Youth of Maxim

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Description: A portrait of the formation of a revolutionary in Tsarist Russia.
Duration: 91 mins 43 secs
Director: Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg. Assistant directors: Nadezhda Kosheverova, Khesya Lokshina and M. Nesterov.
Credits: Screenplay: Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg. Camera: Andrei Moskvin, P. Pospechin. Assistant A. Syoev. Music: Dmitri Shostakovich. Sound: Ilya Volk. Assistants B. Lytkin and P. Artemeva. Sound editor A. Ruzanova. Sets: Yevgeny Enei. Assistants P. Gorochov and Sh. Bykhovskaya. Cast: Maxim: Boris Chirkov, Natasha Artemieva: Valentina Kibardina Polivanov: Mikhail Tarkhanov Andrei: A. Kulakov Engineer: S. Leontev Chief Workman: M. Shelkovsky Workman: P. Volkov A Student Menshevik: Vasily Merkuriev Workers: Boris Blinov and V. Sladkoptsev
Year: 1935
Subjects: Political history, Oppression, Revolutionary movements, Political prisoners, Russia, Monarchy, Political communication, Workers, Ruling class, Drama
Segment 1: Credits. Prologue. Sleigh riding of the affluent Russians.
Segment 2: Polivanov reading newspaper. Horse car. House in the St. Petersburg district. Polivanov meets with Natasha in secret. They read together the letter, 'To the workers of St. Petersburg. . .'
Segment 3: Police search the house. Polivanov and Natasha separate and make their escape. Polivanov coincidently seeks sanction in the house of an old friend. He is greeted by an old acquaintance who mentions their time studying Karl Marx together. It is a middleclass household - they are celebrating the New Year. The old friend refuses to hide Polivanov. Polivanov leaves in disgust. End of Prologue.
Segment 4: Two friends. Maxim enters singing. The others join in. The three go off to work at the factory still singing Maxim's theme tune "The Blue Balloon".
Segment 5: At the factory. Natasha, the worker for the Social Democratic Party, is spotted by the factory manager. The three friends hide her. The alarm is called. The factory owner wants to know who who is distributing the leaflets.
Segment 6: 'A chance of promotion'. Maxim is called to speak to the factory-owner. The owner is trying to find out if he knows anything about the mysterious leafleter. Maxim does not disclose anything. Maxim in his innocence. The scene ends as it is announced that a worker has been caught in the machine. It turns out that the worker is one of Maxim's two friends.
Segment 7: Maxim and Dyoma mourn for their friend. An accordion player passes them on the street. The factory manager takes Maxim and Dyoma to the school to spy on the teacher, who happens to be Natasha.
Segment 8: Police enter the room. The Chief of Police questions Maxim and Dyoma.
Segment 9: The factory manager refuses to pay for Andrei's funeral. Dyoma decides to go and get drunk. 'Soused to the gills'. The other workers give Maxim money for the funeral. The accordian is playing. The times are changing. . .
Segment 10: Andrei's funeral is carried out with the factory chimneys smoking in the background. Maxim meets Natasha. There is an alarm - another worker, 'Young, like Andrei', has been killed. The workers have had enough. They order the factory owner to show some respect. The body lies on the factory floor with steam blowing across it. Heads are bowed. The workers promise to give the dead man a working man's funeral. They all sing and leave the factory.
Segment 11: The town workers have stopped to look on at the procession coming from the factory. Shopkeepers stand outside their shops, horsecars and horse and carriages go by. Polivanov and Natasha join the growing crowd marching and singing. The dead body is held high. As the crowd marches through the town they are met by the mounted Cossacks. The crowd stops. There is silence.
Segment 12: Dyoma breaks the silence as he appears out of a bar - he has been drinking since Andrei's funeral and has missed what has been happening in the factory since then. The mounted Cossacks attack the crowd. The crowd disperses. Maxim climbs up a lamp post and calls the workers to stop and fight. He throws leaflets at them. He has risen out of apathy and naivety. Natasha calls for the workers to strike. Fighting breaks out. Dyoma and Maxim are arrested and taken away.
