The New Babylon (1929)

Original title

Новый Вавилон

Directed by

Leonid Trauberg, Grigori Kozintsev

Genre

drama film, silent film, war film, historical film

Country

Soviet Union

Runtime

1h 20m

Rating

6.1 of 10 from 26 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A silent film about the 1871 Paris Commune and the events that led to it. It follows two lovers who are separated by the fighting.

tragichistoricalfast-pacedsweepingbleakpassionateurgentdramatic

What happens

The New Babylon (Russian: Новый Вавилон, romanized: Novyy Vavilon alt. title: Russian: Штурм неба, romanized: Shturm neba) is a 1929 silent historical drama film written and directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg. The film deals with the 1871 Paris Commune and the events leading to it, and follows the encounter and tragic fate of two lovers separated by the barricades of the Commune. Composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first film score for this movie, hurriedly writing about 90 minutes of music. In the fifth reel of the score he quotes the revolutionary anthem, "La Marseillaise" (representing the Commune), juxtaposed contrapuntally with the famous "Can-can" from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. Footage from The New Babylon was included in Guy Debord's feature film The Society of the Spectacle (1973). Kozintsev and Trauberg found some of their inspiration in Karl Marx's The Civil War in France and The Class Struggle in France, 1848–50. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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