![]() This first looks at kabuki theater for its “monistic ensemble,” or how each element (sound, costume, action, etc.) is interrelated. “The Unexpected” – the first of two essays looking at Japanese forms for their relation to the cinema. 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. “Through Theater to the Cinema” – your standard early film theory trope of distinguishing the form from other related forms. 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. He also has a clear bias towards the Soviet cinema for its ideological and formal superiority. 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. 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. ![]() 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. ![]() 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? ![]()
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