Sergei Eisenstein
1898 - 1948Eisenstein en México
Alejandro Pelayo
Alejandro Aura, Sergei Eisenstein
Inspired by the social changes that the Revolution brought to our country and the admiration he felt for Mexican art, the Russian filmmaker Sergei M. Eisenstein traveled to Mexico with the intention of filming a film mosaic that culminated in the most beautiful non-existent film. The details of this odyssey are exposed in this episode of the classic television series Those Who Made Our Cinema.
Eisenstein en México
Броненосец Потёмкин
Sergei Eisenstein
Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky
A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.
Battleship Potemkin
Иван Грозный. Сказ второй: Боярский заговор
Sergei Eisenstein
Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima Birman
This is the second part of a projected three-part epic biopic of Russian Czar Ivan Grozny, undertaken by Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein at the behest of Josef Stalin. Production of the epic was stopped before the third part could be filmed, due to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's introducing forbidden experimental filming techniques into the material, more evident in this part than the first part. As it was, this second part was banned from showings until after the deaths of both Eisenstein and Stalin, and a change of attitude by the subsequent heads of the Soviet government. In this part, as Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate him.
Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot
Остров мёртвых
Oleg Kovalov
Vera Kholodnaya, Joseph Stalin
The Island of the Dead is a film about the demise of the Russian Epocha Modern. The symbol of this culture was the legendary Russian film star Vera Kholodnaya, who evoked a poetic image of the young urban woman on the silver screen. Her death in 1919, shrouded in tragedy and mystery, put a symbolic end to the pre-Revolutionary period. The Island of the Dead is composed of fragments from numerous films from this period, juxtaposed with other contemporary artistic expressions such as music and painting. Kovalov shows convincingly how the fragile beauty of the Russian Epocha Modern had to make way for the pressure of Futurism, Constructivism and other 'progressive trends', and how these '-isms' were then also relegated to the melting pot to be remoulded by totalitarian norms.
Island of the Dead
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Sergei Eisenstein
Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Александр Невский
Dmitriy Vasilev, Sergei Eisenstein
Nikolai Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov
When German knights invade Russia, Prince Alexander Nevsky must rally his people to resist the formidable force. After the Teutonic soldiers take over an eastern Russian city, Alexander stages his stand at Novgorod, where a major battle is fought on the ice of frozen Lake Chudskoe. While Alexander leads his outnumbered troops, two of their number, Vasili and Gavrilo, begin a contest of bravery to win the hand of a local maiden.
Alexander Nevsky
Eisenstein’s Mexican Film: Episodes for Study
Sergei Eisenstein, Jay Leyda
"Eisenstein journeyed to Mexico in late 1930 to begin shooting a film. With backing provided by Upton and Mary Craig Sinclair, the great Soviet auteur planned to make an epoch-spanning pageant of Mexico’s political history and cultural iconography, moving from the pre-Columbian era through colonization and, finally, revolution ... with the project running over budget the film was shut down. Sinclair eventually deposited the film materials at MoMA in 1953, at which point the scholar Jay Leyda assembled and annotated the shots, ordering them according to the filmmaker’s plans and presenting the images just as they had been shot, unedited ... here one is given the opportunity to attend to Eisenstein in an entirely different way, and aspects that might otherwise be overshadowed come to the fore: the way he works with nonprofessional actors, for example, or the striking mise-en-scène." - MoMA
Eisenstein’s Mexican Film: Episodes for Study
October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein
Vladimir Popov, Vasili Nikandrov
Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.
October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
Старое и новое
Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein
Marfa Lapkina, M. Ivanin
Also known as The Old and the New (Staroye i Novoye), The General Line illustrates Lenin’s stated imperative that the nation move from agrarian to industrial culture in an epic ode to farm-collectivization progress.
The General Line
Sergei/Sir Gay
Mark Rappaport
Sergei Eisenstein, Mihailo Stanisavac
As a teenager, Sergei Eisenstein signed his drawings with "Sir Gay". Mark Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and typical motifs from gay culture.
Sergei/Sir Gay
Thunder Over Mexico
Sergei Eisenstein
Martín Hernández, Isabel Villaseñor
As was common in Diaz's Mexico, a young hacienda worker finds his betrothed imprisoned and his life threatened by his master for confronting a hacienda guest for raping the girl. This film is the first of several attempts to make a feature-length motion picture out of the 200,000-plus feet of film shot by Sergei Eisenstein, on photographic expedition in Mexico during 1931-32 for Upton Sinclair and a cadre of private American producer-investors. Silent with music and English intertitles.
Thunder Over Mexico
Сергей Эйзенштейн. Мексиканская фантазия
Sergei Eisenstein, Oleg Kovalov
Alexandra Scheff, Grigori Aleksandrov
Eisenstein shot 50 hours of footage on location in Mexico in 1931 and 32 for what would have become ¡Que viva México!, but was not able to finish the film. Following two wildly different reconstruction attempts in 1939 (Marie Seton's 'Time in the Sun') and 1979 (Grigori Alexandrov's '¡Que viva México!') Kovalov has here compiled another hypothetical version of what Eisenstein's film might have been.
Sergei Eisenstein: Mexican Fantasy
