Critical Reading #1: Below is a quote from and then a PDF copy of Sergei Eisenstein's "The Structure of the Film." It is a required reading for the course. I recommend that you approach it (and all the readings here) at a time when you have a fresh and rested mind!
"The pages of literature offer us models of completely unexpected compositional structures, in which are presented phenomena that 'in themselves' are quite ordinary" (154).
"The pages of literature offer us models of completely unexpected compositional structures, in which are presented phenomena that 'in themselves' are quite ordinary" (154).
eisenstein_the_structure_of_the_film_1939.pdf | |
File Size: | 4164 kb |
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Critical Reading #2: Below is a quote from and then a PDF copy of David Bordwell's article "The Idea of Montage in Soviet Art and Film." It is one of the required readings for Battleship Potemkin.
"Some questions in film history can be answered in terms of cinema alone. Other questions demand that the historian place film-making in a larger context. For example, the historically significant European film-maker often has artistic alliances outside film, in stage directing (e.g., Sjostrom, Visconti, and Bergman), painting (e.g., Antonioni, Bresson), or even poetry (e.g., the Preverts). For this reason, many problems in European film history can be solved only by an investigation of the relationship between film and the other arts. The history of Soviet cinema offers a problem of this kind" (9).
"Some questions in film history can be answered in terms of cinema alone. Other questions demand that the historian place film-making in a larger context. For example, the historically significant European film-maker often has artistic alliances outside film, in stage directing (e.g., Sjostrom, Visconti, and Bergman), painting (e.g., Antonioni, Bresson), or even poetry (e.g., the Preverts). For this reason, many problems in European film history can be solved only by an investigation of the relationship between film and the other arts. The history of Soviet cinema offers a problem of this kind" (9).
bordwell_the_idea_of_montage_in_soviet_art_and_film.pdf | |
File Size: | 490 kb |
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Critical Reading #3: Below is a quote from and then a PDF copy of Ron Briley's article "Sergei Eisenstein: The Artist in Service of the Revolution." It is also a required reading for our class on Battleship Potemkin.
"Having made four major films between 1924 and 1929, a tired and somewhat disillusioned Eisenstein petitioned the Soviet government for permission to travel abroad. Following a film congress in Switzerland, as well as travel in France and England, Eisenstein was lured to the United States by a film contract with Paramount Studios (the agreement was approved by Soviet film authorities with Sovkino) which placed the film maker on retainer for the sum of nine hundred dollars a week. However, this marriage between capitalistic, commercial Hollywood and the radical author of "intellectual montage" was a mismatch from the start. For example, to show his contempt for Paramount publicity activities, Eisenstein offered to exchange places with a waiter at one formal dinner, refused alcohol since it would be a violation of prohibition law, and showed up for a press conference with a scraggly beard, explaining that Americans pictured all Russians with beards and he did not want to disappoint any one. While finding most Hollywood celebrities "stupid and mediocre," the Soviet film maker did form friendships with director King Vidor and the irrepressible Charlie Chaplin" (529).
"Having made four major films between 1924 and 1929, a tired and somewhat disillusioned Eisenstein petitioned the Soviet government for permission to travel abroad. Following a film congress in Switzerland, as well as travel in France and England, Eisenstein was lured to the United States by a film contract with Paramount Studios (the agreement was approved by Soviet film authorities with Sovkino) which placed the film maker on retainer for the sum of nine hundred dollars a week. However, this marriage between capitalistic, commercial Hollywood and the radical author of "intellectual montage" was a mismatch from the start. For example, to show his contempt for Paramount publicity activities, Eisenstein offered to exchange places with a waiter at one formal dinner, refused alcohol since it would be a violation of prohibition law, and showed up for a press conference with a scraggly beard, explaining that Americans pictured all Russians with beards and he did not want to disappoint any one. While finding most Hollywood celebrities "stupid and mediocre," the Soviet film maker did form friendships with director King Vidor and the irrepressible Charlie Chaplin" (529).
sergei_eisenstein_the_artist_in_service_of_the_revolution.pdf | |
File Size: | 1636 kb |
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Here is a link to the complete film of Battleship Potemkin (1925). The link may not work on this page, but you will get an option to click and be re-directed to it on Youtube. If that doesn't work for any reason, please go to Youtube directly and find it.
"The Odessa Steps"-- Odessa, Ukraine--built 1825, re-named the "Potemkin Steps" for Eisenstein's film in the 1950s under Soviet rule, but returned to the Ukrainian name of the Primorsky Stairs after Ukrainian independence. They contain an optical illusion-- looking down from the top, one only sees the long landings, and looking up from the bottom, one only sees the stairs.