The Childhood of Maxim Gorky

The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938) is Mark Donskoy's drama drawn from the writer's own memoir, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It opens on the Volga wharves of late-19th-century Nizhny Novgorod, where a boy named Alyosha Peshkov — the future Maxim Gorky — is growing up.

After his father dies, Alyosha is taken into his grandfather Kashirin's house, a place of shouting, inheritance feuds and beatings for the smallest slip. His one source of warmth is his grandmother Akulina and her folk tales. Varvara Massalitinova makes her one of the most memorable figures in Soviet cinema, while young Alexei Lyarsky carries the picture as Alyosha.

This is the first chapter of Donskoy's Gorky trilogy, followed by My Apprenticeship and My Universities. The director films poverty and cruelty plainly, yet never wallows — the child's-eye view keeps the whole thing afloat. People return to it for the ensemble cast and its riverside texture, and it pairs well with reading the book itself. Stream The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938) online on iFILM.