Film und Macht. Zur Kunsttheorie Sergej M. Eisensteins 1930-1948 by Anna s> Bohn (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 343 serious plays that could be performed for the narod.However, as Swift demonstrates,the ruleswere often flouted and, in fact, the repertoirediffered little from the Imperial and other theatres,though he stillconcludes that 'the state's censorship policy hampered the development of Russian popular theater'(p. 129). The first non-commercial people's theatres appeared in the I88os and I89os and were founded not by the intelligentsia or the state but by factory owners. Subsequently, from around I900, the Guardianships of Popular Temperance became the most visible sponsors. Swift argues persuasively,in chapter four, that these endeavours failed to 'acculturate and discipline the common people by "rationalizing" their recreations' (p. i 8o): their chief contributionwas to transformthe theatricallandscape and make inexpensive entertainment more readily available. In the fifth chapter, Swift focuses on attempts by workers themselves to participate in theatrical productions. Sometimes their motive was to use theatre as a propaganda tool in political struggle, but more often they were seeking to acquire 'respectability' by imitating the practicesof the elite. Such effortswere on a smallscale, but they demonstratedthatnot allworkerswere content to be passiveconsumersof the culturepresidedover by the elite. In the final chapter, Swift considers audience reception. Drawing on contemporary observations and audience surveys,he shows that, ultimately, people's theatresdid not transformtheiraudiences. Rather, the people tended to use theatre to confirm their own outlooks and experiences. One of the major assumptions in the discourse about people's theatre that the narod was malleable was therefore incorrect. Nor was there a necessary correlation between theatrical taste and political consciousness. The intelligentsia expressed alarmthat light entertainmentwould distractworkersfrom politics, but it was, as Swift puts it, 'possibleto be both a Bolshevikand a fan of melodrama' (p. 23 I). The intelligentsia'sbelief that people's theatrewould foster a unified national culture was therefore mistaken. Exposure to elite culture, Swift suggests, may have made the narod even more cognizant of the divisions between them and the privileged. This prompts his concluding observation that people's theatres 'perhapscontributed to the polarization of Russian society' (pp. 239-40). This excellent book makes a significant contribution to that particular debate and to our general understanding of late imperialRussia. University ofDundee MURRAY FRAME Bohn, Anna. FilmundMacht.ZurKunsttheorie Sergej M. Eisensteins I930-I948. DiskursFilm Bibliothek, i 6. DiskursFilmVerlag,Munich, 2003. 440 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Appendices. Filmographies. Bibliography. Index. ?50.00 (paperback). ANYbook that honestly attempts to deconstruct the increasingly complex aesthetic theories of Eisenstein'smature period is to be welcomed. Any book that does so successfullyis to be doublywelcomed. 344 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 Film and Power. On SergeiM. Eisenstein's Artistic TheogyI930-48 is selfconfessedly a 'lightly reworked' version of the author's doctoral thesis. Nonetheless it most emphatically does not have the weaknesses so often associated with such theses. The argument is very clearly structured and lucidly presented, despite the enormous complexity of the task in hand. Examining the centrality of the Grundproblem and Methodto Eisenstein's aesthetic theories of the I930S and I940s, Bohn argues that at the heart of these theorieslay a desireto find a synthesisbetween artand science. Bohn quite rightly bemoans the fact that the haphazard and somewhat fragmentarymanner in which Eisenstein'swritingshave become availablehas hindered a clear understandingof his theories, especially in this later period. Her discussion of this, however, is almost entirely limited to Russian and German editions, which ignores the contributions made in French and (I hope, as generaleditorof Eisenstein'sSelected Works) in English.Bohn hasbeen able to take advantage of the opening of the Eisensteinfiles in the post-Soviet period, so that her sources include the materials that went into the recent Russian publications of both Montage and Method,his diaries, his lectures at VGIK, the State Cinema Institute, and other contextual materials from relatedarchivescoveringthe problemshe encountered in the makingofBezhin Meadowand IvantheTerrible in particular.These sources are comprehensively laid out in an extensivebibliographyand fullydiscussedin the main text of the book. Given the high quality of Bohn's workit is a great pity that it will probably never be accessible to the non-German-speakingEnglish-languagereader. In the present economic climate no publisheris likelyto be willing to subsidizea translationof what ought to be a centralwork in the elucidation of one...