Aleksandr Dovzhenko (1894-1956)
“We cannot view his films or read his writings in the form in which he left them. His major films have been cut; his minor films lay buried in archives; some of his most cherished projects never made it to the screen; his film scripts have been censored; his correspondence, diaries and notebooks continue to be published in bowdlerised versions.” - Marco Carynnyk*
Aleksandr Dovzhenko was born in Sosnitsa, Ukraine in 1894, the seventh of fourteen children. By age eleven, his six older siblings were dead, and Aleksander was one of only two siblings to survive into adulthood. This, perhaps, is how one can make sense of death as a recurrent theme in his films.
At 19, Dovzhenko became a school teacher. Later, in the early 1920s, he joined the Communist party and served as an ambassador’s assistant in Warsaw and Berlin until 1923, when he returned to Kiev to pursue a career as an illustrator and cartoonist. It wasn’t until three years later that he would move back to Odessa to pursue his new dream of filmmaking.
He wrote and co-directed his first feature film Vasya the Reformer (1926) that same year. In 1928, he began what would become known as his “Ukraine Trilogy” with Zvenigora, a film about a boy’s life spent in the pursuit of a hidden treasure first revealed to him by his grandfather. He followed this up with the second instalment in the trilogy, Arsenal (1928), a lyrical film about the devastation of WWI on the Ukraine people.
Earth (1930), the final film in the trilogy and Dovzhenko’s best-known film, was not widely accepted by Soviet officials. They found some scenes of death and the realities of life contrary to the ideals of the revolution, and insisted that several cuts be made. Nevertheless, Earth remains one of his most enduring pieces of work, often cited as the most poignant example of the Dovzhenko’s poeticism, lyricism, and unique ideological vision often at odds with Stalinism.
While he continued making films into the 1930s, taking a break during WWII to work as a war journalist, he felt oppressed by the bureaucracy at Mosfilm studios. He was unable to finish many films in progress, and several projects went unmade. His last completed film was Michurin (1949).
After leaving the industry, Dovzhenko pursued a career as a novelist. Plagued by a heart condition his whole life, he finally died of a heart attack at the age of 62.
Sources
Aleksandr Dovzhenko was born in Sosnitsa, Ukraine in 1894, the seventh of fourteen children. By age eleven, his six older siblings were dead, and Aleksander was one of only two siblings to survive into adulthood. This, perhaps, is how one can make sense of death as a recurrent theme in his films.
At 19, Dovzhenko became a school teacher. Later, in the early 1920s, he joined the Communist party and served as an ambassador’s assistant in Warsaw and Berlin until 1923, when he returned to Kiev to pursue a career as an illustrator and cartoonist. It wasn’t until three years later that he would move back to Odessa to pursue his new dream of filmmaking.
He wrote and co-directed his first feature film Vasya the Reformer (1926) that same year. In 1928, he began what would become known as his “Ukraine Trilogy” with Zvenigora, a film about a boy’s life spent in the pursuit of a hidden treasure first revealed to him by his grandfather. He followed this up with the second instalment in the trilogy, Arsenal (1928), a lyrical film about the devastation of WWI on the Ukraine people.
Earth (1930), the final film in the trilogy and Dovzhenko’s best-known film, was not widely accepted by Soviet officials. They found some scenes of death and the realities of life contrary to the ideals of the revolution, and insisted that several cuts be made. Nevertheless, Earth remains one of his most enduring pieces of work, often cited as the most poignant example of the Dovzhenko’s poeticism, lyricism, and unique ideological vision often at odds with Stalinism.
While he continued making films into the 1930s, taking a break during WWII to work as a war journalist, he felt oppressed by the bureaucracy at Mosfilm studios. He was unable to finish many films in progress, and several projects went unmade. His last completed film was Michurin (1949).
After leaving the industry, Dovzhenko pursued a career as a novelist. Plagued by a heart condition his whole life, he finally died of a heart attack at the age of 62.
Sources