FILMADARAN January 2014

SERGEI EISENSTEIN - THE LEGENDARY RUSSIAN FILM DIRECTOR The father of montage, Russia's Sergei Eisenstein was one of the principal architects of the modern cinematic form. Despite a relatively small ouevre of only seven completed films, most if not all of which suffered under the weight of communist intrusion, few individuals were more instrumental in enabling motion pictures to evolve beyond their origins in 19th century Victorian theater into a new arena of abstract thought and expression. While later criticized for the strong currents of propaganda coursing through his work, the continuing influence of Eisenstein's films is, regardless of politics, undeniable; a master of metaphor and allusion, he brought to the medium a new depth of power and complexity.

STACHKA (Strike) 1925, USSR, 94 min, Silent The first full-length feature project of pantheon Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, Strike is a governmentcommissioned celebration of the unrealized 1905 Bolshevik revolution. The story is set in motion by a series of outrages and humiliations perpetrated on the workers of a metalwork plant. The Czarist regime is unsympathetic to the workers, characteristically helping the plant owners to subjugate the hapless victims. Finally, the workers revolt, staging an all-out strike. Here is where Eisenstein's theory of "the montage of shocks" was given its first major workout.

BRONENOSETS POTEMKIN (The Battleship Potemkin) 1925, USSR, 74 min, Silent After the success of Strike, Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a film commemorating the uprising of 1905. Eisenstein's scenario, boiled down from what was to have been a multipart epic of the occasion, focused on the crew of the battleship Potemkin.

Fed up with the extreme cruelties of their officers and their maggot-ridden meat rations, the sailors stage a violent mutiny. This, in turn, sparks an abortive citizens' revolt against the Czarist regime. The film's centerpiece is staged on the Odessa Steps, where in 1905 the Czar's Cossacks methodically shot down rioters and innocent bystanders alike.

OKTYABR (October, aka Ten Days That Shook the World) 1927, USSR, 103 min, Silent Borrowing its title from a book by American journalist John Reed (of Reds fame), Sergei Eisenstein's Ten Days That Shook the World reenacts the crucial week-and-a-half in October, 1918, when the Russian Kerensky regime was toppled by the Bolsheviks. While Eisenstein takes certain liberties in characterization—those opposing the Bolsheviks are depicted as mental defectives or grossly overweight clowns—his re-creation of such events as the storming of the Winter Palace are painstakingly meticulous.

MISERY AND FORTUNE OF WOMAN 1929, USSR, 20 min, Short, Silent This ultra-rare 1929 film by Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Tisse uses Soviet-style montage to promote safe ob/gyn medicine in Europe. Intended to encourage legal and sanitary birth/abortion clinics in Europe, this remarkable film is also a stunning dramatization of the plight of working class women, displaying all the earmarks of Soviet montage and the distinctive genius Sergei Eisenstein.

ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE 1930, USSR, 20 min, Short Some accounts claim that Eisenstein only attached his name to this sound short simply because he needed the money. It is, however, closer to the truth to say that this was a collaboration, although the exact extent of the collaboration between him and Grigori Alexandrov remains undetermined. The film itself is a short, experimental, slightly poetic montage of city and abstract images.

DA ZDRAVSTVUET MEKSIKA (Que Viva Mexico!) 1932 – 1979, USSR, 85 min.

After the dissolution of his project based on the Theodore Dreiser novel An American Tragedy and nearing the conclusion of his failed sojourn in Hollywood, legendary Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein secured financing for this documentary about Mexico from avowed Socialist Upton Sinclair. Eisenstein and his cinematographer Eduard Tisse shot the film in 1931 and '32, intending to divide the narrative into four novels or segments called "Sandunga," "Fiesta," "Maguey," and "Soldadera." After completing filming, Eisenstein sent his footage to Hollywood for processing but political and economic intrigues prevented him from ever editing the material. In 1979, this version of the film was reconstructed by Eisenstein's assistant director, Grigory Alexandrov, from his former mentor's notes.

