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Post: Russian genius: what Sergei Eisenstein taught Spielberg and Coppola

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MOSCOW, January 22 – RIA Novosti, Anna Nekhaeva. He created the modern language of film, predicted computer graphics, was friends with Chaplin and Disney, was quoted in their own films by Francis Ford Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg. Sergei Eisenstein turns 125 years old. About what he did for the sake of shooting – in the material of RIA Novosti.

A nobleman who is not an architect

Eisenstein, who comes from a wealthy family and is the sole heir, was fond of photography, drawing comics and caricatures from an early age. He studied at the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineers, was a member of the Narva police unit, where he was called up for military service. In 1918 he joined the Red Army, where he built fortifications, worked as a construction technician, but also acted in performances and staged on his own and sketched landscapes. From childhood he was ready for a career as an architect, but later himself said that “the revolution made me an artist”.

In his autobiography, “I would never have “divided” the traditions from father to son “for engineers. There were tendencies, desires, but only a revolutionary whirlwind gave me the main thing – freedom of self-determination,” the director wrote in his autobiography.

Eisenstein teaches VGIK students - RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Eisenstein teaches VGIK students

In the cinema, Eisenstein began by re-editing Fritz Lang’s “Doctor Mabuse, the Player” – in the USSR this was often done with foreign films. In Unity, the movie was released under the name “Gilded Rot”.

The director’s first independent experiment is his innovative 1924 film “Strike.” Despite the ambiguous reception in Russia, he immediately received a prize at the World Exhibition in Paris.

Taken from the movie Strike
Taken from the movie Strike

By the way, some film theorists see in this movie the prototype of magical commercials from the Harry Potter films. Probably because of the part played by newspaper clippings and advertisements in Eisenstein’s tape.

strike movie covers
strike movie covers
Still from the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

revolutionary innovator

The legendary film that made the master famous (in his own words) is a state order given for the 20th anniversary of the 1905 revolution. “The battleship Potemkin was filmed without a scene and famous actors (many artists joked that no one needed them anymore).

Battleship Potemkin - shot from the movie RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Frame from the movie “Battleship Potemkin”

The painting was not to be released for rent, it was made for display at clubs and conferences. The film was created in a short time, in Leningrad it was not possible to realize most of the planned due to the fog, and in Odessa they shot on an armadillo – a floating minelayer.

But everything justified itself: after the official premiere at the Bolshoi Theater, it turned out that the 27-year-old director found and implemented something innovative that no one had done before.

Unexpected metaphors, an unusual frame composition, a brilliant rhythm of editing – all this allowed the painting to be successful all over the world. “Battleship” received awards, critics considered it the best film of all time. And they are still included in the ratings of movie masterpieces.

Battleship Potemkin - shot from the movie RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Frame from the movie “Battleship Potemkin”

Charlie Chaplin called “Potemkin” the best movie in the world, and Douglas Fairbanks, founder and first president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts, said watching the tape was the most powerful and profound experience in his life.

The execution scene on the Potemkin Stairs became famous – the scene with a frame with a wheeled carriage. The episode has been cited many times – Coppola in The Godfather, Terry Gilliam in Brazil, Brian de Palma in The Untouchables.

A frame from the Brazilian movie
A frame from the Brazilian movie
A still from the movie The Untouchables
A still from the movie The Untouchables

Other examples include “Goodbye Lenin!” Wolfgang Becker and even the animated series The Simpsons. The play with light in Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” is clearly influenced by Eisenstein’s paintings, and Hitchcock has worked on working with suspense from the Russian master.

By the way, in the last film of the trilogy (“Strike”, “Battleship Potemkin”), in the film “October”, Eisenstein continued his bold experiments: for the first time he showed Vladimir Lenin in feature films. laid the foundation for “Kinoleniniana” – all films dedicated to the leader of the proletariat.

Taken from the movie Strike
A scene from the movie Battleship Potemkin

Chaplin and Disney’s Friend

After the resounding success of Potemkin, Eisenstein obtained permission from Stalin to show the film to the world. During a three-year trip, he gave lectures in all major European capitals, met famous artists – Jean Cocteau, Marlene Dietrich, Theodore Dreiser, admired the work of Walt Disney.

Sergei Eisenstein in New York - RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Sergei Eisenstein in New York

In Hollywood, the Soviet director signed a contract with Paramount for the film adaptation of Dreiser’s novel “An American Tragedy” (project not realized), in Latin America “Long Live Mexico!” (the movie is not finished), he wrote several scripts.

The success of the Russian genius abroad alarmed the Soviet authorities – a telegram was sent to Eisenstein with information about the need to return to the USSR.

