> Just to nail down the Eisenstein reference, one of his most influential
>essays was "A Dialectical Approach to Film Form", which appears in the
>collection of Eisenstein's essays entitled "Film Form" and put together by
>Jay Leyda for Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich in 1949
>
>After beginning with quotes from Goethe and Eckerman, Eisenstein wrote
>"The projection of the dialectic system of things into the brain into
>creating abstractly, into the process of thinking yields dialectic
>materialism-- PHILOSOPHY
>and also...
>The projection of the same system of things
>while creating concretely, while giving form, yields a dynamic conception of
>ART"
>
>He proceeded to elaborate on his approach to intellectual montage
>
>The essay was written around 1930
>
>Dan Shaw
>
>
>-----
The essay was written for a conference Eisenstein was to give at the "Film
und Foto" exhibit held in Stuttgart between May and July 1929. Eisenstein
had been sollicited by El Lissitsky to write the piece, though
unfortunately he could not attend -- for in the meantime Stalin had "asked"
him to make important changes to the General Line. Eisenstein wrote the
article in German (in his youth he spoke better German than Russian). There
are at least two German-language versions of it (one dated April 1929 --
which Jay Leyda deposited in the archives of MOMA's library; and one dated
November 2 1929, which has been lost). There are also several (different)
versions in English -- one having been translated by Ivor Montagu in Nov.
1930 (this is a translation of the November 1929 version), which Eisenstein
later revised for the publication of Film Form. What's really interesting
however is that Eisenstein revisited the article in July 1929 and left
important notes concerning it. To my knowledge these notes have never been
translated into English -- but they are available in several languages
including French, as well as German and Russian. These notes are
fascinating -- for one thing we see that Eisenstein was already thinking of
the idea of "imaginicity" which will be at the center of his late 30's and
40's essays (Montage 1937, Montage 1938 and NonIndifferent Nature), and
that he was also thinking about ecstasy.
As for the dialectic -- clearly Eisenstein has several uses for it, and
there are profound (but fascinating) contradictions in his use of it.
Jacques Aumont, in Montage Eisenstein, has a good introduction to the
matter. In any case, people usually connect the dialectic in Eisenstein's
writings to montage -- it is certainly an important aspect of it -- but
Eisenstein also conceived of Soviet film history as dialectical (this is
clearly put in his 1935 address to the All Union conference of Filmmakers).
Martin Lefebvre
------------------------------
Martin Lefebvre
Associate Professor
Editor RECHERCHES SEMIOTIQUES/
SEMIOTIC INQUIRY
Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Concordia University
FB 319
1455 de Maisonneuve, West
Montreal (Quebec), Canada
H3G 1M8
tel. (514) 848-4676/FAX. (514) 848-4255
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