Abstract
This paper attempts to understand how the celebrated and controversial figure of Sergei Eisenstein understood and contributed to the formation of the Soviet Union through his films of the 1920s. The lens of visual metaphors offer a specific insight into how artistic choices of the director were informed by his own pedagogy for the Russian Revolution. The paper asks the questions: Did Eisenstein's films reflect the official party rhetoric? How did they inform or motivate the public toward the communist ideology of the early Soviet Union? The primary sources used in this paper are from the films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1926), October (1928), and The General Line (1929). Eisenstein created visual metaphors through the juxtaposition of images in his films which alluded to higher concepts. A shot of a worker followed by the shot of gears turning created the concept of industry in the minds of the audience. Through visual metaphors, it is possible to understand the motives of Eisenstein and the Communist party. It is also possible, with the aid of secondary sources, to see how those motives differed.
Highlights
This paper attempts to understand how the celebrated and controversial figure of Sergei Eisenstein understood and contributed to the formation of the Soviet Union through his films of the 1920s
This paper will attempt to address gaps in the field of works produced on Eisenstein by closely examining a singular component of his films from the first decade of his career in order to understand how Eisenstein was able to craft his revolutionary ideology in his early career through visual metaphor
Other closeups of martyrs reveal an- rally, to an imaginary and alien being we call God.”70 In other mother being shot and her body causing her baby’s Potemkin, visual metaphors serve Marxist revolutionary bassinet to fall down the steps, and an old woman with pedagogy in the destruction of religious symbols as well as pince-nez is killed after watching the massacre unfold.66 symbols of luxury
Summary
This paper attempts to understand how the celebrated and controversial figure of Sergei Eisenstein understood and contributed to the formation of the Soviet Union through his films of the 1920s. Sergei Eisenstein uses visual metaphor to teach audiences the benefits of cooperative action from all industries of production and defense These allegories serve the pedagogy of revolution through visual cues and connections that influence the audience by introducing, reinforcing, and glamorizing concepts of collectivism that were propagated during and after the October Revolution and the Civil War. Eisenstein’s films expose the monarchy and provisional government for obscuring from the people a manifest truth: the power to regulate politics and the economy has always been with the collective of the proletariat. The visual metaphors of Eisenstein’s early films are valuable in understanding Eisenstein’s visions of how society should change through the use of setting motifs that critique and remind people of the harsh socio-economic conditions before the revolution, the deconstruction of the value and symbols of the Russian Empire, and the power of the organized masses in affecting positive change. Where the workers are defined by mechanical imagery, the antagonists of the film are defined by bourgeois symbols
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