Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was born on the 11th of February 1898 in Riga, within the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire. His father, Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein, worked as an architect and had converted to the Russian Orthodox Church from a Jewish merchant background. His mother, Julia Ivanovna Konetskaya, came from a prosperous Russian Orthodox family. The family moved frequently during his early years, mirroring the instability that would define much of his adult life. In 1905, Julia left Riga with her son Sergei for Saint Petersburg following the revolution. Her husband joined them around 1910 before their divorce led her to live in France.
Eisenstein studied architecture and engineering at the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering, following his father's profession. He left school in 1918 to join the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. This decision created a rift with his father, who supported the opposing side. After the defeat of anti-Bolshevik forces, his father moved to Germany while Sergei traveled through Petrograd, Vologda, and Dvinsk. By 1920, he held a command position in Minsk where he provided propaganda for the October Revolution. During this period, he encountered Kabuki theatre and learned approximately 300 kanji characters, which later influenced his visual development.
Sergei Eisenstein emerged as one of the earliest film theorists alongside Lev Kuleshov. They attended a film school together and shared fascination with editing power to generate meaning and elicit emotion. Their individual writings and films formed the foundation of Soviet montage theory despite differing fundamental principles. Eisenstein wrote articles and books including Film Form and The Film Sense that explained montage significance in detail.
He believed editing could manipulate audience emotions through the collision of shots rather than simple linkage. An idea should derive from juxtaposing two independent images to create film metaphors. He developed specific methods of montage: Metric, Rhythmic, Tonal, Overtonal, and Intellectual. His cross-disciplinary approach defined montage as the constructing act at the base of every work of art. He described it as segmentation of objects into different camera cuts unified into a generalized image. This process left events intact while interpreting them differently. His classroom illustrations appeared in Vladimir Nizhni's Lessons with Eisenstein, using exercises based on literature like Honoré de Balzac's Le Père Goriot.
Eisenstein moved to Moscow in 1920 to begin his career in theatre working for Proletkult, an experimental Soviet artistic institution. His productions included Gas Masks, Listen Moscow, and Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man. He worked as a designer for Vsevolod Meyerhold before becoming a theorist in 1923 by writing The Montage of Attractions for art journal LEF. His first film Glumov's Diary emerged that same year with Dziga Vertov hired initially as an instructor.
Strike became Eisenstein's first full-length feature film released in 1925. Battleship Potemkin followed later that year and received worldwide critical acclaim. This international renown enabled him to direct October: Ten Days That Shook the World as part of a grand tenth anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. While critics outside Soviet Russia praised his work, his focus on structural issues such as camera angles and crowd movements brought him under fire from the Soviet film community. Figures like Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko faced similar criticism. Eisenstein issued public articles of self-criticism and commitments to reform his cinematic visions to conform to socialist realism doctrines.
In late April 1930, film producer Jesse L. Lasky offered Eisenstein a short-term contract worth $100,000 through Paramount Pictures. He arrived in Hollywood in May 1930 along with collaborators Grigori Aleksandrov and cinematographer Eduard Tisse. Eisenstein proposed biographies of arms dealer Basil Zaharoff and adaptations of George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man. He developed plans for Sutter's Gold by Blaise Cendrars but failed to impress studio producers. Paramount suggested Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy which excited Eisenstein since he had met Dreiser previously.
Eisenstein completed a script by early October 1930 before Paramount disliked it. Major Pease, president of the Hollywood Technical Director's Institute, mounted a public campaign against Eisenstein as a strident anti-communist. On the 23rd of October 1930, Paramount and Eisenstein declared their contract null and void. The party received return tickets to Moscow at Paramount's expense. They spent considerable time with Charlie Chaplin who recommended meeting Upton Sinclair. Between end of October 1930 and Thanksgiving that year, Sinclair secured permission for Eisenstein to travel to Mexico. The Mexican Film Trust organized by Mary Sinclair and three other investors contracted the Russians to make a film about Mexico.
On the 24th of November 1930, Eisenstein signed a contract with the Trust based on his desire to direct freely according to his own ideas. Funding came from Mary Sinclair in an amount not less than Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars. Shooting was scheduled for three to four months yet filming extended far beyond this period. By the 4th of December, Eisenstein traveled to Mexico accompanied by Aleksandrov, Tisse, and Hunter Kimbrough, a banker serving as production supervisor. He had not determined direction or subject initially, producing only a brief outline of six parts months later.
