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This page is to obtain access to the broadcast of this Sands Films Cinema Club presentation
THE SPANISH EARTH
Dir Joris Ivens
Men cannot “act” before the camera in the presence of death. — from Ernest Hemingway’s commentary in The Spanish Earth.
Text and meta-text.
First, text.
The most moving U.S. documentary ever, by Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens, begins with two panning long shots: a painterly sky; an expanse of parched earth. The scene is the Spanish village of Fuenteduena, between Valencia and Madrid. Two parallel themes will come together: a project to irrigate the land, to raise food to feed Republican soldiers opposing Franco’s fascists and foreign cohorts—Nazi Germany; Fascist Italy—during the Spanish Civil War; the raging war itself, in and near Madrid, including the Republican effort to secure the bridge between Valencia and Madrid.
There are no reconstructions here. We see war—actual soldiers as they steel themselves for battle; fresh bodies of killed soldiers and civilians. The villagers succeed with their irrigation project; Republican soldiers secure the bridge.
Meta-text. Republicans, we know, will lose the war. How on earth can we watch this film today without bringing to it our knowledge of this bleeding history? Ivens made a hopeful film, but reality subsequently canceled hope. This cancellation, a gargantuan defeat for humanity in the twentieth century, is forever, now, a part of The Spanish Earth.
Dennis Grunes
The above is one of the entries from Dennis Grunes' book published by Sands Films Cinema Club which you can purchase here if you haven’t already done so.
Films about the Spanish Civil War
2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War; Sands Films Cinema Club presents three series of films about this tragedy. The first series will look at the war as seen from outside, by non-Spanish filmmakers. The second selection of films will introduce films about the war made in Spain under Franco. The final series will look a the representation of the war by Spanish filmmakers, after Franco.
The Spanish Earth
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.
- Year:
- 1937
- Runtime:
- 53 minutes
- Language:
- English, German, Spanish
- Director:
- Joris Ivens
- Screenwriter:
- Prudencio de Pereda, John Dos Passos, Archibald Macleish, Ernest Hemingway, Joris Ivens, Lillian Hellman
- Cast:
- Manuel Azaña, José Díaz, Dolores Ibárruri
- Cinematographer:
- John Fernhout
- Editor:
- Helen van Dongen
This page is to obtain access to the broadcast of this Sands Films Cinema Club presentation
THE SPANISH EARTH
Dir Joris Ivens
Men cannot “act” before the camera in the presence of death. — from Ernest Hemingway’s commentary in The Spanish Earth.
Text and meta-text.
First, text.
The most moving U.S. documentary ever, by Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens, begins with two panning long shots: a painterly sky; an expanse of parched earth. The scene is the Spanish village of Fuenteduena, between Valencia and Madrid. Two parallel themes will come together: a project to irrigate the land, to raise food to feed Republican soldiers opposing Franco’s fascists and foreign cohorts—Nazi Germany; Fascist Italy—during the Spanish Civil War; the raging war itself, in and near Madrid, including the Republican effort to secure the bridge between Valencia and Madrid.
There are no reconstructions here. We see war—actual soldiers as they steel themselves for battle; fresh bodies of killed soldiers and civilians. The villagers succeed with their irrigation project; Republican soldiers secure the bridge.
Meta-text. Republicans, we know, will lose the war. How on earth can we watch this film today without bringing to it our knowledge of this bleeding history? Ivens made a hopeful film, but reality subsequently canceled hope. This cancellation, a gargantuan defeat for humanity in the twentieth century, is forever, now, a part of The Spanish Earth.
Dennis Grunes
The above is one of the entries from Dennis Grunes' book published by Sands Films Cinema Club which you can purchase here if you haven’t already done so.
Films about the Spanish Civil War
2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War; Sands Films Cinema Club presents three series of films about this tragedy. The first series will look at the war as seen from outside, by non-Spanish filmmakers. The second selection of films will introduce films about the war made in Spain under Franco. The final series will look a the representation of the war by Spanish filmmakers, after Franco.
The Spanish Earth
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.
- Year:
- 1937
- Runtime:
- 53 minutes
- Language:
- English, German, Spanish
- Director:
- Joris Ivens
- Screenwriter:
- Prudencio de Pereda, John Dos Passos, Archibald Macleish, Ernest Hemingway, Joris Ivens, Lillian Hellman
- Cast:
- Manuel Azaña, José Díaz, Dolores Ibárruri
- Cinematographer:
- John Fernhout
- Editor:
- Helen van Dongen