The General Line (or, Old and New)

This is a very conscious change in direction from Eisenstein and his codirector Grigori Aleksandrov. Eisenstein’s first three films (including October: Ten Days that Shook the World which was also codirected by Aleksandrov) had no main characters. They barely had characters at all. Well, now, in The General Line, the entire film revolves around one character, a woman farmer. The pair do not remove themselves from the propaganda, but they do change what they’re propagandizing for. The former ...