October: Ten Days That Shook the World |
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Film poster
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Directed by |
Grigori Aleksandrov Sergei Eisenstein |
Written by | Grigori Aleksandrov Sergei Eisenstein |
Starring |
Vladimir Popov Vasili Nikandrov Layaschenko |
Music by | Dimitri Shostakovich |
Cinematography |
Vladimir Nilsen Vladimir Popov Eduard Tisse |
Distributed by | Sovkino (USSR) Amkino Corporation (US) First National Pictures (through) |
Release date
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Running time
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104 minutes |
Country | Soviet Union |
Language |
Silent film Russian (original intertitles) |
October: Ten Days That Shook the World (Russian: Октябрь (Десять дней, которые потрясли мир); translit. Oktyabr': Desyat' dney kotorye potryasli mir) is a 1928 Soviet silent historical film by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov. It is a celebratory dramatization of the 1917 October Revolution commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the event. Originally released as October in the Soviet Union, the film was re-edited and released internationally as Ten Days That Shook The World, after John Reed's popular book on the Revolution. In U.S. released by Amkino Corporation and First National (later was a subsidiary of Warner Bros.).
The film opens with the elation after the February Revolution and the establishment of the Provisional Government, depicting the throwing down of the Tsar's monument. It moves quickly to point out it's the "Same old story" of war and hunger under the new Provisional Government, however. The buildup to the October Revolution is dramatized with intertitles marking the dates of events.
April 1917 Vladimir Lenin returns to a railroad station packed with supporters.
July 1917 The demonstrations in Nevsky Square are fired upon by the army. The government orders the working class to be cut off from the city center, and in a dramatic sequence the bridges are raised with the bodies of the Bolsheviks still on them as the Bourgeoisie throw copies of the Bolshevik newspaper into the river.