Here is the definitive study of Stanislavsky on film: a retracing of his life and work against the tumultuous backdrop of a Russia which variously censored, spied on, adulated, and co-opted him, using hitherto unknown footage. The program shows how one great creative artist interacted with other giants of his era, from Lenin to Stalin, Meyerhold to Mayakovsky, Isadora Duncan to Stella Adler—and includes, in addition to the Chekhov plays, scenes from his productions of Ibsen, Gogol, Hamlet with Gordon Craig as codirector, and Molière’s Le Malade Imaginaire with Stanislavsky as Argan, among many others.