Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: ?????? ?????????? ??????????, Latvian: Sergejs Eizen?teins) (January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet theatrical scenic designer-turned-film director and film theorist noted in paticular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and ', which vastly influenced early documentary and narrative directors owing to his innovative use of montage.

Early years

Eisenstein, who was born in Riga, Latvia. His father, Mikhail Eisenstein, was an engineer of German Jewish descent; his mother, Julia, was an ethnic Russian. Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of editing. He believed that film editing was more than merely a method used to link scenes together in a movie; he felt that careful editing could actually be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience. He performed long research into this area, and developed what he called Intellectual montage. His published books The Film Form and The Film Sense explain his theories of montage, and they have been highly influential to many directors.

Related Topics:
Riga - Latvia - German - Jewish - Russian - Editing - Intellectual montage

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In his initial films, Eisenstein did not use professional actors. His narratives eschewed individual characters and addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict. He used stock characters, and the roles were filled with untrained people from the appropriate class backgrounds.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eisenstein's vision of Communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Joseph Stalin. Like a great many Bolshevik artists, Eisenstein envisioned the new society as one which would subsidize the artist totally, freeing him from the confines of bosses and budgets, thus leaving him absolutely free to create. Yet, budgets and producers were as much a part of the Soviet film industry as the rest of the world: the fledgling, war- and revolution-wracked, and isolated new nation simply hadn't the resources to even nationalize its film industry at first; and later, when it did, limited resources - both monetary and equipment - necessitated production controls every bit as extensive as in the Capitalist world. Furthermore, Eisenstein's experimentalistic films, while successful critically abroad, were not terribly interesting to Soviet film audiences, who wanted action films with comprehensible stories. The average Soviet simply wanted a version of The Mark of Zorro or Metropolis with the hero a Communist and the villian a Capitalist.

Related Topics:
Communism - Joseph Stalin - The Mark of Zorro - Metropolis

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Additionally, as Stalinism infiltrated Soviet film criticism and film theory during the mid to late 1920s, the product of the Soviet film industry were dictated to be in the form of socialist realism, which viewed film as a highly propagandized script filmed simply and literally by the director: the scenarist was to be considered the auteur (indeed, for decades, the scenarist would hold the first screen credit after the main title, followed by the director).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eisenstein's popularity and influence in his own land thus waxed and waned with the success of his films and the passage of time. The Battleship Potemkin was a critical hit worldwide and popular in the Soviet Union. But it was mostly his international critical renown which enabled Eisenstein to direct "The General Line" (aka "Old and New"), and then "" (aka "Ten Days That Shook The World") as part of a grand 10th anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. The critics of the outside world praised them, but at home, Eisenstein's focus in these films on structural issues such as camera angles, crowd movements and montage, brought him under fire within the Soviet film community - along with likeminded others, such as Pudovkin and Dovzhenko - forcing him to issue public articles of self-criticism and commitments to reform his cinematic visions to conform to socialist realism's increasingly specific doctrines.

Related Topics:
The General Line - October Revolution - 1917 - Pudovkin - Dovzhenko

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~