The nearly 300,000 feet (91,440 metres) of footage shot for Que viva Mexico!—banned from importation to the U.S.S.R.—was cut and released in the United States as the films Thunder over Mexico, Eisenstein in Mexico, and Death Day (1933–34). The hieroglyphic language of the cinema is capable of expressing any concept, any idea of class, any political or tactical slogan, without recourse to the help of a rather suspect dramatic or psychological past. Eisenstein is the only Russian on the list. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917, he enlisted in the Red Army and helped to organize and construct defenses and to produce entertainment for the troops. Its greatness lies not merely in the depth of humanity with which the subject is treated, nor in its social significance, nor in the formal perfection of its rhythm and editing; but rather, it is each of these magnified and multiplied by the others. Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire [now Latvia], Michael Kaminsky , View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and then director. As such, he designed the costumes and the scenery for several notable productions. The film never was completed. In his concept of film montage, images, perhaps independent of the “main” action, are presented for maximum psychological impact. Pages 291-305. Corrections? Ordered by the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. to commemorate the Revolution of 1905, the film, made in the port and the city of Odessa in 1925, had a momentous impact and still remains among the masterpieces of the world cinema. Having expressed contrition for the errors of his past works, Eisenstein was able to make a film recounting the medieval epic of Alexander Nevsky, in accordance with Stalin’s policy of glorifying Russian heroes. A series of educational films about Mexico were also compiled by using extracts from the reels. Though he made only seven films in his career, he and his theoretical writings demonstrated how film could move beyond its nineteenth-century predecessor--Victorian theatre-- to create abstract concepts with concrete images. He later theorized that this style of editing worked in a similar fashion to Marx's dialectic. Eisenstein, who was of Jewish descent through his paternal grandparents, lived in Riga, where his father, Mikhail, a civil engineer, worked in shipbuilding until 1910, when the family moved to St. Petersburg. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). He was one of the founders of the world's oldest film school, VGIK in Moscow (opened 1 September 1919), and along with, Arrived in the United States in 1929, accompanied by. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. |  Scene from “the Odessa Steps” sequence in the film, …his most brilliant students were Sergey Eisenstein and Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin.…, Its most celebrated director was Sergey Eisenstein (a student of Meyerhold), whose great films include, …and Image,” the Soviet directors Sergey Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Grigory Aleksandrov denounced synchronous sound in favour of asynchronous, contrapuntal sound—sound that would counterpoint the images it accompanied to become another dynamic element in the montage process. Looking for something to watch? Thus, in Strike, which recounts the repression of a strike by the soldiers of the tsar, Eisenstein juxtaposed shots of workers being mowed down by machine guns with shots of cattle being butchered in a slaughterhouse. Updates? Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. Suffered a severe heart attack on 2 February 1946, and spent much of the following year recovering. Author of. New York: The H.W. (In 1958 it was voted the best film ever made, by an international poll of critics.) Eisenstein’s relationship with Sinclair—already strained by production delays and communication problems—was destroyed when U.S. customs officials discovered homoerotic drawings and photographs, some of which included religious imagery, in a combined shipment of his and Sinclair’s belongings. Filmmaker Jay Leyda compiled Eisenstein’s Mexican Film: Episodes for Study (1958) from that footage. Having by this accomplishment earned recognition as the epic poet of the Soviet cinema, Eisenstein next made a film entitled Oktyabr (October, or Ten Days That Shook the World), which in the space of two hours dealt with the shifts of power in the government after the 1917 Revolution, the entrance on the scene of Lenin, and the struggle between the Bolsheviks and their political and military foes. Most critics would agree that though Eisenstein’s three greatest films stand far above the others, all of his work is significant; their flaws are those common to artists probing the limits of their craft. Made in 1938, this film transfigured the actual historical events, majestically leading to a final resolution that represented the triumph of collectivism. Eisenstein furthered Meyerhold's theory with his own "montage of attractions"--a sequence of pictures whose total emotion effect is greater than the sum of its parts. He rapidly became the principal decorator and then the codirector. Though Eisenstein wanted to make films for the common man, his intense use of symbolism and metaphor in what he called "intellectual montage" sometimes lost his audience. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Like the practical editing problem, the theoretical debate over the appropriate use of…. "Montage Eisenstein: Theories of Representation and Difference," an analysis of Eisenstein's film theories, by. Also uneven, but better balanced, was Staroye i novoye (Old and New, also called The General Line), filmed in 1929 to illustrate the collectivization of the rural countryside. Michael Kaminsky , Other Works |  The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. These principles guided Eisenstein’s entire career. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. After studying in 1916–18 at the Institute of Civil Engineering, Eisenstein decided on a career in the plastic arts and entered the School of Fine Arts. Possessed by his theory, Eisenstein was bound to succumb often to this failing. Though Eisenstein’s sexual inclinations were never confirmed, he had long been suspected of being homosexual, a theory corroborated by the materials discovered. (1979). His grandfather was a German Jew who had converted to Christianity. The Proletkult's director, Vsevolod Meyerhold, became a big influence on Eisenstein, introducing him to the concept of biomechanics, or conditioned spontaneity. He was about to return to work when he died, not long after his 50th birthday. Refusing to modify his scripts to meet studio demands, however, he broke the contract and went to Mexico in 1932 to direct Que viva Mexico!, with capital collected by the novelist Upton Sinclair. Publicity Listings - IMDb Mini Biography By: Engaged by Paramount studios in 1930, he left for Hollywood, where he worked on adaptations of the novels L’Or (“Sutter’s Gold”), by Blaise Cendrars, and An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sergey-Eisenstein, AllMovie - Biography of Sergei Eisenstein, RT Russiapedia - Biography of Sergei Eisenstein, Sergei Eisenstein - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Eisenstein thus suffered from the same governmental policies toward art that had embroiled the composer Sergey Prokofiev, the writer Isaac Babel, and many other artists in difficulties with Soviet officialdom. Mini Bio (1) The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. Thus, the filmmaker should aim to establish in the consciousness of the spectators the elements that would lead them to the idea he wants to communicate; he should attempt to place them in the spiritual state or the psychological situation that would give birth to that idea. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and then director. The Proletkult's director, Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire [now Latvia], ‘Shot’ by Director Jeremy Kagan Reaches Out, Foreplays #7: Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville’s "Liberté et Patrie", ‘Murder on the Orient Express’: Kenneth Branagh Embraced Agatha Christie and the Immersive Spectacle of 65mm, L'incroyable Cinématon de Sergueï Eisenstein supervisé par Dziga Vertov, Taiwanese School: The Experiment of Sergei Eisenstein's Montage Theory, Sergey Eyzenshteyn.