Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein
1898-1948
Eisenstein: early biography
• Born in Riga, Latvia, into the family of a prominent architect and engineer
• Father Jewish, mother Russian• Graduated from the Institute of Civil
Engineering in Saint Petersburg• In 1920, joined the Proletkult (“proletarian
culture”) Central Workers’ Theatre in Moscow
• Studied in the School for Stage Direction under Vsevolod Meyerhold in early 1920s
Eisenstein Filmography
• Strike 1923• Battleship Potemkin (1925)• October (Ten Days that Shook the World) 1928• The General Line (The Old and the New) 1929• Que viva Mexico! (unfinished – abandoned 1932)• Bezhin Meadow (1935 – undistributed, destroyed)• Alexander Nevsky 1938• Ivan the Terrible Pt. I 1944• Ivan the Terrible Pt II (finished 1946, released
only in 1958)
Key Concepts in 1920s films, esp. Eisenstein
• new cinematic language rejecting “literature” (narrative) and “theatre” (psychological realism of stage)
• montage of attractions: collision (juxtaposing) of visual images to create a third meaning : (A + B = C)
• typage: rejection of actors, preference for facial “types”
Eisenstein and the Theatre
• Worked under Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940)
• antirealist theatre• theatre of the grotesque• clowning, acrobatics• abstract, “constructivist” sets
Eisenstein’s essay “Montage of Attractions” (1923)
• “Montage of attractions”: cinema compared to theatre and circus
• Tr.: “sequence of tricks”
• first experiment in film: grotesque intermezzo inserted in play
The Real versus Realism
Avant-garde film rejected the “psychological realism” of Stanislavskian theatre.Eisenstein: “The Moscow Art Theatre is my deadly enemy. They string their emotions together to give a continuous illusion of reality. I take photographs of reality and then cut them up to produce emotions… I am not a realist, I am a materialist. I believe that material things, that matter gives us the basis of all our sensations. I get away from realism by going to reality.”
Commedia dell’arte and the Grotesque
• Jacques Callot (1592-1635):• French artist, engravings of Italian actors• Masks: Pantalone, Petrushka, dottore• Serious characters (innamorati): lovers
joined at end of comedy, become heroic revolutionaries
• For Russian theatre/film: source of grotesque – deformation of the human form, and expressive facial expression as mask
Film Strike (1923) as a commedia dell'arte
• First feature film, about workers’ strikes before the revolution
• Serious heroes: revolutionaries• Dark comedy, the revolutionaries are
suppressed. • Masks: factory managers, spies…
October (1927) by Sergei EisensteinFirst non-documentary featuring Lenin
Sergei Eisenstein’s October(Ten Days that Shook the World)
(1927)
• Based on book by John Reid• Made to commemorate 10th anniversary
of Bolshevik seizure of Power• Historical inaccurate: the myth, not the
literal truth• Political message conveyed visually• Film technique: editing• The narrative...what the story trying to
tell?
October: the events
• Hardships of war• 23-27 February 1917 crisis• 15 March 1917 Tsar Nicholas II abdicates• Confrontation between Provisional
Government and the Petrograd Soviet (Workers' Council)
• April 1917 Vladimir Lenin returns via the Finland Station
• July Demonstrations broken up, Lenin goes into hiding
• October 24-25 (7 November) 1917 • Storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd
and removal of Provisional Government
“Typage” as development of Mask in October (1927)
• Typage (use of types): “Lenin” is played by a worker who looked similar.
• No acting: simple gestures.
• Lenin arrives at Finland Station
Montage
• Radical intercutting of unrelated shots to create emotional shock or intellectual impact.
• Developed from “Kuleshov effect”
• Early “shock” montage from Strike:
• The killing of the workers and end of the strike.
“Intellectual” montage
• Montage of two shots to create comparison or metaphor: A + B = C
• Intellectual Montage in October• “God and country” in • Montage of recognizable figures -
anti-Communist leaders Kornilov and Kerensky - with dolls, e.g. Napoleon
October
• Sound through montage
• the suppression of the workers’ July demonstration
Eisenstein's October
• Historically inaccurate: the myth, not the literal truth
• Political message conveyed visually• Film technique: editing• Use of types: “Lenin” is a worker who
looked similar.• No acting: simple gestures• Montage of faces, e.g. Kerensky, with
dolls, e.g. Napoleon
“Moving masses” in October
October
• Sound through montage
- the suppression of the workers’ July demonstration