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