Among early directors, Sergei Eisentein
stands alone as the maker of a fully historical cinema. James Goodwin treats
issues of revolutionary history and historical representation as central to
an understanding of Eisentein's work, which explores two movements within Soviet
history and consciousness: the Bolshevik Revolution and the Stalinist state.
Goodwin articulates intersections
between Eisentein's ideas and aspects of the thought of Walter Benjamin, Georg
Lukacs, Ernst Bloch, and Bertolt Brecht. He also shows how the formal
properties and filmic techniques of each work reveal perspectives on history
. Individual chapters focus on Strike, Battleship Potemkin, October, Old
and New, projects of the 1930s, Alexander Nevsky, and Ivan the
Terrible.

Reviews
"Goodwin charts the radical evolution of Eisenstein's approach to cinema, taking into account the dangerous vagaries of Marxist and Stalinist policies under which he was forced to labor. More than just another critical perspective on a particular set of films, this can be read as a definitive primer of Eisenstein's cinema." -- Library Journal



Book Information
ISBN 9780252062698
Author James Goodwin
Format Paperback
Page Count 274
Imprint University of Illinois Press
Publisher University of Illinois Press