Product Description

Director of classics, theorist of montage, master of the mass epic, purveyor of Soviet realism in the midst of perilous political reality: Sergei Eisenstein is possibly the key figure in film history. In "The Cinema of Eisenstein" David Bordwell takes the full measure of this filmmaker's accomplishments. Bordwell gives a complete account of Eisenstein's distinctive contributions to the art, theory and history of cinema. He takes the reader from the first silent film, "Strike", made in the upheaval of postrevolutionary Russia, through "Potemkin" and "Ten Days That Shook the World" and on to "Alexander Nevsky" which won the Order of Lenin, to the last banned part of the diptych "Ivan the Terrible". Discussing each in detail, 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 the reader 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 implications for the the