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Film Form: Essays In Film Theory
From Sergei Eisenstein, a legendary pioneer in filmmaking and director of Battleship Potemkin, Film Form collects twelve essays written between 1928 and 1945 that demonstrate key points in the development of his film theory and in particular his analysis of the sound-film medium.
"By turns savagely polemical and whimsically humorous...Eisenstein's last book, like all his writings, is on fire with imagination...Jay Leyda, well-known authority on Eisenstein's work, has done an excellently thorough job of editing and translating."— Saturday Review
"By turns savagely polemical and whimsically humorous...Eisenstein's last book, like all his writings, is on fire with imagination...Jay Leyda, well-known authority on Eisenstein's work, has done an excellently thorough job of editing and translating."— Saturday Review
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
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3565 people want to read
About the author
Sergei Eisenstein
130 books101 followersSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a Soviet film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958). In its 2012 decennial poll, the magazine Sight & Sound named his Battleship Potemkin the 11th greatest movie of all time.
Eisenstein was among the earliest film theorists. He believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a "linkage" of related images. He developed what he called "methods of montage":
1) Metric
2) Rhythmic
3) Tonal
4) Overtonal
5) Intellectual
Eisenstein's articles and books—particularly Film Form and The Film Sense—explain the significance of montage in detail. His writings and films have continued to have a major impact on subsequent filmmakers.
Eisenstein was among the earliest film theorists. He believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a "linkage" of related images. He developed what he called "methods of montage":
1) Metric
2) Rhythmic
3) Tonal
4) Overtonal
5) Intellectual
Eisenstein's articles and books—particularly Film Form and The Film Sense—explain the significance of montage in detail. His writings and films have continued to have a major impact on subsequent filmmakers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
March 3, 2008
I may have approached reading Film Form from the wrong angle. I initially approached it as an artist, looking for a critical approach to film-making. In this, I was disappointed. Part of the problem is that Eisenstein tries to take a scientific approach to something that cannot be systematized - the means by which an image produces an emotional response. He is constantly invoking music as a comparison - but unfortunately, the systems by which aural and visual information are processed in our brains are entirely different. Certain intervals in music are hard-wired to activate various emotional responses. Our responses to visual imagery, however, is much more top-down, and as a result much more chaotic. Eisenstein's project was doomed to failure in its conception.
However, the book is interesting as a historical document. Eisenstein took his role as ideological mouthpiece for the communist party very seriously - and it is interesting, in a world so skeptical of political art, to see someone write so directly about the political aims of his art.
However, the book is interesting as a historical document. Eisenstein took his role as ideological mouthpiece for the communist party very seriously - and it is interesting, in a world so skeptical of political art, to see someone write so directly about the political aims of his art.
February 22, 2016
brilliant film theory; holds that film is always about revolution, and any film should incite one in the viewer. replace the catharsis from the aristotelian model of drama with incitement/invitation to revolution, and you've essentially got it.
December 5, 2024
إذا أردتَ القراءة عن السينما،
فيكفيك قراءة كتاب أو أثنين لآيزنشتاين
-ستانلي كوبريك
فيكفيك قراءة كتاب أو أثنين لآيزنشتاين
-ستانلي كوبريك
July 22, 2023
Absolutely essential writings about film, very glad I watched like all the major movies pre-1930 before reading because context is necessary.
Lots of takeaways but my favorite is that Eisenstein despises long-takes and I wish he'd lived long enough to say mean things about Birdman
Lots of takeaways but my favorite is that Eisenstein despises long-takes and I wish he'd lived long enough to say mean things about Birdman
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June 4, 2020Great critical accomplishment that can be frustratingly jargon-heavy
July 8, 2023
This book is extraordinary.
America, especially D. W. Griffith may have mastered editing, but he did so for underlining important things, such as cutting on close-ups or wide-shots with continuity, to see clearer the expressions of actors or to see the space around them. But soviet filmmakers made editing a powerful expressive tool. The editing itself became expressive, not just the things it juxtaposes. Brilliant era of brilliant minds.
