Bezhin Meadow

Eisenstein worked on Bezhin Meadow from 1935 to 1937. Based on a Turgenev story, the scenario for Bezhin Meadow was written by Isaac Babel. It's a tale that dramatizes the forcible reorganization of peasant settlements into state affiliated collective farms soon after the formation of the Soviet Union. The scenario involves a farmer's son, killed by his father in retaliation against the Soviet state, and, by implication, the unfair practices of collectivization. Eisenstein's goal was to strive for a classicism that would "contain some part of the huge endowment left us from the silent film era" -- although it remains unclear if this film was intended to be a sound or silent feature. In 1937, the Soviet government, deeming the politics of the film unacceptable, stopped its production, and the film was never completed. It was considered lost until fragments of it were found in the 1970s.