Chapayev

Vasily Chapayev, a peasant who became a legend, commands a Red Army unit through the Russian Civil War. The film follows his men, his relationship with Furmanov, the commissar attached to him, and his battles against the White forces. Its spine is the friction between a rough, unschooled man who works on instinct and the commissar who stands for party discipline. The 1934 film was a colossal success in the Soviet Union and became the template for official heroic storytelling. It was directed by Georgi Vasilyev and Sergei Vasilyev, known as the Vasilyev brothers although they were not related at all. Boris Babochkin plays Chapayev. It is read now as much as a document of propaganda as a work of cinema.