America, especially D. W. Griffith may have mastered editing, but he did so for underlining important things, such as cutting on close-ups or wide-shots with continuity, to see clearer the expressions of actors or to see the space around them. But soviet filmmakers made editing a powerful expressive tool. The editing itself became expressive, not just the things it juxtaposes. Brilliant era of brilliant minds.
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October 19, 2022lol
August 19, 2008
Eisenstein's theories of montage are applicable to other media, particularly literature, which, as he repeatedly points out, is closest to the way that he thinks about film.
I would be interested to hear more from reviewer Matt (below, gave the book two stars) about top-down visual processes. From my understanding of the subject, "we" (wherever that "I" is located) are never privy to any raw data at all, visual, aural or otherwise. Instead, before our eyes can perceive something, that thing has already been processed in some way by parts of the nervous system and brain. Which seems counter-intuitive-- before we "see" something, we have already seen it. But, if my reading of Dennett, et al, and their sources (I am not a cognitive science expert by any means) is correct, that seems to be the case. As such, Eisenstein's idea that the montage is given meaning through a single image that "directs" the viewer how to interpret the sequence of images, no matter where in that sequence of images this image occurs (even at or near the end) seems remarkably similar to cognitive processes. As for his ideas about overtones, well, I don't know enough about music theory to really critique his usage of that metaphor, but I will say that it has very little weight in this collection, as part of one essay in a collection of such.
This book is, for me, a great way to step outside of the realm of literature and look at its problems without its particular obstacles. Eisenstein rejects the "blending" approach to montage of his teacher, Kuleshov, that would be "top-down" (sequence worked out before individual images), in favor of a dialectical approach, or a conflict-based system. Each image exists only to be superseded by another image. The basic unit of film is the meeting (conflict) of two still images. He thus thinks about film as an ideogram, with all of the possibilities that arise from that, rather than as a sentence.
I would be interested to hear more from reviewer Matt (below, gave the book two stars) about top-down visual processes. From my understanding of the subject, "we" (wherever that "I" is located) are never privy to any raw data at all, visual, aural or otherwise. Instead, before our eyes can perceive something, that thing has already been processed in some way by parts of the nervous system and brain. Which seems counter-intuitive-- before we "see" something, we have already seen it. But, if my reading of Dennett, et al, and their sources (I am not a cognitive science expert by any means) is correct, that seems to be the case. As such, Eisenstein's idea that the montage is given meaning through a single image that "directs" the viewer how to interpret the sequence of images, no matter where in that sequence of images this image occurs (even at or near the end) seems remarkably similar to cognitive processes. As for his ideas about overtones, well, I don't know enough about music theory to really critique his usage of that metaphor, but I will say that it has very little weight in this collection, as part of one essay in a collection of such.
This book is, for me, a great way to step outside of the realm of literature and look at its problems without its particular obstacles. Eisenstein rejects the "blending" approach to montage of his teacher, Kuleshov, that would be "top-down" (sequence worked out before individual images), in favor of a dialectical approach, or a conflict-based system. Each image exists only to be superseded by another image. The basic unit of film is the meeting (conflict) of two still images. He thus thinks about film as an ideogram, with all of the possibilities that arise from that, rather than as a sentence.
July 7, 2025
When I picked up Film Form by Sergei Eisenstein during my brief but intense stint as a replacement film studies teacher for an online batch in Bangalore, I didn’t expect the book to hit me like a precisely timed cinematic cut. But oh, it did—frame by frame, thought by thought.
This wasn’t just theory—it was revolution dressed in essays. Eisenstein didn’t merely talk about cinema; he orchestrated it on paper. His words exploded with a feverish energy that demanded not just reading, but re-reading.
And in the middle of my Zoom lectures, where half the students were muted, a few distracted, and the internet blinked like faulty reel changes, this book reminded me what cinema could be: provocative, intellectual, ideological.
We dissected montage like it was holy scripture. Dialectical editing, collision of shots, intellectual montage—I felt like I was teaching not just film but philosophy-in-motion. One student even said, “Sir, Eisenstein edits like Karl Marx writes.” I nearly cried.
