Description
Book SynopsisOver the decades since he was first hailed by critics and filmmakers around the world, Sergei Eisenstein has assumed many identities. Originally cast as a prophet of revolution and the maestro of montage, and later seen as both a victim of and apologist for Stalin's tyranny, the scale and impact of Eisenstein's legacy has continued to grow. If early research on Eisenstein focused on his directorial work from the legendary
Battleship Potemkin and
October to the still-controversial
Ivan the Terrible with time scholars have discovered many other aspects of his multifarious output.In recent years, multimedia exhibitions, access to his vast archive of drawings, and publication of his previously censored theoretical writings have cast Eisenstein in a new light. Deeply engaged with some of the leading thinkers and artists of his own time, Eisenstein remains a focus for many of their successors, contested as well as revered. Over half a century since his death in 1948, a
Trade ReviewThis collection of essays by a collection of outstanding scholars allows the full richness of a new Eisenstein to explode out of its pages, provoking a series of new conversations that will have resonance for decades to come. It should be essential reading for any film scholar. -- Emma Widdis, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK
Some of today's leading Eisenstein scholars take us on a new exploration of his cinematic world, one we thought we knew, but which turns out to be alive with possibilities. Devouring these essays--with topics ranging from Eisenstein's numerological superstitions to discussions of gender, pathos and landscape--I felt again the delight that comes from diving deeply into his films, in which art and thought constantly provoke each other, creating something bold, surprising, new. -- Anne Nesbet, author of Savage Junctures: Sergei Eisenstein and the Shape of Thinking
This book’s title is less of a hyperbole than it may seem. As a theorist, Sergei Eisenstein sought a universal law that explains art’s emotional impact across cultures, media and ages. Fluent in four languages, he spent years tracing this law in wildly different areas of knowledge. As these essays show, the quest was not aimless. His writings, like his films, relied on the cognitive power of juxtaposition, collating ideas to collide them—and make some astounding discoveries. All too few of his many projects saw the light of day. This book alerts us to the power of the abandoned, the aborted, the unmade—things worth thinking through again. Eisenstein’s once-compact universe, like the one we inhabit, is expanding. -- Yuri Tsivian, author of Ivan the Terrible (BFI Film Classics)
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. Ian Christie and Julia Vassilieva Eisenstein Unbound ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Part 1. CREATIVITY, NATURE, POLITICS CHAPTER 1. Dustin Condren Odd and Even: Eisenstein and Unrealised Work CHAPTER 2. Joan Neuberger Eisenstein’s Collectives: The Politics of Nature CHAPTER 3. Robert Bird The Politics of Nonindifference in Eisenstein’s Dialectics of Nature Part 2. GRUNDPROBLEM, REGRESS, SENSUALITY CHAPTER 4. Ilaria Aletto Regress-Progress in Proust, Surrealism and Joyce CHAPTER 5. Ian Christie The Old IT: Eisenstein and D. H. Lawrence CHAPTER 6. Evgenii Bershtein Sokurov contra Eisenstein: The Balance of Gender Part 3. PATHOS, IMMERSION, AFFECT CHAPTER 7. Antonio Somaini Formula pafosa, Pathosformel: Eisenstein and Warburg CHAPTER 8. Julia Vassilieva Hypnosis, Psychotechnics and Magic of Art CHAPTER 9. Ada Ackerman Eisenstein’s Scream(s) Part 4. HISTORY, REPRESENTATION, MONTAGE CHAPTER 10. Håkan Lövgren October: On the Cinematic Allegorizing of History CHAPTER 11. Felix Lenz Attraction and Subversion – ‘Montage 1938’ CHAPTER 12. Massimo Olivero The Two-Headed Ecstasy: The Philosophical Roots of Late Eisenstein CHAPTER 13. Nikita Lary Ivan the Terrible in the Context of Shakespearean Tragedy Part 5. SPACE, PLACE, LEGACY CHAPTER 14. Nariman Skakov From Moscow to Fergana, or From the Avant-garde to the National Form CHAPTER 15. Adrian Danks March 1949, Melbourne: Eisenstein in Australia CHAPTER 16. Oksana Bulgakowa How to Curate Eisenstein BIOs