MEXIKANSKAYA FANTASIYA (Mexican Fantasy) 1932 – 1998, 99 min For this black-and-white Russian documentary, filmmaker Oleg Kovalov surveys the unfinished Mexican project of Sergei M. Eisenstein (1898-1948), an ambitious work originally titled Que Viva Mexico! After Paramount rejected the project in October 1930, it was financed by a group of investors that included novelist Upton Sinclair and the Gillette safety razor company. Some 285,000 feet (about 50 hours) were shot in 1931-32 by Eisenstein and cameraman Eduard Tisse before Sinclair called a halt to the filming. Eisenstein saw his rushes for the first time in 1932, but because of his contract with Sinclair, he was not allowed to edit his masterpiece.

BEZHIN LUG (Bezhin Meadow) 1937, 30 min, Short Eisenstein worked on Bezhin Meadow from 1935 to 1937. Based on a Turgenev story, the scenario for Bezhin Meadow was written by Isaac Babel. It's a tale that dramatizes the forcible reorganization of peasant settlements into state affiliated collective farms soon after the formation of the Soviet Union. In 1937, the Soviet government, deeming the politics of the film unacceptable, stopped its production, and the film was never completed.

ALEXANDER NEVSKY 1938, 108 min Like many of Eisenstein's best films, Alexander Nevsky was conceived as a morale-booster, aimed at stirring up Russian patriotism. The hero of the piece is the legendary Prince Alexander Nevsky, portrayed by Nikolai Cherkasov. The saving turnaround for Nevsky is the battle of icecovered Lake Peipus in 1242. This bravura sequence is staged in spectacular fashion, underlined by the specially-commissioned music of Sergei Prokofiev.

FEATURES: MUSICAL MONTAGE by Russell Merritt, Essay on the Eisenstein-Prokofiev Collaboration (23 min) IVAN GROZNY I (Ivan the Terrible: Part I) 1944, USSR, 99 min Sergei Eisenstein's operatic saga of the 16th-century Russian hero Czar Ivan IV is given a charismatic performance by Nikolai Cherkasov and a brilliant score by Sergei Prokofiev.

Part One deals with Czar Ivan's beginnings as the ruler of Russia, Ivan's coronation, and his marriage to Anastasia Romanovna (Lyudmila Tselikovskaya). Ivan suddenly becomes gravely ill and then mysteriously recovers. When a group of conspirators poison his wife, Ivan becomes more wary of his retainers and announces that the will of the people demands his return from Alexandrov to Moscow.

Ivan endeavors to preserve his country in the face of all the internal and external conspiracies.

FEATURES: MULTIMEDIA ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE by Joan Neuberger, director of the Center for Soviet Studies at the University of Texas at Austin (38 min) IVAN GROZNY II (Ivan the Terrible: Part II) 1946, USSR, 85 min The second part of Sergei Eisenstein's baroque chronicle of the legendary Russian czar was originally planned as a three-part epic. But Eisenstein had battles with Russian censors over the second part of his trilogy, ostensibly because of a negative depiction of Ivan's secret police force (Stalin feared that Eisenstein was making a veiled reference to himself). Although filmed shortly after Part One in 1946, the film was suppressed and was not released until 1958.

FEATURES: MULTIMEDIA ESSAY ON EISENSTEIN'S VISUAL VOCABULARY by Yuri Tsivian, Art History Professor at the University of Chicago (34 min)

SERGEI EISENSTEIN: AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1996, Russia, 92 min Directed by Oleg Kovalov This documentary celebrates Eisenstein's life and art on the centennial of his birth. It incorporates highlights from his films, clips from the works of his contemporaries (and the many filmmakers he's influenced), and glimpses at Eisenstein's own notes and memoirs. It also provides rare footage of the director himself, and shows several contemporary interviews that trace the director's rise to prominence after the Soviet Revolution and his fall from grace during Stalin's reign of terror.