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The General Line

Released May 2, 1930 1h 20m Drama List
100% Tomatometer 5 Reviews 68% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
A woman (Marfa Lapkina) in a rural town deals with the new ways of communism.
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The General Line

Critics Reviews

View All (5) Critics Reviews
Time Out Eisenstein was condemned as a 'formalist'; and began the world travels that eventually led him to Mexico. Jan 26, 2006 Full Review Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader It's a bucolic epic about the Soviet struggle to collectivize agricultural production, and it's far from his least interesting or exciting film. Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Harry Alan Potamkin The New Masses This film is a film of wit, folk-humour, shrewdness, optimism, clarity and point... Sep 6, 2019 Full Review Mattie Lucas From the Front Row The now famous scene in which Eisenstein juxtaposes footage of a newly working milk machine with a gushing water fountain is a kind of visual symbolism that Eisenstein employs frequently throughout his films. Rated: 3.5/4 Aug 6, 2019 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 4/5 Jun 12, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member Milk rains from the sky and the peasants on the collective farm strive to buy a tractor in the silent Soviet propaganda film that is more interesting now for Eisenstein's direction than anything else. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Certes, l'oeuvre est propagandiste (doit-on s'attendre à autre chose avec Eisenstein?), mais le principal dà (C)faut de l'oeuvre rà (C)sulte peut-être dans sa longueur et la rà (C)pà (C)tibilità (C) de certaines sà (C)quences amenant le film a être trop long de trente minutes environ. En contrepartie, on peut compter sur des acteurs transcendants et surtout sur une mise en scène extrêmement rà (C)ussie d'Eisenstein qui parvient à tirer l'oeuvre vers le haut, grâce à des sà (C)quences remarquables de prà (C)cision et un montage apportant à (C)normà (C)ment de rythme. C'est aussi l'oeuvre la plus poà (C)tique du cinà (C)aste. Le caractère propagandiste apparait parfois effacà (C) par des petits subterfuges mettant Là (C)nine au même rang que les bureaucrates et se demandant si les paysans ne sont pas les dindons de la farce de la collectività (C) appelà (C)e par le prà (C)sident communiste. Cette histoire d'industrialisation des campagnes possède toutefois suffisamment de qualità (C)s que pour en voir le bout en dà (C)pit d'un processus rà (C)pà (C)titif donc. A cela s'ajoute des superbes images et une musique (certainement pas l'originale à en croire certains passages plutôt à (C)lectroniques) qui se fond bien avec le thème de l'oeuvre. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Audience Member Hey you know what we should do? Make a long movie about collective farms Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Well, I'm convinced. If I was a peasant in Russia and things were looking pretty bleak, I'd do what this film suggests and form a collective farm. Propaganda couldn't have been easy for the Bolsheviks. The wedding between the pedigree bull and cow was a little weird. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member I liked it, loved the cow wedding. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member A Marxist caricature elevated by Eisenstein's delirious editing. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Read all reviews
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The General Line

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Movie Info

Synopsis A woman (Marfa Lapkina) in a rural town deals with the new ways of communism.
Director
Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein
Screenwriter
Sergei M. Eisenstein, Grigoriy Aleksandrov
Distributor
Amkino Corporation
Genre
Drama
Release Date (Theaters)
May 2, 1930, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 11, 2020
Runtime
1h 20m
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