Sergei Eisenstein in the context of "Screenwriter"

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⭐ Core Definition: Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (22 January [O.S. 10 January] 1898 – 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1945/1958). In its decennial poll, the magazine Sight and Sound named his Battleship Potemkin the 54th-greatest film of all time.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Winter Palace

The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the House of Romanov, previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum. The floor area is 233,345 square metres (it has been calculated that the palace contains 1,886 doors, 1,945 windows, 1,500 rooms and 117 staircases). The total area of the Winter Palace is 14.2 hectares. (approximately 1.52 million square feet) Situated between Palace Embankment and Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in 1917, as depicted in Soviet art and in Sergei Eisenstein's 1928 film October, became a symbol of the October Revolution.

The emperors constructed their palaces on a monumental scale that aimed to reflect the might and power of Imperial Russia. From the palace, the tsars ruled over 22,800,000 square kilometers (8,800,000 sq mi) (almost 1/6 of the Earth's landmass) and 125 million subjects by the end of the 19th century. Several architects participated in designing the Winter Palace—most notably the Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–1771)—in what became known as the Elizabethan Baroque style. The green-and-white palace has the overall shape of an elongated rectangle, and its principal façade is 215 metres (705 ft) long and 30 m (98 ft) high. Following a serious fire, the palace's rebuilding of 1837 left the exterior unchanged, but large parts of the interior were redesigned in a variety of tastes and styles, leading the palace to be described as a "19th-century palace inspired by a model in Rococo style".

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Montage (filmmaking)

A montage (/mɒnˈtɑːʒ/ mon-TAHZH) is a film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information. Montages enable filmmakers to communicate a large amount of information to an audience over a shorter span of time by juxtaposing different shots, compressing time through editing, or intertwining multiple storylines of a narrative.

The term has varied meanings depending on the filmmaking tradition. In French, the word montage applied to cinema simply denotes editing. In Soviet montage theory, as originally introduced outside the USSR by Sergei Eisenstein, it was used to create symbolism. Later, the term "montage sequence", used primarily by British and American studios, became the common technique to suggest the passage of time.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Political drama

A political drama can describe a play, film or TV program that has a political component, whether reflecting the author's political opinion, or describing a politician or series of political events.

Dramatists who have written political dramas include Aaron Sorkin, Robert Penn Warren, Sergei Eisenstein, Bertolt Brecht, Jean-Paul Sartre, Howard Brenton, Caryl Churchill, and Federico García Lorca.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Soviet montage theory

Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing (montage is French for 'assembly' or 'editing'). It is the principal contribution of Soviet film theorists to global cinema, and introduced formalism into filmmaking.

Although Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema", and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema". Its influence is far reaching commercially, academically, and politically. Alfred Hitchcock often emphasizes the pivotal role of editing (and montage) in filmmaking. In fact, montage is demonstrated in the majority of narrative fiction films available today. Post-Soviet film theories relied extensively on montage's redirection of film analysis toward language, a literal grammar of film. A semiotic understanding of film, for example, is indebted to and in contrast with Sergei Eisenstein's wanton transposition of language "in ways that are altogether new." While several Soviet filmmakers, such as Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, Esfir Shub and Vsevolod Pudovkin put forth explanations of what constitutes the montage effect, Eisenstein's view that "montage is an idea that arises from the collision of independent shots" wherein "each sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of the other" has become most widely accepted.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Bryher (novelist)

Annie Winifred Ellerman (2 September 1894 – 28 January 1983), known by the pen name Bryher, was an English novelist, poet, memoirist, magazine editor, and a member of the Ellerman ship-owning family.

She was a major figure of the international set in Paris in the 1920s, using her fortune to help many struggling writers. With her lover H.D. and the Scottish writer Kenneth Macpherson, she launched the film magazine Close Up, which introduced Sergei Eisenstein’s work to British viewers. From her home in Switzerland, she helped to evacuate Jews from Nazi Germany, and then became an historical novelist.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Russian battleship Potemkin

The Russian battleship Potemkin (Russian: Князь Потёмкин Таврический, romanized: Kniaz Potyomkin Tavricheskiy, "Prince Potemkin of Taurida") was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She became famous during the Revolution of 1905, when her crew mutinied against their officers. This event later formed the basis for Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin.

After the mutineers sought asylum in Constanța, Romania, and after the Russians recovered the ship, her name was changed to Panteleimon. She accidentally sank a Russian submarine in 1909 and was badly damaged when she ran aground in 1911. During World War I, Panteleimon participated in the Battle of Cape Sarych in late 1914. She covered several bombardments of the Bosphorus fortifications in early 1915, including one where the ship was attacked by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan SelimPanteleimon and the other Russian pre-dreadnoughts present drove her off before she could inflict any serious damage. The ship was relegated to secondary roles after Russia's first dreadnought battleship entered service in late 1915. She was by then obsolete and was reduced to reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Strike (1925 film)

Strike (Russian: Стачка, romanizedStachka) is a 1925 Soviet silent propaganda film directed and edited by Sergei Eisenstein. Originating as one entry out of a proposed seven-part series titled "Towards Dictatorship of the Proletariat", Strike was a joint collaboration between the Proletcult Theatre and the film studio Goskino. As Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, it marked his transition from theatre to cinema, and his next film Battleship Potemkin emerged from the same film cycle.

Arranged in six parts, the film depicts a strike in 1903 by the workers of a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia, and their subsequent suppression. It is best known for a sequence towards the climax, in which the violent suppression of the strike is cross-cut with footage of cattle being slaughtered, and similar animal metaphors are used throughout the film to describe various individuals.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin is a 1925 Soviet silent epic film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by Sergei Eisenstein, it presents a dramatization of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers.

The film is a prime example of the Soviet montage theory of editing, such as in the "Odessa Steps" scene, which became widely influential and often recreated. In 1958, the film was voted on Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. Battleship Potemkin is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. In the most recent Sight and Sound critics' poll in 2022, it was voted the fifty-fourth-greatest film of all time, and it had been placed in the top 10 in many previous editions.

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Sergei Eisenstein in the context of Alexander Nevsky (film)

Alexander Nevsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Не́вский) is a 1938 Soviet historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It depicts the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by Prince Alexander, known popularly as Alexander Nevsky (1220–1263).

Eisenstein made the film in association with Dmitri Vasilyev and with a script co-written with Pyotr Pavlenko; they were assigned to ensure that Eisenstein did not stray into "formalism" and to facilitate shooting on a reasonable timetable. It was produced by Goskino via the Mosfilm production unit, with Nikolai Cherkasov in the title role and a musical score by Sergei Prokofiev. Alexander Nevsky was the first and most popular of Eisenstein's three sound films. Eisenstein, Pavlenko, Cherkasov and Abrikosov were awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941 for the film.

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