I’d bring up Battleship Potemkin in class, pause the Odessa Steps scene, and then ask, “What makes this work? Why does it hit so hard even now?” And always, Eisenstein’s theory helped break the silence—each shot a thesis, each cut a retort.
To my students, Eisenstein was a distant genius from a different time. But to me, in that moment of teaching mid-pandemic, mid-chaos, mid-career uncertainty—he felt like a comrade. A reminder that form is politics, and that cinema, in its bones, is not just about story—but structure, rhythm, revolution.
Reading Film Form then wasn’t just study—it was a sort of initiation. Eisenstein taught me (and hopefully, my students) that every frame holds potential energy, and every edit, a punch.
This wasn’t just theory—it was revolution dressed in essays. Eisenstein didn’t merely talk about cinema; he orchestrated it on paper. His words exploded with a feverish energy that demanded not just reading, but re-reading.
And in the middle of my Zoom lectures, where half the students were muted, a few distracted, and the internet blinked like faulty reel changes, this book reminded me what cinema could be: provocative, intellectual, ideological.
We dissected montage like it was holy scripture. Dialectical editing, collision of shots, intellectual montage—I felt like I was teaching not just film but philosophy-in-motion. One student even said, “Sir, Eisenstein edits like Karl Marx writes.” I nearly cried.
I’d bring up Battleship Potemkin in class, pause the Odessa Steps scene, and then ask, “What makes this work? Why does it hit so hard even now?” And always, Eisenstein’s theory helped break the silence—each shot a thesis, each cut a retort.
To my students, Eisenstein was a distant genius from a different time. But to me, in that moment of teaching mid-pandemic, mid-chaos, mid-career uncertainty—he felt like a comrade. A reminder that form is politics, and that cinema, in its bones, is not just about story—but structure, rhythm, revolution.
Reading Film Form then wasn’t just study—it was a sort of initiation. Eisenstein taught me (and hopefully, my students) that every frame holds potential energy, and every edit, a punch.
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May 15, 2020Sovyet Rus Yönetmen Sergei Eisenstein'ın "Film Duyumu", "Film Biçimi", "Sinema Dersleri", "Sinema Sanatı" gibi kitaplarını Değerli Sinema Tarihçisi Nijat Özon çevirmişti! Eisenstein'ın "Film Biçimi" kitabı, yaptığı filmler sırasında yazdığı notlardan, edindiği bilgilerden oluşuyor. Eisenstein'a göre, bir film bir "yapı"dır, "form"dur, anlattıkları gibi nasıl anlattığı da önemlidir, bir filmi film yapan "yapısal", "formel" ("biçimsel", "şeklî") ilkeler vardır. "Film Biçimi"nde, Eisenstein, "Potemkin Zırhlısı", "Grev", "Ekim", "Alexander Nevsky", "Korkunç Ivan" gibi filmlerinin "yapı"larını, "form"larını sinema estetiği açısından inceliyor, bir "film çözümlemesi" uzmanı olarak yazıyor. Eisenstein'ın "Film Biçimi" kitabı, sinema tarihini, Sovyet Rus Sinemasını, Eisenstein'ı anlamak isteyen okurlar için harika bir eser!
May 30, 2009
brief essay forthcoming - eisenstiens critique of griffith pinpoints the dickensonian moralistic roots in all cinema, beginning with the dynamics of the "chase scene"...and thats just for starters. just you wait until you bite into the juicy essay on joyce, damn it! Eistenstien is a gifted writer and his hodge-podge use of references strikes at you furiously. Supply your reader with bullets, Sergei.
August 30, 2013
Seminal. Period. It's all about montage, sure, but people don't recognize the linear editing as much as they should. Read his theory - it's about cell-to-cell, not necessarily sequence-to-equence. Just ask Brian DePalma. He's been cribbing on this shit for decades.
May 3, 2019
Es un libro que te obliga a la re-lectura, sin embargo también se ve el paso del tiempo y la evolución en el cine. La manera en qué se veía el séptimo arte y cómo se trabajaba y la gran diferencia de cómo se trabaja.
