The General Line
Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov directed and wrote it. Eduard Tisse photographed it. Sovkino produced it. Shooting began in 1927 as a film for the collectivization line associated with Trotsky. Eisenstein left it to make October, then returned. By 1929 Trotsky was out, and the picture was re-edited and released as The Old and the New (Staroye i novoye). Wikidata gives 121 minutes. Marfa Lapkina, a peasant, plays the lead.
Themes
Background
Begun in 1927 for the collectivization campaign, it was recut after Trotsky's fall and released in 1929.
Making
The re-edit in 1929 dropped the Trotsky framing and sent the film out under the new title.
Look
Eduard Tisse photographed the separator, the bull, and the tractor in the village.
Preservation
Archivists later assembled a version closer to the General Line cut. A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- The Russian release title is The Old and the New. The General Line is the earlier title, later restored by archivists toward Eisenstein's first cut.
- The separator, the bull, and the tractor are the three machine episodes.
- Maxim Strauch is in the cast.
- A copy is on the Internet Archive as Eisenstein-TheGeneralLine.
Scenes
- The village watches the cream separator.
- The tractor stalls and is repaired in the field.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Eisenstein-TheGeneralLine)
