Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin
Summary & Implications: What is the author’s project and why is it important now? What’s the narrative about the field that’s emerging from the reading? What narratives are silent? Whose voices are silent?
Sergei Eisenstein writes (though several of these were transcripts of speeches, too) as a filmmaker and theorist who is deeply invested in the ideological implications of the film form that he writes about. Primarily, Eisenstein affirms the value of montage (as a way of presenting inner thought via the collision of images) in opening the possibilities inherent in cinema (as opposed to other artistic media) for promoting the collectivity and solidarity of socialism. Occasionally Eisenstein dips into uncomfortable territory, especially as he writes about the Japanese cinema and, in a somewhat strange digression, Alexandre Dumas, with an unfortunate tendency to dip into cultural and racial stereotypes. He also has a clear bias towards the Soviet cinema for its ideological and formal superiority. As the book is more a collection of essays, I’ll hit the highlights of those instead of trying to pull them all together here, likely missing something in the process.
“Through Theater to the Cinema” – your standard early film theory trope of distinguishing the form from other related forms. Here Eisenstein claims that the shot is the “minimum ‘distortable’ fragment of nature” and that the cinema derives its power from its “natural” ability to capture reality and re-present it differently via montage.
“The Unexpected” – the first of two essays looking at Japanese forms for their relation to the cinema. This first looks at kabuki theater for its “monistic ensemble,” or how each element (sound, costume, action, etc.) is interrelated. This is the start of his later ideas about the evolutions of montage into an organic mechanism.
“The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram” – the second of the Japanese-related essays looks at how the “hieroglyphs” of Japanese writing does what montage does by combining two image-based expressions to create a wholly new expression. It is this which allows for the creator’s imposition upon the events of a film, and it is that process which he refers to as a collision which is like the explosions that drive an internal combustion engine. This is in direct opposition to Kuleshov, who likens montage to links in a chain or bricks arranged to make a building. There is conflict in Eisenstein’s conception that is absent in Kuleshov’s.
“A Dialectic Approach to Film Form” – Here Eisenstein builds upon the collision idea he developed in the previous essay to write about how montage comes from untangling the inherent conflict in a single image. He writes that one image invites the next because of its composition, and that when done correctly, the collision of those images can be used not only to direct emotion, as happens in many films, but also to direct thought processes (more on this later).
“The Filmic Fourth Dimension” – Eisenstein expands upon the previous essays by writing about the “orthodox” montage style, which uses a key image, usually early in the montage sequence, to guide the way audiences think about the other images present in the montage. He offers that his newest film, Old and New, was assembled differently such that each image was given equal weight, no one image was dominant, which created a “complex” “summary” effect similar to over and undertones in symphonic music (66). These overtones, which he says will inspire a new sensory response not of “I see” or “I hear” but “I feel,” will not be findable in a single image just the way a moment of music won’t reveal the complex relationships between the sounds that develop over time. Only projected film that unfolds over time will reveal the overtonal nature of the montage.
“Methods of Montage” – In this essay Eisenstein categorizes the ways of assembling montage, from “metric” (adhering to strict mathematical formulas), to rhythmic (an evolution of the prior which adjusts its speeds according to the feeling present), to tonal (montage with an emphasis on the “general tone” of the piece (75)), to overtonal (as discussed in the previous essay, which is tonal (dominant idea) plus overtones (shading according to creator’s desires). The idea is that each successive type of montage grows from complicating the prior one by adding new ideas to it such that the overtonal montage builds to a level where it can create phsysiological reactions in the audience. He concludes the essay by positing that a fifth type of montage might be possible, one which would take the overtonal ideas an apply them not to emotions but ways of thinking. Through such a kind of montage, the audience might be directed to think differently.
“A Course in Treatment” – Eisenstein goes a long way into literary theory to eventually arrive at the idea that the modernists like James Joyce were invested in presenting inner thought via written language, but that cinema can achieve that goal better because only cinema can juxtapose those images in such a way that it recreates the thought process of Free Indirect Discourse. Maybe he had never read a comic?
“Film Language” – a lot of Russian lit that I’m not familiar with enough to really get a full picture of his ideas in this one, unfortunately. He ends it by exhorting his fellow filmmakers to not only become great storytellers but great masters of their chosen form as well, for how a story is told as important as the story itself. That’s all I got.
