In 1926, Sergei Eisenstein would return to Leningrad and the city where he had resided through the first year of the Revolution was put at his disposal to film Oktyabr (October). History seethes across the screen in October with the crowd ultimately as its hero, with the exception naturally of Lenin, Kerensky and Trotsky. There are no original characters in the original uncut version of the film. The powerful reconstructed torrent of history is constantly interrupted by Eisenstein's additional impressions and ideals as he seeks to make his audience think. Suspending historical action, he patchworks a spate of visual commentaries; for instance, the crow that pulls apart the statue of the tsar, which later jumps back together. Kerensky's rise to power as head of the provisional government in the year 1917, is depicted with satirical effect as explosive subtitles indicate his ascending rank are inter-cut with images of him climbing the stairs of Saint Petersburg's Winter Palace - at precisely the same pace.
An encyclopedia of imagery, October befuddled the majority of spectators. Its release was postponed nearly six months when it was Eisenstein who had been completely enmeshed in his work, discovered that Trotsky had fallen from power (and grace) and that every shot indicating his presence in the film had to be cut.
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| Owl be seeing you in all the old familiar places - a mid-morph session from 1924's Statchka |
Before embarking on October, Eisenstein the consummate workhorse, had already begun working on its successor Staroye i Naovoye (Old and New,1928) which was also released with the alternate title The General Line. This was a picture of an evolving Soviet village. Collectivization of farming having advanced during the time of his shooting October, he was compelled to write a completely new scenario. The peasant girl Marfka Lapkina, playing herself would become the very first film heroine of the new Soviet society. Her incarnation from oppressed farm worker to dynamic leader of her village is realized in a series of optically stunning experimental episodes. The two most famous show the awed peasants standing around a cream separator , and the astounding religious procession where the silent images vividly suggest sound. Eisenstein though trail-blazing in terms of artistic theory and practice thereof, fell short in appealing to the masses. The Party expressed their disappointment following the failure of Old and New and Eisenstein would momentarily fall from favor, however, the undefeated director's twenty-five subsequent releases as it happened would all unquestionably go off without any such hitch.
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| God Pram It! ( The infamous Battleship Potemkin scene) |