Stachka (1925)

Director:

Sergei M. Eisenstein

Writers:

Grigori Aleksandrov (writer)
Sergei M. Eisenstein (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

28 April 1925 (Soviet Union)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In Russia's factory region during Czarist rule, there's restlessness and strike planning among workers; management brings in spies and external agents...

Plot Keywords:

Experimental Film | Cult Director | Breaking The Fourth Wall | Water | Anti Capitalism

Cast

Maksim Shtraukh	...	Police Spy
Grigori Aleksandrov	...	Factory Foreman
Mikhail Gomorov	...	Worker
I. Ivanov	...	Chief of Police
Ivan Klyukvin	...	Revolutionary
Aleksandr Antonov	...	Member of Strike Committee
Yudif Glizer	...	Queen of Thieves
Anatoli Kuznetsov
Vera Yanukova
Vladimir Uralsky		(as V. Uralsky)
M. Mamin
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Boris Yurtsev	...	King of Thieves

Directed by
Sergei M. Eisenstein

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Grigori Aleksandrov		writer
Sergei M. Eisenstein		writer
Ilya Kravchunovsky		writer
Valeryan Pletnyov		writer

Produced by
Boris Mikhin	....	producer

Cinematography by
Vasili Khvatov
Vladimir Popov
Eduard Tisse

Art Direction by
Vasili Rakhals

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Grigori Aleksandrov	....	assistant director
Ilya Kravchunovsky	....	assistant director
Aleksandr Levshin	....	assistant director (as A. Levshin)

Camera and Electrical Department
U. Khuatov	....	assistant camera
Vladimir Popov	....	assistant camera

Production Companies

• Goskino
• Proletkult

Distributors

• Alta Films (1977) (Spain)

Also Known As:

Стачка (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Gapitsva (Soviet Union: Georgian title)
Strike

Runtime:

82 min | UK:95 min | Spain:81 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Spain:18

Company:

Goskino

Movie Connections:

Featured in Verschiedenen Gesichter des Sergej Eisenstein, Die (1997) (TV)

The most watchable and least problematic of Eisenstein's masterpieces.

Eisenstein's most purely enjoyable film, possibly because the theorems are more lifelike. In many ways a comedy, as the villains (military, police, factory owners, underworld scabs) are caricatured and dehumanised, which makes the eventual horrors all the more shocking. The workers are, of course, idealised, but their paradise of laziness seems odd for a Communist work.

Montage is the thing, as ever with Eisenstein, both in terms of connecting images to create startling insights, and in making tense, exciting and inevitable the action; but there is an astonishing attention to compositional detail too, most haunting perhaps being the empty, abandoned, impotent, machine-heavy factories, or the vast-stepped drawing rooms of the bloated capitalists.