Es un libro del cuál vas a aprender mucho, pero te aconsejo que antes veas la película de El Acorazado Potemkin.
Es un libro del cuál vas a aprender mucho, pero te aconsejo que antes veas la película de El Acorazado Potemkin.
June 25, 2015
Handed this one off to a friend, so I felt I had to finally read it, but even if I didn't work in film/film courses, I would still appreciate the insights on how to approach a medium for which there'd been some guidance but little in the way of precedent.
The cultural appreciation side of this book would have to be the way he describes being influenced by Kabuki theater and the Japanese language itself. Also I enjoyed the sprinkling of Japanese poems of various syllabic structures throughout his essays.
Grammatically speaking, one written element in the structure of their language, which could be read as "dog + mouth = bark," set the stage, as it were - because in Kabuki he mentions his appreciation in their way of working transitions with a set design that moves behind the actor as he advances in a forward motion upstage - this combination begins to inform his approach to using the montage to say what words and subtitles could not in silent film. Later he covers orchestral arrangements in contrapuntal relation to images and how it underscores the direction the narrative takes.
That said, the American chapter was interesting, as were some comments/observations on race and politics. Some of those actually extend to other countries too. Ultimately this was great to read, if nothing else than for lines like these "For those who are able, montage is the most powerful compositional means of telling a story. For those who do not know about composition, montage is syntax for the correct construction of each particle of a film fragment."
Sorta sad to let this book go, but then again, it will be better off being mentioned to students who might not otherwise get a shot at learning some of these approaches and the history behind them. Well aware people still bristle at the thought of a Russian from his era in some parts, so I could see a bias in those who'd exclude him from film curricula unless it's specifically a course devoted to just Russian cinema. But I never underestimate bias, so I could see his politics being downgraded even in those courses since people are such jerks they think exposing ideas to others could lead to the apocalypse of democracy as we know it, so they gloss over the effectiveness of his work and the significance in shaping that country's politics. The whole reason I even purchased this book was because I took two film courses one summer and nothing remotely like his book was offered with either's reading list. One course was even titled "writing about film" - I don't know how you could not include his work given he approaches film like a language. Which is a shame, because it's really a gem.
The cultural appreciation side of this book would have to be the way he describes being influenced by Kabuki theater and the Japanese language itself. Also I enjoyed the sprinkling of Japanese poems of various syllabic structures throughout his essays.
Grammatically speaking, one written element in the structure of their language, which could be read as "dog + mouth = bark," set the stage, as it were - because in Kabuki he mentions his appreciation in their way of working transitions with a set design that moves behind the actor as he advances in a forward motion upstage - this combination begins to inform his approach to using the montage to say what words and subtitles could not in silent film. Later he covers orchestral arrangements in contrapuntal relation to images and how it underscores the direction the narrative takes.
That said, the American chapter was interesting, as were some comments/observations on race and politics. Some of those actually extend to other countries too. Ultimately this was great to read, if nothing else than for lines like these "For those who are able, montage is the most powerful compositional means of telling a story. For those who do not know about composition, montage is syntax for the correct construction of each particle of a film fragment."
Sorta sad to let this book go, but then again, it will be better off being mentioned to students who might not otherwise get a shot at learning some of these approaches and the history behind them. Well aware people still bristle at the thought of a Russian from his era in some parts, so I could see a bias in those who'd exclude him from film curricula unless it's specifically a course devoted to just Russian cinema. But I never underestimate bias, so I could see his politics being downgraded even in those courses since people are such jerks they think exposing ideas to others could lead to the apocalypse of democracy as we know it, so they gloss over the effectiveness of his work and the significance in shaping that country's politics. The whole reason I even purchased this book was because I took two film courses one summer and nothing remotely like his book was offered with either's reading list. One course was even titled "writing about film" - I don't know how you could not include his work given he approaches film like a language. Which is a shame, because it's really a gem.
