The Spanish Earth

1937

Action / Documentary / War

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 80% · 5 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 42% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.5/10 10 908 908

spanish civil war (1936-39)

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Plot summary

Joris Ivens’s advocacy documentary for the Republican cause intercuts a besieged Madrid with a nearby village digging an irrigation canal, linking the war to bread, land, and survival. Produced by the writers’ collective Contemporary Historians, edited by Helen van Dongen, scored by Marc Blitzstein, and narrated in its U.S. version by Ernest Hemingway (after an initial Orson Welles track), it blends frontline reportage with persuasion against Franco’s forces and their German–Italian backers.

Director

Joris Ivens Photo
Joris Ivens

Top cast

Orson Welles Photo
Orson Welles as Narrator
Gustav Regler Photo
Gustav Regler as Self
Commander Martinez de Aragón Photo
Commander Martinez de Aragón as Self
José Díaz Photo
José Díaz as Self
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
487.65 MB
1280*974
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
29.97 fps
12 hr 52 min
Seeds 1
903.8 MB
1416*1078
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
29.97 fps
12 hr 52 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by brogmiller 7 / 10

"No place to run, no place to hide."

Dutch-born Joris Ivens spent three decades as one of the most widely travelled of directors, working under many flags on almost every continent.In 1936 he set out for Spain to make this morale booster for the Republican cause which evidently made quite an impact at the time and is now regarded as an historical document.Although patchy at times it is quite an achievement considering it's miniscular budget, limited resources and a 35mm camera that required a tripod. It's notoriety is due in no small part to the participation of Ernest Hemingway who helped fund the project, contributed to the script, lugged equipment, arranged transport and whose rather flat, mid-Western, 'reporter on the spot' style of narration famously replaced that of Orson Welles which was considered 'too smooth' for the rough-hewn material. In a later short story 'Night before battle', Hemingway draws upon the hazardous nature of the filming.It is the faces here that leave the deepest impression, registering fear, desperation and determination whilst the contribution of Spanish folk music arranged by Virgil Thompson and Marc Blitzstein is immeasurable.Interesting to note that when released in America, critics attacked it's lack of 'objectivity' whilst British censors banned it until all references to Italian and German intervention in Spain were deleted from the commentary. Of course Iven's 'subjective' approach is hardly surprising considering his avowed communist beliefs which obliged him to leave America in 1951, never to return.
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Reviewed by Screen_O_Genic 7 / 10

"Peasants, the land is yours!"

Supported by prominent American literary figures like Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos Joris Ivens' "The Spanish Earth" is an interesting glimpse at Spain during one of its most turbulent eras. Narrated by Orson Welles (and later by Hemingway) the documentary shows rural and urban Spanish life in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. With striking scenes of the bare and wide land the film highlights people working and interacting and the trials and tragedies they had to go through all vividly showing a nation in turmoil as they try to get by in tumultuous times. Slow-going and lacking the pizazz that films of this kind should have the importance of this historical artifact nonetheless overrides whatever shortcomings the movie has. A visual time travel to one of the most momentuous and tragic periods in world history "The Spanish Earth" is priceless as it is important.

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