Arsena Georgiashvili (murder of General Griaznov)

The first feature produced by Soviet Georgia's film section, and a founding myth of Georgian cinema. Ivane Perestiani, a Bauer actor turned director, tells the 1905 story of Arsen Jorjiashvili, a Tbilisi railway worker executed for trying to kill General Gryaznov, chief of staff of the Caucasian Military District. Mikheil Chiaureli, later Stalin's favorite director, plays Arsen; Perestiani himself plays Vorontsov-Dashkov. Georgian theatre names fill the rest of the cast. Released 1921, with Georgian intertitles. The style is still Khanzhonkov-era: constructed sequences, changes of scale, a hero the new state needed. It is less a thriller than a pantheon being built in front of you.