May 14, 2020
“The affectiveness of a work of art is built upon the fact that there takes place in it a dual process: an impetuous progressive rise along the lines of the highest explicit steps of consciousness and a simultaneous penetration by means of the structure of the form into the layers of profoundest sensual thinking. The polar separation of these two lines of flow creates that remarkable tension of unity of form and content characteristic of true art-works. Apart from this there are no true art-works.”
“I don't know how my readers feel about this, but for me personally it is always pleasing to recognize again and again the fact that our cinema is not altogether without parents and without pedigree, without a past, without the traditions and rich cultural heritage of the past epochs. It is only very thoughtless and presumptuous people who can erect laws and an esthetic for cinema, proceeding from premises of some incredible virgin-birth of this art!”
“And the moment is drawing near when, not only through the method of montage, but also through the synthesis of idea, the idea of acting man, the Screen picture, sound, three dimension and color, that same great law of unity and diversity-lying at the base of our thinking, at the base of our philosophy, and to an equal degree penetrating the montage method from its tiniest link to the fullness of montage imagery in the film as a whole-passes into a unity of the whole screen image.”
“I don't know how my readers feel about this, but for me personally it is always pleasing to recognize again and again the fact that our cinema is not altogether without parents and without pedigree, without a past, without the traditions and rich cultural heritage of the past epochs. It is only very thoughtless and presumptuous people who can erect laws and an esthetic for cinema, proceeding from premises of some incredible virgin-birth of this art!”
“And the moment is drawing near when, not only through the method of montage, but also through the synthesis of idea, the idea of acting man, the Screen picture, sound, three dimension and color, that same great law of unity and diversity-lying at the base of our thinking, at the base of our philosophy, and to an equal degree penetrating the montage method from its tiniest link to the fullness of montage imagery in the film as a whole-passes into a unity of the whole screen image.”
June 4, 2019
Árið 1929.
Enginn:
Eisenstein: Hvað ef ég bara tek hugmyndir Hegels um díalektík og blanda þeim saman við hugmyndir mínar um klippingu?
Ég er ennþá hissa yfir því að hann hafi eitthvað verið að pæla í þessu árið 1929.
Enginn:
Eisenstein: Hvað ef ég bara tek hugmyndir Hegels um díalektík og blanda þeim saman við hugmyndir mínar um klippingu?
Ég er ennþá hissa yfir því að hann hafi eitthvað verið að pæla í þessu árið 1929.
November 9, 2019
Bastante didático e um ótimo resgate histórico do cinema em sua fase jovem, ainda se descobrindo. Livro importante pra quem quer entender melhor sobre a estrutura cinematográfica e a importância do Construtivismo na história do cinema.
November 2, 2013
I like the Russian approach. It is very simple, functional, yet emotional.
April 30, 2015
Fascinating, but not convincing, and often infuriatingly abstract in its concepts and language.
January 14, 2019
Hay capítulos y párrafos ininteligibles, pero solo por "Dickens, Griffith y el filme de hoy" ya vale la pena.
November 9, 2025
Eisenstein's wrestling with cinema as artform, language and polemic during the time when it was experiencing its biggest groundswells of change, changes whose limitations and consequences he saw very clearly, is both enlightening and frustrating throughout this compilation of essays. Frustrating because he is so deeply "in the weeds" on technique at times that language, especially via translation, does him a disservice -- you desperately want him to be illustrating a PowerPoint or something -- and also because he, kind of amusingly, relies very heavily on his own work to illustrate his various points. (He does occasionally find nice things to say about his peers, especially Pudovkin and Chaplin, the latter remaining the only director in history that every other director agrees about.)
So I was slogging through this and occasionally finding it interesting -- especially the theories about how montage was anticipated by stagecraft, an interesting contrast to the prevailing view, including that of Eisenstein, that theater is anathematic to cinema -- but mostly just ticking off the mental box in my head of having read it since it's a seminal text for cinephiles and especially silent film lovers. Then, out of nowhere, Eisenstein hits us with the 50-page dissertation Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today, a dissection of how the idea of cross-cutting and conventional cinematic storytelling has a direct root in Charles Dickens' novels, connecting this idea first with D.W. Griffith's films (especially Way Down East; refreshingly, Eisenstein dismisses Birth of a Nation for its racism and for its supposed innovations being old-hat) then with the Soviet classics that are the prevailing subject matter of the book. I've heard Dickens brought up before in this context, specifically by my onetime semi-mentor Ken Mogg (RIP), but Eisenstein lays out his argument with such breathless clarity and enlightening completeness that I was as thoroughly gripped as though I were reading one of Dickens' masterpieces. Even the usual egomania of the author's extrapolation to Potemkin and such didn't hurt. For that last essay alone, this book will hold a permanent place on my shelf.
