PM Review

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...