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EPICS OF LABOUR 167
passionate ardour rarely matched by any feature film. First we are shown the sense and necessity of the railway by a demonstration of the mutual economic interdependence of the populations of the two regions. They cannot live while a trackless desert separates them from each other. The people suffer in the north, they suffer in the south. The murderous sandstorms of the desert destroy the caravans. These sequences are like distress signals. They show the building of the railway as a life-saving operation. This is no longer a railway, it is the very life of two peoples. The spectator watches the progress of the work with sympathy and anxiety.
Now the film shows the obstacles and difficulties. In the north a frost of 42 degrees centigrade beneath zero. In the south the parching desert. Invincible obstacles. The greatest of them the obstinate resistance of the ignorant, backward desert nomads. First this must be overcome. As in an ancient epic, human determination enters into a mythical duel with the terrifying forces of nature. Every shot is set up as a battle, every scene is directed as a struggle. The struggle is hard, persistent, resolute — it is fought for the good of men. This is why the film has such an irresistible appeal, this is why its end is such a triumphant apotheosis, although all it really is is just a modest be-garlanded engine puffing along a single-track road. But there are people standing along the track, waving, smiling, dancing, weeping for joy and exuberantly galloping on horseback donkeyback, camelback, bullockback to race the steam engine that is bringing a new age to Siberia and Turkestan.
This film was made during the building of the railway. In the last shot the date of the planned completion of the scheme appeared in the smoke of the engine: 1930. Turksib was to be finished in 1930.
But in 1930, when I edited this film for European audiences, I had to change the date in this shot to 1929. For the railway had been completed six months before and was in operation by 1930. How did this happen?
The film, which was shot in 1928, was of course shown first of all to an audience of Turksib railway workers who having seen the importance of their own work, were so enthused that