The least seen of Eisenstein's works, and his only completed film based on a contemporary subject, The Old and the New was made for Soviet audiences in support of the mechanization of agriculture. The story tells of a peasant woman's struggle against superstition, greed and hostility in her attempt to form a collective and bring to it a bull, a cream separator and a tractor. Eisenstein halted work on the film in order to make October in honor of the 10th anniversary of the revolution. Finally completed in 1929, The Old and the New emerged somewhat differently than the original plan: after criticism from Stalin, a new ending was shot. In The Old and the New, Eisenstein was able to put into practice his current editorial concepts--the idea of “overtonal montage,” “visual overtone” leading to a “filmic fourth dimension.”
A rare opportunity to see this film in a beautiful 35mm print! While it is not often that we see prints of this quality, it should be noted that this 35mm print, which comes from the Soviet Union's vaults, is missing certain scenes that are included in available 16mm prints, and some other scenes are edited in a slightly different arrangement.