“Film Form: New Problems” – In this essay Eisenstein recognizes that film montage is dependent upon synecdoche (paging Perez!), which is a way of representing inner thought (this thing is part of this other thing, or this other thing has this as its part) and that such a technique is able to create “emotional sensual” effects (133). He concludes by noting film’s dialectical drives, one upwards on a path towards intellectual enlightenment, and one downwards towards the basest emotional responses. The idea, he says, is to get as far up the intellectual climb as you can while using those emotional response to compel the viewer.
“The Structure of the Film” – Here Eisenstein is concerned with how film can not only show events happening but impart a sense of the artist’s ideas about those events. This is the point of art, he claims. He also develops in this essay his other big idea, the sense of organic completeness that a film might achieve. He claims that if art can achieve this organic completeness (akin to the ideas of kabuki theater from an earlier essay where every element is related to each other and working towards expressing one main idea through emotion), it can create an ecstatic feeling in the audience member that will result in changing them profoundly. This is all wrapped up in some questionable “natural” rhetoric, but the idea is solid on its own I think.
“Achievement” – A return to two themes that run through the book: 1. Cinema is the highest art because it is a combination of the others but not bound by their limitations, and 2. The Soviets are better at it than everybody else. He calls cinema the first truly synthetic medium because it allows each form of art to exist independently within it, simultaneously coalescing into an “organic essence” (193).
“Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today” – This essay finds Eisenstein primarily concerned with looking to the so called “masters” of the past for traces of what he’s talked about in the other essays in order to define a pre-history of cinematic thought. From Dickens he sees a desire to observe and juxtapose (or collide) characters, images, and ideas to create new combinations without destroying the singularity of the original images. He claims that Griffith, the American filmmaker he thinks is best at montage, can only create basic relational chains between images, while the Soviets are already adept at not only linking images but also unifying them in the same organic completeness he wrote about earlier. So take that, Griffith. And you’re a racist, too.
The two biggest takeaways are:
- Montage is about collisions of images which create entirely new ideas and feelings in the audience’s head.
- The highest ideal of montage is to create an entire film that marshals all of the elements (characters, plot, montage, shots, sound) to an “organically complete” whole which will change an audience member’s way of thinking about a particular thing.
Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin
Context: Who is this author debating with and why? What is the context of the text’s production and distribution? What historical, cultural, etc. factors affect the way it makes meaning? Does the author seem to be in conversation with other scholars and/or paradigms? Where is this piece of writing centered in the field? What is their intervention in the literature/field? What text is this text in conversation with?
Eisenstein occasionally clashes with other Soviet theorists (Kuleshov, as mentioned above), but that’s about it on the debating front. So early in film theory’s history, his place was to stake out a position rather than to converse too much with others, because there weren’t that many others writing at this time. Of course, his career as a filmmaker influences his writing as well, and he thinks highly of himself in that regard. It is also important to consider that some of these were or started as speeches, which involve different kinds of rhetorical engagement than an essay does. And obviously his legacy lives on as somebody with whom many theorists today still converse with in their writing about film form.
Methodology: What is the methodological framework of this text? What methodological moves or questions does the author engage? What is their object of analysis?
Eisenstein seems to have set out in each essay to get one main idea across, he’ll usually introduce the main idea before delving into specifics and then concluding with a final statement (that often either points towards a new way of thinking or filmmaking) to solidify his thesis. Most of his essays take his own films as examples, though he occasionally looks elsewhere (Japan, Griffith) as well.
Rhetorical Moves: What are the major rhetorical moves of the author’s arguments?
Eisenstein writes (or is transcribed) in a way that attempts to capture the passion he obviously has for the theory and ideas he’s presenting in these essays. Italics, short paragraphs, photo stills and graphics enhance his persuasive attempts. He’ll also build upon what he’s said before, often referencing the prior essay in the book explicitly. This creates a sense of a life’s work that is in constant development. He’ll readily denigrate ideas and styles of filmmaking (and montage specifically) that he thinks are out of touch or outmoded.
Engagement & Application: How do I engage this text? How does this apply to my work? Does it support or provide a counterargument or model for strong intro or lit review? In other words, why is this piece of writing useful to me and/or how is it limited (bad writing style, problematic, didn’t consider x, y, and z)? Does it intersect with other items on the list?