Segment 13: Maxim is admitted to his 'University'. Photographs are taken of Maxim on his entry into prison. He is given various tests to perfom. He poses in varous positions. Polivanov visits Maxim in his cell and lifts his spirits. Prison doesn't have to be a bad thing. There is a lot he can learn.
Segment 14: A message tapped on the cell wall in Morse code interrupts the two men. Five men are to be executed tonight, one of them Maxim's friend Dyoma. Grief-stricken, Maxim hammers on the cell door. The exterior of the prison wall with a guard on duty. Male prisoners sleep fitfully. Natasha sleeps fitfully in her cell. Dyoma, in chains, awakens and recounts a dream he has had about Tsar Nicholas II and Maxim and he. A guard enters his cell. He is taken away in a prison van to be executed, shouting farewell to his comrades and Maxim. Natasha weeps uncontrollably.
Segment 15: Polivanov listens to her sadly. Maxim and the others sing a revolutionary song. Natasha's spirits are lifted and she joins in. The prison guards rush to quell the disturbance. A struggle ensues. Three guards enter Polivanov's and Maxim's cell and, provoked by Maxim, beat up the prisoners. Polivanov tells Maxim not to get himself hanged through rash actions but to live to fight for a better future.
Segment 16: The Warden tells Maxim that he must go away from the town tomorrow and forbids him to live in an endless list of cities and towns. Maxim leaves the prison. A woman passes with a man. 'Natasha!' he calls out. But the woman appears not to recognise him and goes off with her partner. Puzzled he sits down on a nearby seat. Before long the woman comes and sits next to him. It is Natasha. She tells him she is known as Maria Ivanovna now and berates him for so carelessly calling out her name. She asks him where he is going to live now. He tells her of the thirty-three districts in which he is forbidden to live. He will live 'between heaven and earth'.
Segment 17: By a river Maxim plays a guitar and sings a song "I Like Fishing on a Sunday". One by one men approach him and another man who is fishing nearby. They say something quietly and are directed toward a gap in the trees. The fisherman comes up to Maxim after a while and tells him that everybody is there.
Segment 18: In a clearing in the wood a workers' meeting is about to be held. Participants rise to their feet in honour of dead and imprisoned comrades. Representatives from different factories tell of the number of Bolsheviks in their respective plants. Polivanov reads out a letter from Lenin. While it is being read a man approaches the fisherman by the river and whispers to him. The fisherman is suddenly arrested. White-coated policemen approach stealthily through the wood. Maxim, on lookout but listening to the letter, is overpowered and the police break up the meeting with gunshots. A plain-clothes policeman gloats over Maxim who is lying gagged on the ground. Maxim springs up and overpowers him.
Segment 19: A fleeing Polivanov is shot in the leg. Maxim goes to his assistance. Polivanov tells him to go and find Natasha and bring out a leaflet. Two comrades come to Polivanov's aid. Maxim leaves. He comes across a picnicking family who shout for the nearby police. Maxim manages to escape. Exhausted, he is accosted by a young girl who is taking her father's lunch to him at the railway depot. He asks if she will take him along. She agrees. The railway workers put him in the engine cab and drive away from an approaching band of Cossacks. Maxim, hidden under coal, promises to return and tell the men how they can help in the struggle.
Segment 20: Maxim emerges from the coal. The train whistles triumphantly. Maxim arrives at Natasha's to find a policeman there noisily sipping tea. She immediately introduces him as her brother. The policeman takes his leave. Natasha knocks on the cellar and a comrade surfaces. They join Maxim who tells them about the meeting being broken up and the wounding of Polivanov. They have to get out a leaflet at once. Natasha starts to write the text. Maxim interrupts and says that what she has written is no good. He tells her to write what he composes. The comrades approve of Maxim's version.
Segment 21: The leaflet is printed. Polivanov tells Maxim that he is ready to work independently now. He is to go to the Sormovo plant where things are tough. There he will become a St Petersburg Bolshevik. He is given a new name and forged passport. Natasha says goodbye and dreams of a later meeting with him for the cause. He kisses her and sings her a song, then goes off across the fields.
Persistent URL: http://edina.ac.uk/purl/isan/0002-0000-2415-0000-0-0000-0000-0
Written and compiled by the British Universities Film & Video Council © BUFVC 2005
Subject classification by University of Edinburgh Library © 2006