While in Mexico, he mixed socially with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera who inspired him to call his films moving frescoes. Joseph Stalin sent a telegram to Sinclair expressing concern that Eisenstein had become a deserter. Under pressure, Eisenstein blamed Kimbrough for the film's problems. Unable to raise further funds, Sinclair shut down production and ordered Kimbrough to return to the United States with remaining footage. Estimates range from 170,000 lineal feet to over 250,000 lineal feet of unused material. Customs officials discovered sketches and drawings including Jesus caricatures among lewd pornographic material in Kimbrough's trunk upon border entry. Eisenstein received a 30-day pass to travel from Texas to New York before departing for Moscow.
Eisenstein returned to the Soviet Union after his Mexican failure took a toll on his mental health. He spent time in a mental hospital in Kislovodsk during July 1933 due to depression from accepting he would never edit the Mexican footage. He was subsequently assigned teaching at State Institute of Cinematography where he wrote curriculum for 1933 and 1934. In 1935, he received assignment Bezhin Meadow which suffered similar problems to ¡Que viva México!. He filmed two versions for adults and children while failing to define clear shooting schedules.
Boris Shumyatsky, head of Soviet film industry, halted filming and cancelled production. Stalin ended up taking position that Bezhin Meadow catastrophe related less to Eisenstein's approach than executives supervising him. Shumyatsky faced denunciation, arrest, trial, conviction as traitor, and execution in early 1938. Eisenstein ingratiated himself with Stalin for one more chance by choosing biopic Alexander Nevsky with music composed by Sergei Prokofiev. The result won Order of Lenin and Stalin Prize. It served as allegory warning against Nazi Germany forces massing. Script had Nevsky utter traditional Russian proverbs verbally rooting fight against Germanic invaders in Russian traditions.
Eisenstein died of a second heart attack on the 11th of February 1948 at age 50 after suffering first heart attack on the 2nd of February 1946. His body lay in state in Hall of Cinema Workers before cremation on the 13th of February. Ashes were buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Debates exist about his sexuality with almost all contemporaries believing he was gay. During 1925 interview, Aleksandrov witnessed Eisenstein tell Polish journalist Wacław Solski I'm not interested in girls then burst out laughing before turning red with embarrassment.
Upton Sinclair reached same conclusion after discovery of pornographic drawings by customs officials. He later told Marie Seton All his associates were Trotskyites and all homos. Men of that sort stick together. Seven months after homosexuality became criminal offence once more, Eisenstein married filmmaker Pera Atasheva born Pearl Moiseyevna Fogelman. Eisenstein denied homosexuality to close friend Marie Seton claiming never experienced homosexual attraction despite having some bisexual tendency in intellectual dimension like Balzac or Zola. After death, widow gave most sketchbooks to Russian State Archive but withheld over 500 erotic drawings which later appeared in exhibitions since late 1990s.
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Common questions
When and where was Sergei Eisenstein born?
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was born on the 11th of February 1898 in Riga, within the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire.
What specific methods of montage did Sergei Eisenstein develop?
Sergei Eisenstein developed five specific methods of montage known as Metric, Rhythmic, Tonal, Overtonal, and Intellectual. He defined montage as the constructing act at the base of every work of art through the collision of shots to manipulate audience emotions.
Why did Sergei Eisenstein travel to Mexico in 1930?
Sergei Eisenstein traveled to Mexico after a contract with Paramount Pictures ended in October 1930 because Upton Sinclair secured permission for him to make a film about the country. The Mexican Film Trust contracted the Russians to produce this project with funding from Mary Sinclair amounting to at least Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars.
How did Sergei Eisenstein die and when did his death occur?
Sergei Eisenstein died of a second heart attack on the 11th of February 1948 at age 50 after suffering his first heart attack on the 2nd of February 1946. His body lay in state in Hall of Cinema Workers before cremation on the 13th of February and ashes were buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
What controversies surrounded Sergei Eisenstein's personal life and sexuality?
Debates exist about Sergei Eisenstein's sexuality with almost all contemporaries believing he was gay despite his denial to close friend Marie Seton. He married filmmaker Pera Atasheva seven months after homosexuality became a criminal offence once more, while his widow withheld over 500 erotic drawings which later appeared in exhibitions since late 1990s.