Movement, Action, Image, Montage: Sergei Eisenstein and the Cinema in Crisis

260 Pages·2018·5.145 MB·English

by  Luka Arsenjuk

MOVEMENT, ACTION,
IMAGE, MONTAGE
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University of
Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Movement,
Action, Image,
Montage
SERGEI EISENSTEIN
AND THE CINEMA IN CRISIS
Luka Arsenjuk
Portions of chapter 3 were previously published in “The Notes for a General History
of Cinema and the Dialectic of the Eisensteinian Image,” in Sergei M. Eisenstein: Notes
for a General History of Cinema, edited by Naum Kleiman and Antonio Somaini
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), 289– 98.
“I felt a cleaving in my mind” is published with permission from The Poems of Emily
Dickinson: Variorum Edition, edited by Ralph W. Franklin (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), copyright 1998 by the President and Fellows of
Harvard College. Copyright renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard
College. Copyright 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha
Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.
Copyright 2018 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a re-
trieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Arsenjuk, Luka, author.
Title: Movement, action, image, montage : Sergei Eisenstein and the cinema in crisis /
Luka Arsenjuk.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017022053 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0319-0 (hc) |
ISBN 978-1-5179-0320-6 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: Eisenstein, Sergei, 1898-1948—Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC PN1998.3.E34 A88 2017 (print) | DDC 791.4302/33092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017022053
For Lindsey
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION A Dialectic of Division 1
ONE The Figure- in- Crisis 23
FROM INTUITION TO THE DIALECTIC,
FROM KINEMATOGRAPHY TO CINEMATIC MOVEMENT
TWO The Form- Problem 65
THE GROTESQUE AND THE EPIC IN ACTION
THREE The Event of the Image 131
BETWEEN SYMBOL AND SYMPTOM
FOUR Montage of Forms 167
CONCEPT AND WITZ, ORGANICISM AND THE COMIC
CONCLUSION Eisenstein, Ourselves 205
Acknowledgments 219
Notes 223
Index 247
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Introduction
A DIALECTIC OF DIVISION
I no longer remember when and where it was that I read the funny notion
that creation (one’s work) was first and foremost a division of oneself, a
separation.
This was entertainingly demonstrated by the Lord God’s activity in the
first week of restless existence, when he created the universe from chaos.
Indeed: he divided light from dark.
Land from sea.
And finally Eve from Adam (Eve was made from Adam).
Chaos began to assume a sort of constant appearance.
Sergei Eisenstein, Beyond the Stars:
The Memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein
The Many Shadows of a Figure
Sergei Eisenstein stands in the history of cinema a central, unavoidable figure,
projecting a shadow as imposing as the one thrown by his Ivan the Terrible
on the cavernous walls of the Kremlin. In his film work, Eisenstein developed
the first major film poetics. By formalizing it in his writings, he laid the foun-
dations of the discipline of film theory. Eisenstein’s texts served, according
to François Jost, as the Archimedean point that enabled a setting into move-
ment of the entire world of “cinematic reasons that would make it possible to
understand what a film does to us.”1 Indeed, what path would the project of