The Eisenstein Universe
Ian Christie · Julia Vassilieva
Apr 2021 · Bloomsbury Publishing
eBook
312
Pages
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About this eBook
Over the decades since he was first hailed by critics and filmmakers around the world, Sergei Eisenstein has assumed many identities. Originally cast as a prophet of revolution and the maestro of montage, and later seen as both a victim of and apologist for Stalin's tyranny, the scale and impact of Eisenstein's legacy has continued to grow. If early research on Eisenstein focused on his directorial work – from the legendary Battleship Potemkin and October to the still-controversial Ivan the Terrible – with time scholars have discovered many other aspects of his multifarious output.
In recent years, multimedia exhibitions, access to his vast archive of drawings, and publication of his previously censored theoretical writings have cast Eisenstein in a new light. Deeply engaged with some of the leading thinkers and artists of his own time, Eisenstein remains a focus for many of their successors, contested as well as revered. Over half a century since his death in 1948, an ambitious treatise that he hoped would be his major legacy, Method, has finally been published. Eisenstein's lifelong search for an underlying unity that would link archaic art with film's modernity, individuals with their historic communities, and humans as a species with the universe, may have more appeal than ever today. And among his many thwarted film projects, those set in Mexico and what were once the Soviet Central Asian republics reveal complex and still-intriguing realms of speculation.
In this ground-breaking collection, sixteen international scholars explore Eisenstein's prescient engagement with aesthetics, anthropology and psychology, his roots in diverse philosophical traditions, and his gender politics. What emerges has surprising relevance to contemporary media archaeology, intermediality, cognitive science, eco-criticism and queer studies, as well as confirming Eisenstein's prestige within present-day film and audiovisual media.
In recent years, multimedia exhibitions, access to his vast archive of drawings, and publication of his previously censored theoretical writings have cast Eisenstein in a new light. Deeply engaged with some of the leading thinkers and artists of his own time, Eisenstein remains a focus for many of their successors, contested as well as revered. Over half a century since his death in 1948, an ambitious treatise that he hoped would be his major legacy, Method, has finally been published. Eisenstein's lifelong search for an underlying unity that would link archaic art with film's modernity, individuals with their historic communities, and humans as a species with the universe, may have more appeal than ever today. And among his many thwarted film projects, those set in Mexico and what were once the Soviet Central Asian republics reveal complex and still-intriguing realms of speculation.
In this ground-breaking collection, sixteen international scholars explore Eisenstein's prescient engagement with aesthetics, anthropology and psychology, his roots in diverse philosophical traditions, and his gender politics. What emerges has surprising relevance to contemporary media archaeology, intermediality, cognitive science, eco-criticism and queer studies, as well as confirming Eisenstein's prestige within present-day film and audiovisual media.
About the author
Ian Christie is Fellow of the British Academy and Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. He co-edited the collection Eisenstein Rediscovered (1993) as well as organising a 1988 Oxford conference that preceded it. He has long been active in presenting Eisenstein's silent films with live accompaniment, most recently in Eisenstein on Paper: The Graphic Works (2017). Among many exhibitions, he co-curated Eisenstein: His Life and Work (Oxford, London and Manchester, 1988), and Unexpected Eisenstein (London, 2016).
Julia Vassilievais Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her books include Narrative Psychology (2016), the co-edited Beyond the Essay Film (2020) and After Taste: Cultural Value and the Moving Image (2013), and she has published widely in film and psychology journals. She organised the symposium 'Eisenstein for the Twenty First Century' in June 2018 in Prato, Italy, and co-convened the Eisenstein International Network's first conference in October 2019 at INHA, Paris.
Julia Vassilievais Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her books include Narrative Psychology (2016), the co-edited Beyond the Essay Film (2020) and After Taste: Cultural Value and the Moving Image (2013), and she has published widely in film and psychology journals. She organised the symposium 'Eisenstein for the Twenty First Century' in June 2018 in Prato, Italy, and co-convened the Eisenstein International Network's first conference in October 2019 at INHA, Paris.
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