So I was slogging through this and occasionally finding it interesting -- especially the theories about how montage was anticipated by stagecraft, an interesting contrast to the prevailing view, including that of Eisenstein, that theater is anathematic to cinema -- but mostly just ticking off the mental box in my head of having read it since it's a seminal text for cinephiles and especially silent film lovers. Then, out of nowhere, Eisenstein hits us with the 50-page dissertation Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today, a dissection of how the idea of cross-cutting and conventional cinematic storytelling has a direct root in Charles Dickens' novels, connecting this idea first with D.W. Griffith's films (especially Way Down East; refreshingly, Eisenstein dismisses Birth of a Nation for its racism and for its supposed innovations being old-hat) then with the Soviet classics that are the prevailing subject matter of the book. I've heard Dickens brought up before in this context, specifically by my onetime semi-mentor Ken Mogg (RIP), but Eisenstein lays out his argument with such breathless clarity and enlightening completeness that I was as thoroughly gripped as though I were reading one of Dickens' masterpieces. Even the usual egomania of the author's extrapolation to Potemkin and such didn't hurt. For that last essay alone, this book will hold a permanent place on my shelf.
October 24, 2022
Eisenstein is kind of this odd theorist where you'd think someone so classic and foundational to film as we know it would weirdly have less to say to the contemporary moment, but I've found that every time I return to the well of Eisenstein's early thinking on film I always come away with something staggering and thought-provoking. I think what this volume in particular shows is how concerned Eisenstein was with how the art of film translates into the ways that people understand and connect with information. Some of this is pragmatic in its orientation, but much of it is about achieving a feeling, and even his political attributions for this method strike an oddly convincing chord in today's day and age. Mostly I came away with a healthier respect for just how thoughtful a filmmaker like Eisenstein was. Working with tools that most of us today would see as rudimentary, he was able to communicate with a level of depth and sophistication that belies his historical era, and makes him a truly timeless contributor to the art of film and film theory.
May 14, 2025
Eisenstein deserves massive credit for his ideas of montage as juxtaposition and collision rather than continuity, and his best work (Potemkin and October) are truly extraordinary pieces of film art in the way they create such compelling sequences without a protagonist. Eisenstein is one of the few artists who created masterpieces despite his propagandistic agenda.
That being said, as brilliant as he was as a filmmaker, he's very much a convoluted writer, using way too much jargon, and trying too hard to create a comprehensive theory of film to justify and codify what are ultimately his opinions about what film should be.
The best parts of the book are when he's very specific about how certain effects are achieved, for instance, when he talks about the disembodied glasses in Potemkin and how they stand in for their drowned owner and pop in a way that showing a corpse would not. Brilliant insight and absolutely true.
I thought it was also interesting how he says Griffith got his editing ideas from Dickens.
Worth reading if not as useful as I was hoping it would be.
That being said, as brilliant as he was as a filmmaker, he's very much a convoluted writer, using way too much jargon, and trying too hard to create a comprehensive theory of film to justify and codify what are ultimately his opinions about what film should be.
The best parts of the book are when he's very specific about how certain effects are achieved, for instance, when he talks about the disembodied glasses in Potemkin and how they stand in for their drowned owner and pop in a way that showing a corpse would not. Brilliant insight and absolutely true.
I thought it was also interesting how he says Griffith got his editing ideas from Dickens.
Worth reading if not as useful as I was hoping it would be.
