Pre-sale to members at the Sponsor level and above Dec. 5–11. Public ticket sales begin Dec. 12.


Special admission: General: $15; BAMPFA members: $11; UC Berkeley students: $7; UC Berkeley faculty and staff, non-UC Berkeley students, disabled persons, ages 65+ and 18 & under: $12


SUBJECTS

Americans -- Soviet Union -- Drama, Crime -- Drama, Propaganda, Anti-communist -- United States -- Drama

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks

(Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov)
(How Will This End?)

Lev Kuleshov
USSR, 1924
  • Lecture
    Anne Nesbet

    Anne Nesbet is an associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley.

featuring

Porfiri Podobed, Valya Lopatina, Boris Barnet, Vsevolod Pudovkin,

This satiric comedy, which ridicules the absurd conceptions of Soviet Russia held by Americans, involves a visit to the USSR by a fearful American and his cowboy bodyguard, who are promptly abducted by hooligans. Directed by Lev Kuleshov, a film theorist and organizer of the pioneering Cine-Lab collective where Sergei Eisenstein (among others) studied filmmaking, the frenetic Mr. West stands in direct contrast to the static living-room melodramas that Russian cinema was then known for. Appropriating the energy of the American western and comedy, Kuleshov demanded that each scene propel the narrative, and the viewer, forward.

Jason Sanders
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Nikolai Aseyev
  • Vsevolod Pudovkin
Cinematographer
  • Alexander Levitsky
Language
  • Silent
  • Russian intertitles with English subtitles; with music track
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • Silent
  • 74 mins
Source
  • MK2 and Lobster Films
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks documents  

The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, 2005

The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (review), Reader (Chicago, Ill.), 2004

Lev Kuleshov directs : The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (program note), Pacific Film Archive Calendar, Judy Bloch, 1990

The Russian eccentrics : Dovzhenko & Kuleshov : Fruits of love and The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (program note), Pacific Film Archive Calendar, Judy Bloch, 1986

The Russian eccentrics--Dovzhenko & Kuleshov : Fruits of love and The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the bolsheviks (program note), Pacific Film Archive Calendar, Judy Bloch, 1986

The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (program note), Pacific Film Archive Calendar, Judy Bloch, 1981

Kino -- excerpt (book excerpt), George Allen & Unwin, Jay Leyda, 1960

Soviet silent cinema : The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (program note), Pacific Film Archive

The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (program note), Art Institute of Chicago. Film Center, Ian Christie

The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks (distributor materials), Audio Brandon Films, Yvette Bíró

Displaying 10 of 11 publicly available documents.


View all The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks documentation on CineFiles.

Preceded By

Kino-Pravda No. 21

Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1925

Made to commemorate the first anniversary of Lenin’s death.

FILM DETAILS 
Language
  • Silent
  • Russian intertitles with English e-titling
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • Silent
  • 32 mins
  • 18fps