Directors Grigory Alexandrov, Sergei Eisenstein, animation director, artist and producer Walt Disney, cameraman Eduard Tisse, June 1930
Sergei Eisenstein resting on Charlie Chaplin's yacht
Director Sergei Eisenstein and cameraman Eduard Tisse

The director came to Russia as a different person in many ways. His future students were lucky: they got acquainted with the creative method of the innovator and learned about the work of their foreign colleagues.

Eisenstein managed to create his own school, but he did not want students to become “Eisenstein” and copy him. All his students have their own style – it is enough to name Mikhail Schweitzer, Vladimir Vengerov, Stanislav Rostotsky, Eldar Ryazanov.

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein in Hollywood
Sergei Eisenstein with his mother
Director Sergei Eisenstein in preparation for the shooting of General Line.  1926

Knights as prototypes of orcs

Eisenstein had to remove something spiritual after his return in order to heal himself due to his “break with Soviet reality”.

Restore the reputation of the master of a real Soviet fantasy “Alexander Nevsky”. The plot and characters were offered to the director to choose from Russian history: Minin and Pozharsky, Ivan Susanin and Nevsky.

Actor Nikolai Cherkasov in the movie Ivan the Terrible - RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Actor Nikolai Cherkasov in the movie “Ivan the Terrible”

At the same time, the master himself tried to propose the Spanish Civil War as a “race issue”, but did not receive approval from the film studios. And he chose Nevsky.

“It will be as I did,” the director later said, because very little information has been preserved about that period.

Eisenstein’s task was to show that Nevsky was a great warrior, not an exploiter of the working peasantry and proletariat.

The script was rewritten several times, Battle on Ice was filmed in the summer due to tight deadlines, and the hero’s costume was created from a replica of old armor from the Hermitage.

Battle on the Ice Scene from Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky
Battle on ice from Sergei Eisenstein's movie Alexander Nevsky.

The success was striking both in Russia (New Year’s Eve in the capital, many dressed in Nevsky fancy dresses) and abroad. The film was shown at the White House, Roosevelt spoke warmly about it.

Interestingly, after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, “Nevsky” was withdrawn from cinemas due to political correctness, and with the onset of World War II it was returned to rental.

“I walked into the center of the painting just before the Battle of the Ice and was stunned by what I saw and heard: the angry brass in Prokofiev’s score made such an impression on me that I went and bought all his records. His works I could find,” – Martin Scorsese, years after seeing the painting he remembered.
Novgorod Veche - RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Novgorod veche

“Alexander Nevsky” influenced both future historical films and fantasy – the painting “Conan the Barbarian”, even Star Wars. And another interesting fact: the orcs in the 1978 cartoon “Lord of the Rings” were created by Eisenstein. More precisely, they were copied from the images of the Teutonic Knights using photo translation or a rotoscope.

“Nevsky” is an example of how the socio-political agenda of the past is transferred to a modern context. The themes and issues of the characters are unexpectedly relevant. This technique is now used in many American and Russian projects.

Film director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein and composer Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev, 1937
Grigory Alexandrov and Sergei Eisenstein

By the way, for this film, the director was awarded the Order of Lenin and was awarded the title of Doctor of Arts (although Eisenstein did not defend any thesis).

historical canvas

“Eisenstein’s film Ivan the Terrible, which I watched after World War II, seems to me the greatest achievement of the historical film genre,” admitted Charlie Chaplin, “Eisenstein interprets history in a poetic way, and I think it’s the best. method.”

Filming of Ivan the Terrible - RIA Novosti, 1920, 20.01.2023
Shooting of the movie “Ivan the Terrible”

The historical biography in the first part conveyed the idea of ​​​​the struggle for the Russian kingdom in the second part – it raised the question of power and the tragedy of loneliness (“one, but one”).

After the first series, Eisenstein received the Stalin Prize and a prize at the Locarno Festival. The film was shot “for centuries” in every sense – even the costume of Grozny was later used in the film “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession”.

But the second part was criticized by the party (supposedly Grozny is shown as weak-willed like Hamlet, and the guards are a corrupt gang).

Eisenstein was worried and sought an audience with the government. The director met with Stalin, Molotov and Zhdanov, listened to complaints and received specific recommendations for editing. However, due to illness and then death, I did not have time to remake the second part. The continuation of the Grozny epic, rejected by Stalin, was published only in 1958.

Sergei Eizkenstein and Mikhail Romm
Directed by Dovzhenko and Eisenstein

Despite all the complexities and ideological dilemmas, Eisenstein’s influence and contribution to cinema cannot be measured. It is worth only the typology of the montage created by him, which later became the ABC of cinema. Many accuse the director of formalism and propaganda, but at the same time, they have been quoting, studying and imitating him so far.

Source: Ria

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