PM Review

  I thought The General Line [1931] is the only movie Eisenstein had applied stills and added a graceful rendition to the Slide film list. But Bezhin Meadow [1937/1964] had reached its pinnacle of precision to uphold the new form of cinema in the art history. These two pairs of intertitles are enough for getting the thematic essence of Mr. Eisenstein Bezhin Meadow [1937/1964].   The production history and recreation of the film in the midst of Soviet sanctions and world war are as good as pivotal as its narrative and artistic formation and preservation. Are there any other movies whose are suffered such kind of blockage during its making? Maybe there are!   There was sharp censorial procedure to bring out the film that goes against the ruling power or majority feelings. Today I have come to know that Sudipto Sen’s The Kerala Story [2023] have been banned some states in India whereas Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kasmir Files [2022] had been applauded all over though bot...

  I have felt that I have not seen a film on screen but read a set of brief-brief stories spanning from the time at its infancy to the eternity. Was Eisenstein planning to make a film like Gabriel García Márquez wrote Cien años de soledad [1967].   I am more in pursuit of knowing the background history of making ¡Que viva México! [unfinished, 1932/1979] as much as of the foreground tale of Bezhin Meadow [unfinished, 1937/1964].     ¡Que viva México! [1932/1979] Да здравствует Мексика!  Sergei Eisenstein Russian, USSR ¡Que viva México! [1932/1979] Да здравствует Мексика!  Sergei Eisenstein Russian, USSR

  The lord denied me friendship”, Ivan pleaded to Fyodor not to leave him all alone. Ivan was a friend-sick as was Joseph Stalin. Though Stalin sponsored Ivan Part I, he deterred Ivan Part II [1958]. Therefore, it was completed in 1946 but released in 1958. Was it a propaganda movie like October [1928]. The second part is a broad extension of  The Great Loss of Anastasia  and the madness and solid determinism for great Russian nationalism, imperialism and patriotism.  The colored long sequences of feast dance and cathedral play are the only diversion in the film. The transition from Contemporary issues in Strike, Battleship Potemkin, October and The General Line and Bezhin Meadow [unfinished] to historical Alexander Nevsky and ended in Ivan Trilogy [part III incomplete] prove Eisenstein’s struggling conciliation between the authoritative pressure and his artistic self   Ivan the Terrible, Part II [1958] Иван Грозный 2-я серия Sergei Eisenstein Russian, ...

  At first impression I had thought Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible: Part I [1944] is devoid of Russian formalism, but at the end I have found a very diverse strain of formalism not about cinematic technical elements and principles but in the compact narrative structure and measured acting expressions. However, I have missed the adventure and suspense of Eisenesque montages.   The whole screenplay had been tightly structured, in my observation, by seven long sequences to briefly reflect the core part of Tsar [Czar] Ivan of united Russia from 1547 to 1565. All of the sequences conveyed structurally according to my reflective understanding a similar concept of breaking apart the personal relationships for the unifying the public associations.   [I] The Coronation: Ivan’s ascending to the Moscow crown had awakened the fault lines of boyars [the aristocratic community who indirectly run the monarch, more like a shadow collective ruler] and his aunt, Efrosinia of...

  I find it quite bewildering that only the underprivileged lands are the victim of imperial aggression. But I have watched many movies like Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky [1938] and read many books and seen many paintings where the lands which we think of as imperialist were the victims of imperialism and colonialism.   I got some analogous scenes using the excruciating cruelty and violence on the children in most of his movies. A kid was thrown out from the roof on the day of mass killing by police in Strike; a toddler in the stroller was fallen down through the staircases in the midst of police shooting and the most horrible one in Alexander Nevsky [1938], a Russian baby was thrown into fire by a German soldier. It was not less horrendous than  sati pratha  in Hindu malpractice in India.   Alexander Nevsky  was maybe the first rom-com where a love triangle had been shown in a comedic way in a histo-drama narrative. How did  Vasili Buslai   ...

Eisenstein’s  The General Line  [1929] is a series of intellectual montages consisting of stills which is more like a creative docufiction than feature narrative film. I think this one is a clean film following the principles and practices of Russian formalism in film.  Collage 1:  Eisenstein had an incredible artistic senses and skills to create a brief graphic narrative just by sequencing motion profiles and stills images. Collage 2:  Melting candles, slavering cattle, waving flags and weeping devotees composed one of the intellectual montages in the film. Collage 3:  The rebellious woman formed a cooperative to earn money and there was a conflict raised over profit distribution and followed a greedy and violent consequences. This is a prototype of collective operation. Collage 4: The woman in the slumber land dreaming of a herd of bovines at the beach and a god-like bovine appeared in the sky and poured milk on earth, this one so Dadaistic in nature...

Eisenstein’s first feature film starts with a walkout in “Strike” [1925] which had been followed by a mutiny in “Battleship Potemkin” [1925] and he broadened his horizon in “October”  [1928] that dealt with revolution. As if he had developed the themes of the cinemas organically.   The scene of raising the bridge to separate the center from the working class, hanging a horse on one side & a woman on the other are just majestic.   The use of rhythmic montage followed with intellectual montage using religious deities and political persona are one of the most ambiguous depictions Eisenstein created with his artistry.    The overtonal montages of dancing soldiers and broken deities and hiding statesmen felt a bit overly repetitive but deeply suspenseful.   Repetitive shallow depth of field, extreme close up shot, long and wide over head shots, high angled and low angled shots, dissolves and cross cutting are used in the film with artistry that make a deep e...

Is Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin [1925] the first film I have ever watched where the narrative structure has been followed mechanically by the theatrical form of drama, [five acts structure]? Maybe it was his first step to be formalistic in film making before imposing artistic principles on firm technical elements of film. I sometimes fall into a muddle thinking that can any medium of art carry the innate meaning and create value only based on its form without the author’s intentions and cultural stimulations. Eisenstein attempted his highest to be focused deeply on the film's formal signature but the narrative structure could not get rid of from its critical basis, the mutiny in 1905 in a Russian naval battle ship that was worked as one of the catalysts for Russian revolution in 1917. The Bengal mutiny in 1857 had also been a significant catalyst for the independence around the Indian subcontinent in 1947.   Though I have no wide-ranging knowledge about Marxism except Hegel’s h...