The Cinema of Eisenstein

by David Bordwell

Director of classics, theorist of montage, master of the mass epic, purveyor of Soviet realism in the midst of perilous political Sergei Eisenstein is possibly the key figure in film history. In "The Cinema of Eisenstein" David Bordwell takes the full measure of this filmmaker's accomplishments. Bordwell gives a complete account of Eisenstein's distinctive contributions to the art, theory and history of cinema. He takes the reader from the first silent film, "Strike", made in the upheaval of postrevolutionary Russia, through "Potemkin" and "Ten Days That Shook the World" and on to "Alexander Nevsky" which won the Order of Lenin, to the last banned part of the diptych "Ivan the Terrible". Discussing each in detail, Bordwell points out the traces of various artistic currents of the times, from Marxist Modernism to Socialist Realism to Symbolist poetics, as well as the changing influence of Soviet politics. He guides the reader through Eisenstein's theoretical writings, including major texts that have only recently appeared in English. With close attention to the texture of the filmmaker's thought and work, Bordwell uncovers new depths of artistry and implications for the the

Genres: Film

336 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

David Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor at the University of Wisconsin, is arguably the most influential scholar of film in the United States. The author, with his wife Kristin Thompson, of the standard textbook Film Art and a series of influential studies of directors (Eisenstein, Ozu, Dreyer) as well as periods and styles (Hong Kong cinema, Classical Hollywood cinema, among others), he has also trained a generation of professors of cinema studies, extending his influence throughout the world. His books have been translated into fifteen languages.

Reviews

[Martin Riexinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hesitating a bit between awarding 4 or 5, but actually it is a masterly analysis of the works of the genius director and his eclectic and often much less convincing concepts. Finally Bordwell himself acknowledges the deficits of the book, primarily that he himself had to rely on those writings available in English or French, plus some material that was translated from Russian for him.

That being said, the book contains a rather short biographical introduction which basically is a summary of earlier publications.* The book was ironically published a few years after the system Eisenstein had promoted with his films, but which had brought him into fatal danger on several occasions as well, had collapsed. Bordwell expresses his hope that the new political circumstances will allow more thorough research on Eisenstein's biography, but it seems that this window of opportunity in the period when archives were more accessible has not been used.

In the first analytical chapter "Monumental Heroics" Bordwell analyzes the montage technique in Eisenstein's film from the silent period, of course the famous "Odessa steps" sequence from Battleship Potyomkin and the sequence with religious items from October. With this chapter Bordwell prepares the next three chapters on Bordwell as a theoretician. According to him Eisenstein's reflections on cinema can be divided up into generalist theories based on the eclectic adaptation of official theories like mechanistic psychology and Hegelian dialectics which tended to have a short-life span in the Soviet system. Bordwell discards much of this high-level theorizing. According to him the director fails to demonstrate convincingly what is why the thesis, antithesis and synthesis in a montage. As opposed to this Bordwell is much more more positively inclined towards Eisenstein's "'Practical Aesthetics" (title of chapter 4), which means Eisenstein's ideas about with which formal means single episodes and films as a whole are constructed in the best way. Apparently Bordwell's appraisal reflects his own program to move film studies away from grand theorizing towards a meticulous analysis of structure and form. He highlights that Eisenstein intention to overcome film as a primarily diegetic art form to one thar is like music primarily driven by formal consideration. Bordwell shows as well how these elitist and "formalist" ideas brought him at odd with the official doctrine of "socialist realism".
In the chapter on Eisenstein's last films the author shows how montage were applied in Alexander Nevsky and the two finished parts of Ivan the Terrible**, where now also music and speech were integrated, although these films are much more traditional narrative films than his silent classics.
A final chapter on the reception history of Eisenstein discusses how his films and ideas were rediscovered in the West as well as in the Soviet Union in the West, particularly among left wing directors of the French nouvelle vague or Alexander Kluge in German. In my opinion Bordwell overlooks, however, that this does not only apply to "high brow" cinema, as montage technique and the centrality of formal elements for the film characterizes as well a popular genre like the "Spaghetti Western".***
Based on Bordwell's observations and my own I consider it very interesting that among the two practitioner/ theoreticians who wanted to support communism with a new aesthetics and a fundamental reconsideration of an art form, only Eisenstein had an influence that reached beyond his political project.**** Whereas Brecht's epic theatre was only to adapted to a minor degree at all, and only within his ideological milieu, film the influence of Eisenstein, although of course often diluted, is visible throughout film history in general.


* Bordwell does not mention Eisenstein's father as leading architect of Art Nouveau in Riga which became the touristic trademark of Latvia's capital some years after the publication of the book.
** To this film his wife and collaborator Kristin Thompson has dedicated a monograph.
*** Fun fact 1: When Ronald Reagan visited Moscow in 1988 he addressed Gorbachev with the Eisenstein quote "The most important thing is to have the vision. The next is grasp and hold it ..." Unfortunately he remains unclear whether the President was acquainted with Eisenstein from his Hollywood year or whether a speech writer was responsible for this in its historical context quite ironical reference.
**** Fun fact 2: Somewhere in this chapter Bordwell calls Eisenstein the Aristotle of film, a honorific that later was attached to himself.

[Pablo]

Un estudio impresionante. TFM stuff.