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The Childhood of Maxim Gorky |
List Price: $24.99
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Reviews |
Features:
Description:
The memoirs of the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky come to pungent life in part 1 of a prewar Soviet trilogy (it was followed by My Apprenticeship and My Universities). Director Mark Donskoy creates the endless hardships of Gorky's adolescence in small, precise scenes, orienting us in the 19th-century "lower depths" of czarist Russia. Refreshingly, the movie has no "great literature" grandness about it, but an abrupt, episodic grit. Dominating Gorky's Dickensian youth are his grandfather, a mean bantam with a fondness for whipping his underlings, and his grandmother, a kindly storyteller (vividly embodied by the goodhearted Varvara Massalitinova). The extraordinary faces of the actors (even in tiny roles) speak volumes about the Russian spirit; it's hard to forget the gypsy laborer who dreams of being a singer, or the little lame boy who keeps a zoo of insects by his bedside. --Robert Horton
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