Vozvrashtshenije Neitana Bekkera

Возвращение Нейтана Беккера / Vozvrachtchenie Neitana Bekkera / Il ritorno di Nathan Becker. SU 1931. D: Boris Shpis, Rachel Milman. SC: Peretz Markish, Boris Shpis, Rachel Milman; DP: Evgueni Mikhailov; DP: Isaac Makhlis; M: Evguéni Broussilovski; S: V. Beervald; CAST: David Gutman (Nathan Becker), Solomon Mikhoels (Tsale Becker, suo padre), Elena Kachnitskaïa (Meika), Kador Ben-Salim (Jim), Boris Babotchkine (Mikoulitch), Anna ZarjitskaÏa (Nata); PC: Belgoskino; 35mm. 1910 m. 69’. B&w. Russian version. From: Gosfilmofond. - Presentano Vladimir Bosenko, Natacha Laurent e Valérie Pozner. Viewed at Lumière 2, Bologna, 2 July 2009. - This was the first Yiddish sound movie in its original Belarusian and Yiddish sound version. The film was re-recorded in Russian [in the 1960s?], and the re-recorded version was the one screened. - From the catalogue: After having emigrated to America at the beginning of the century, bricklayer Nathan Becker returns with a black American friend to his shtetl because of the 1929 economic crisis. Becker starts work in a building yard created under the First Five Year Plan. Becker is unable to keep up with a Soviet worker who uses scientific techniques while Becker's productivity is the result of capitalist exploitation. However, he is not totally defeated. American building techniques can be copied and put to better use by Soviet builders. The second film by Boris Shpis, a stage designer who joined FEKS and became an assistant to Kozintsev and Trauberg. David Gutman was a master of satirical sketch comedy. The screenplay was written by one of the greatest Soviet Yiddish poets, Peretz Markish. - I was able to see just the beginning of this strange and interesting film.