Cain and Artem (1930)

Pavel PetrovBytov was an enfant terrible of the highbrow Leningrad Sovkino film factory He was notorious for his article We Have No Soviet Filmmaking in which he criticized all the achievements of the Soviet avantgarde In spite of his beliefs and his scandalous struggle with bourgeois and formalist filmmaking PetrovBytov directed an aesthetically refined work shot entirely on set with masterful chiaroscuro lighting a perfect example of Soviet expressionism Based on a Maxim Gorky story the plot of Cain and Artem provides a wakeup call to the Russian people to overcome alcoholism and religious factionalism as it spotlights the many drunken denizens of a typical village and their disregard for the Jewish shoemaker Cain