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Sergei Eisenstein |
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Director / Screenwriter /
Editor |
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1898 - 1948 |
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Born January 23,
Riga, Russia |
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Key
Production Country: USSR |
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Key Genres:
Propaganda Film, Historical Film, Historical Epic, Political Drama,
Biography, Drama |
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Key
Collaborators: Eduard Tisse (Cinematographer), Nikolai Cherkasov (Leading Player), Grigori Alexandrov
(Screenwriter/Director), Sergei Prokofiev (Composer),
Vasili Rakhals (Production Designer), Andrei Abrikosov (Character Player), Alexander Antonov (Leading Player), Serafima Birman (Leading Player), Andrei Moskvin (Cinematographer), Esfir Tobak
(Editor) |
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Recommended:
Strike
(1924)*, Battleship
Potemkin (1925)*, The General Line (1929), Que viva Mexico! (1932)*, Alexander Nevsky (1938)*, Ivan the Terrible, Part Two (1946)* |
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Worth a Look:
October (1927)*,
Bezhin Meadow (1937), Ivan the Terrible, Part One (1944)* |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
]
[
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein ] [
Russian
Archives Online ] [
World
Socialist Web Site Profile ] [
Off Screen Article (2007) ] [
Film
International Article (2008)
] |
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Books:
[
Film
Form: Essays in Film Theory ] [
The
Eisenstein Reader ] [
Eisenstein
at 100: A Reconsideration ] [
The Film Sense ]
[
Sergei Eisenstein: A Biography ] [
Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict ] [
Beyond the Stars: The Memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein ] |
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"Compared
with the abiding influence on cinema of
Renoir,
Murnau or
Fritz Lang, it is no longer possible
to view Eisenstein as the man who laid down the theoretical
basis of the medium - the British Film Institute once had that
as part of a trilogy, with
Griffith
supplying the alphabet and
Chaplin
the humanity. It is true that early Eisenstein is a stirring
propagandist: in those first four films, the identification with
Soviet ideals and myths is based on concrete realization. But
the argument of those films is often foolish and ultimately,
inhumane." -
David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002) |
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"Eisenstein's
achievements are impressive and ambitious, but finally limited:
as he discovered in his later years, montage, though
interesting in theory, was too cerebral and repetitive a method
in practice, while, for all the Revolution's initial devotion to
the people, his films too often emerge as cold, soulless
propaganda." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989) |
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"That
the Russian Sergei Mikhailovitch Eisenstein was a genius at the
art of montage is indisputable. Whether he was also a genius of
the cinema, in the manner of his compatriot
Dovzhenko, is more open to
doubt... If his films sometimes lack the human touch, he remains
a master of the organization of images within the frame in such
a way as to make the maximum impact on his audience." -
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999) |
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"The master of montage, Eisenstein created a series of classic
Soviet films which speak of the faith, optimism, and willpower
of the Russian people." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"Now why should the cinema follow the forms of
theater and painting rather than the methodology of language,
which allows wholly new concepts of ideas to arise from the
combination of two concrete denotations of two concrete
objects?" - Sergei Eisenstein
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Time in the Sun (1940). |
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"I
am radically opposed to the way Eisenstein used the frame to
codify intellectual formulae. My own method of conveying
experience to the audience is quite different. Of course it
has to be said that Eisenstein wasn't trying to convey his
own experience to anyone, he wanted to put across ideas,
purely and simply; but for me that sort of cinema is utterly
inimical. Moreover Eisenstein's montage dictum, as I see it,
contradicts the very basis of the unique process whereby a
film affects an audience. It deprives the person watching of
that prerogative of film, which has to do with what
distinguishes its impact on his consciousness from that of
literature or philosophy: namely the opportunity to live
through what is happening on the screen as if it were his
own life, to take over, as deeply personal and his own, the
experience imprinted in time upon the screen, relating his
own life to what is being shown."
-
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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●
Fringe Benefits |
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●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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The
7th Most Influential Director of All Time (2002 MovieMaker Poll) |
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Robin Buss' Top 10 Directors |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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Grigory Alexandrov (External Link) |
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Sergei Bondarchuk |
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Alexander Dovzhenko |
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Grigori
Kozintsev (External Link) |
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Vsevolod Pudovkin |
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Walter Ruttmann |
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Andrei Tarkovsky |
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Dziga Vertov |
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