I probably won’t look to Eisenstein first for most of my own writing and idea formation, but it’s great to have a stronger sense of his ideas as I dive into later theorists who reference him a lot. I also bristle at the easy and un(der)developed appeal to nature that he pulls several times in this book, even if I am drawn to his explanation of an organically complete work that is entirely devoted to getting one idea across.
Key Terms: What terms are key to the author’s argument, and are they operationalized explicitly or implicitly?
nature, organic, complete, montage, overtonal, pathos, synecdoche, collision, dialectical, internal thought, film form
Significant Quotations: What key quotations from this work would I want to have quick access to?
The shot, considered as material for the purpose of composition, is more resistant than granite. This resistance is specific to it. The shot’s tendency toward complete factual immutability is rooted in its nature. This resistance has largely determined the richness and variety of montage forms and styles – for montage becomes the mightiest means for a really important creative remolding of nature. Thus the cinema is able, more than any other art, to disclose the process that goes on microscopically in all other arts. The minimum “distortable” fragment of nature is the shot; ingenuity in its combinations is montage. (5)
By what, then, is montage characterized and, consequently, it’s cell – the shot? By collision. By the conflict of two pieces in opposition to each other. By conflict. By collision. (37)
In distinction from orthodox montage according to particular dominance, Old and New was edited differently. In place of an “aristocracy” of individualistic dominance we brought a method of “democratic” equality of rights for all provocations, or stimuli, regarding them as a summary, as a complex. (66)
What takes place in acoustics, and particularly in the case of instrumental music, fully corresponds with this. There, along with the vibration of a basic dominant tone, comes a whole series of similar vibrations, which are called overtones and undertones. Their impacts against each other, their impacts with the basic tone, and so on, envelop the basic tone and a whole host of secondary vibrations. If in acoustics these collateral vibrations become merely “disturbing” elements, these same vibrations and music – in composition, become one of the most significant means for affect by the experimental composers of our century, such as Debussy and Scriabin. (66)
The dialectic of works of art is built upon a most curious “dual-unity.” The effectiveness of a work of art is built upon the fact that there takes place in it a dual process: an impetuous progressive rise along the lines of the highest explicit steps of consciousness and a simultaneous penetration by means of the structure of the form into the layers of our profoundest sensual thinking. The polar separation of these two lines of flow creates that remarkable tension of unity of form and content characteristic of true art-works. Apart from this there are no true art-works. (144-5)
Evidently, whatever may be the kind of organic-ness in it, the work has a completely individual affect on its perceivers, not only because it is raised to the level of natural phenomena, but also because the laws of its construction are simultaneously the laws governing those who perceive the work, inasmuch as this audience is also part of organic nature. Each spectator feels himself organically related, fused, united with a work of such a type, just as he senses himself united and fused with organic nature around him. (161)
Only when the work becomes organic, only when it can enter the conditions of a higher organic-ness – into the field of pathos as we understand it, when the theme and content and idea of the work become an organically continuous unity with the ideas, the feelings, with the very breath of the author. Only when organic-ness itself takes on the strictest forms of constructing a work, only when the artistry of a master’s perceptions reach the last gleam of formal perfection. Then and only then will occur a genuine organic-ness of a work, which enters the circle of natural and social phenomena as a fellow member with equal rights, as an independent phenomenon. (174)
Only in cinema can real events, preserving all the richness of material and sensual fullness, be simultaneously – epic, in the revelation of their content, dramatic, in the treatment of their subject, and lyrical to that degree of perfection from which is echoed the most delicate nuance of the author’s experience of the theme – possible only in such an exquisite model of form as the system of audiovisual images of the cinema. When a film-work, or any part of one achieves this triple dramatic synthesis, its impressive power is particularly great. (190)
For here – in cinema – for the first time we have achieved a genuinely synthetic art – an art of organic synthesis in its very essence, not a concert of co-existent, contiguous, “linked,” but actually independent arts. (193-4)
For us montage became a means of achieving a unity of higher order – a means through the montage image of achieving an organic embodiment of a single idea conception, embracing all elements, parts, details of the film work. And thus understood, it seems considerably broader than an understanding of narrowly cinematographic montage; thus understood, it carries much to fertilize and enrich our understanding of art methods in general. And in conformity with this principle of our montage, unity and diversity are both sounded as principles. Montage removes its last contradictions by abolishing dualist contradictions and mechanical parallelism between the realms of sound and sight and what we understand as audio-visual (“vertical”) montage. (254)