The Cinema Of Eisenstein

by Bordwell; David

• ISBN13: 9780415973656
• ISBN10: 0415973651
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Cinema of Eisensteinis David Bordwell's comprehensive analysis of the films of Sergei Eisenstein, arguably the key figure in the entire history of film. The director of such classics asPotemkin,Ivan the Terrible,October,Strike,andAlexander Nevsky, Eisenstein theorized montage, presented Soviet realism to the world, and mastered the concept of film epic. Discussing each film in illuminating detail, David 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 us 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 surprising new implications for the theory and history of cinema. Comprehensive, authoritative, and illustratedwith more than three hundred stills,The Cinema of Eisensteindeserves to be on the shelf of every serious student of film.

Author Biography

David Bordwell is Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Table of Contents

Preface 2005	xi
Preface	xix
Abbreviations	xxiii
A Life in Cinema	1	(39)
From Theatre to Cinema	1	(7)
The Silent Films	8	(7)
Europe, Hollywood, and Mexico	15	(7)
Projects and Problems	22	(5)
Triumph and Decline	27	(6)
The Particularities of Method	33	(7)
Monumental Heroics: The Silent Films	40	(71)
Toward Plotless Cinema	43	(7)
Strike	50	(11)
Potemkin	61	(18)
October	79	(17)
Old and New	96	(13)
A Note on Versions of Eisenstein's Silent Films	109	(2)
Seizing the Spectator: Film Theory in the Silent Era	111	(28)
Between Theory and Practice	112	(3)
Agitation as Excitation	115	(5)
Montage in Theatre and Film	120	(3)
Film Language and Intellectual Cinema	123	(4)
Film Form as Dialectics	127	(7)
The Eclectic Modernist	134	(5)
Practical Aesthetics: Pedagogy	139	(24)
Structure and Style: The Episode	141	(15)
Structure and Style: From Episode to Work	156	(4)
Assaulting the Eye	160	(3)
Cinema as Synthesis: Film Theory, 1930--1948	163	(36)
From Agitprop Formalism to Socialist Realism	164	(4)
Conceptions of Psychological Activity	168	(9)
Film Form: Organic Unity	177	(7)
Montage: The Musical Analogy Revisited	184	(6)
Pathos and Ecstasy	190	(5)
A Mature Poetics	195	(4)
History and Tragedy: The Late Films	199	(55)
Alexander Nevsky	210	(13)
Ivan the Terrible	223	(31)
The Making and Remaking of Segei Eisenstein	254	(21)
Legend in Life	254	(3)
The Assimilation into Orthodoxy	257	(3)
The Exemplary Modernist	260	(5)
Eisenstein Our Contemporary	265	(10)
Chronology	275	(4)
Filmography	279	(4)
Further Reading	283	(6)
Bibliography	289	(21)
Photo Credits	310	(1)
Index	311