October: Ten Days That Shook the World / Oktyabr': Desyat' dney kotorye potryasli mir
USSR 102m Dir: Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein
Original Screenplay (Based on real events)
Ten years after the October Revolution visionary director Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to produce a film of the event which saw the provisional government fall thanks to the efforts of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party.
No expense was spared in making this piece of propaganda with roads closed and huge number of extras roped in to replicate the events in the actual places they happened. More people were injured reenacting the storming of the Winter Palace than were hurt in the actual event. As an item of propaganda it worked, especially as very little original footage existed so it was clips from the film that began to be used by historians and filmmakers.
Eisenstein further developed his technique of "intellectual montage" here where he edited together shots of apparently unconnected objects in order to create intellectual comparisons between them. The pinnacle of this technique comes when leader of the provisional government Alexander Kerensky is compared to a preening mechanical peacock which is really effective.
I have to say I didn't like this film, which was generally the reaction of the masses. Eisenstein was clearly a talented artist and it's easy to see how excited he was making this film and exploring this new technique. There's no denying the skill and intellect required to put this film together but it's just not to my tastes. It lacks any characterization and therefore lacks the poetry that it could have container. It's more like an essay and not one I particularly care for.
I think you can compare Eisenstein with someone we'd more traditionally consider an artist like Picasso. Both began their careers in a more mainstream way and gradually experimented with their own unique styles. I don't particular like the work of either but I can appreciate that they were both hugely talented in their fields.
Comments
Post a Comment