January 31, 2024
The Mad Scientist of Montage! The book feels like a window into the mind of an idiosyncratic, eager scientist explaining his theories with precision (he even uses diagrams to get his point across sometimes). This book expanded the way I looked at editing in film; the ways in which meaning can be created through a "collision" of images, or a rhythmic use of sound and picture to evoke certain emotional responses. One of the few books I genuinely enjoyed being assigned in college.
"The shot is by no means an element of montage. The shot is a montage cell.
Just as cells in their division form a phenomenon of another order, the organism or embryo, so, on the other side of the dialectical leap from the shot, there is montage.
By what, then, is montage characterized and, consequently, its cell-the shot?
By collision. By the conflict of two pieces in opposition to each other. By conflict. By collision."
"The shot is by no means an element of montage. The shot is a montage cell.
Just as cells in their division form a phenomenon of another order, the organism or embryo, so, on the other side of the dialectical leap from the shot, there is montage.
By what, then, is montage characterized and, consequently, its cell-the shot?
By collision. By the conflict of two pieces in opposition to each other. By conflict. By collision."
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May 30, 2021One of the founders of Soviet Russian Cinema, Director, Scriptwriter, Writer, Cinema Historian Sergei Eisenstein's "Film Form: Essays in Film Theory" is about Eisenstein's cinema work, film experiences and film aesthetics. Eisenstein explains the rules of film making in "Film Form: Essays in Film Theory" with his lessons from his cinema works. Eisenstein writes "the formal", "the structural", "the aesthetical" principles of film making. Eisenstein's thoughts on the film-montage are the main, critical views for his "film form"! For Eisenstein, the cinema work is mainly is the work of film-montage - on the film materials which film director produces with all the people who work in the film!
July 2, 2021
A Modernist in every sense of the word seeking "formal perfection" (p174) by attempting the audacious: to create a science out of art; to create a blueprint for Bolshevik cinema and in turn, to establish an aesthetic for ideological portrayals of Socialist revolution and an authoritarian Statist interpretation of Soviet governance.
Arguably, the lyrical transcendence of 'masterpiece artistry' cannot be boiled down to structural considerations; a series of component parts. As a result, Eisenstein's early 20th century groundbreaking deductions with regards to the construction of film form, are limited by his attempts to make the ineffable empirically tangible.
Arguably, the lyrical transcendence of 'masterpiece artistry' cannot be boiled down to structural considerations; a series of component parts. As a result, Eisenstein's early 20th century groundbreaking deductions with regards to the construction of film form, are limited by his attempts to make the ineffable empirically tangible.
April 22, 2022
Melhor livro que li sobre cinemata até agora.
Vi um retardatário falando aqui que o "Eisenstein tenta fazer algo impossível, ler a imagem e o apelo emocional dela de forma científica", como se arte não pudesse ser analisada cientificamente. Me pergunto se o obscurantismo intelectual é tão gigante que as pessoas ignoram algo que é feito desde... Aristóteles? Platão? Alguém mais antigo? E que, tendo origem na filosofia, acabou gerando esse negócio chamado... Surpreenda-se... Ciência.
Vi um retardatário falando aqui que o "Eisenstein tenta fazer algo impossível, ler a imagem e o apelo emocional dela de forma científica", como se arte não pudesse ser analisada cientificamente. Me pergunto se o obscurantismo intelectual é tão gigante que as pessoas ignoram algo que é feito desde... Aristóteles? Platão? Alguém mais antigo? E que, tendo origem na filosofia, acabou gerando esse negócio chamado... Surpreenda-se... Ciência.
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September 19, 2023Hasta el coño estoy yo pero este señor era muy inteligente la verdad, Florenski lo es más pero está bien informarte de otras cosas y ponerlas en perspectiva de forma política para hacer productos audiovisuales muy pintones. Es decir, opuestamente político a ti pero aprovechándote de sus cositas buenas, anda que luego hasta te visita en la URSS Lilian Gish.
December 8, 2020
Interesante y sobre todo útil visión del desarrollo del cine como arte, con varias ideas geniales que ilustran y fundamentan algunas de las técnicas que vemos incluso en las películas de hoy, pero algo más formal de lo que me hubiera gustado, y a ratos absolutamente infumable.
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