Directed by Sergei Eisenstein

Forever doomed to be the less-important, less-brilliant, less-world-changing movie that Sergei Eisenstein made in 1925, this movie nevertheless has its charms and is worthy of discussion. Even in the shadow of its big brother from later this year (which we’ll get to Wednesday), this film clearly shows a genius director finding his feet as a visual storyteller, and has some genuinely brilliant technical twists, even though it’s still very uneven from a narrative standpoint.

Like so many Russian films from the first half of the twentieth century, this film operates primarily as a kind of allegory or fable. Characters are rarely named, and the film is almost inherently political because of the craziness of the Soviet state in those years. For better or worse, almost every film for the next few decades coming out of Russia will be defined by its relationship to the Communist experiment in that country. Eisenstein’s early films are all patriotic national myth-making about the glorious foundation of Communist system and the horrors of the capitalistic system that it developed from. This movie is no exception, dealing with the workers of a small factory town organizing and eventually being put down by their money-grubbing bosses, based very loosely on an actual event of 1903. The plot, though, isn’t really the point. There’s really very little more to it than was just described, and Eisenstein isn’t known for his densely plotted narratives. He is a director on the list in very large part because of his visual experimentation and innovation, which is on full display here.

From the very beginning of the movie, Eisenstein is toying with the medium of film much more than have most other directors on the list. He works with the idea of framing things (both literally and metaphorically), and is a strong believer in the juxtaposition of images in order to create hybridized meaning. This is usually referred to as the Kuleshov effect, after another famous Russian filmmaker who first outlined its principles. In brief and simple language, Eisenstein is a master and innovator of what modern moviegoers call the montage. The technique is used extensively throughout the movie. In the most famous scene from this film, protesting factory workers are shot down by the military, intercut with the killing of cows in an industrial slaughterhouse. Subtle it is not, but it is very affecting. In fact, unsubtle describes almost all of this movie. Every character is painted in incredibly broad strokes, all noble, simple workers and greedy, malevolent work bosses. There’s no subtlety to any of it, no hint of psychology on either side. This is a movie where soldiers trample a baby to keep the proletariat down. It’s that kind of thing.

Actually, that brings up the accompanying point that this is one of our first films on the list which primarily serves as propaganda for an established government. Although Eisenstein was allowed a lot of creative freedom with the way in which he made his movies, his state-funded films needed to prop up the government, or at least their supposed ideals. As a piece of nationalistic rhetoric, this film works quite well. I can easily see people not just stirred up by it, but furious at the evil characters, who are very mustache-twirling in their nefariousness. Since art in Russia was supposed to be for the people, they are portrayed as an inherently decent and noble group, desiring only the common good of their fellow workers. At this point in his career, Eisenstein was still firmly in the ‘true believer’ camp with regards to the great Communist experiment, and not yet crafting subtle indictments of the spreading totalitarian tendencies of Stalin (it will be another couple of decades before we really see that side of him). He wholeheartedly believed in the rightness and justness of the system, and it comes out clearly in his movie. For all else that might be said about it, this movie does not lack honest passion.

At this point, I should bring up a number of caveats (many of which I owe to my wife, who is not a lover of classic Russian film). First, the allegorical nature of the movie can prove a huge turn-off to modern viewers who expect more complex and interesting characters or a more thoroughly developed plot. People with modern expectations are going to be very bored here. There’s really no one to root for, no individual character to get behind or to hate, just general social forces portrayed in broad strokes. At the same time, it’s not really a documentary, so you can’t really claim to be edified by it in any real way either. It has a peculiar place, and many find that that doesn’t sit right with them. If you’re a huge fan of interesting and inventive visuals and find that they can sustain you through a movie, then you’ll have much less problem here. Eisenstein is a visual genius, and this film is an important part of his maturation. A real recommendation for film aficionados, but everyone else can probably wait for either a better film by Eisenstein, or for a more naturally plotted movie that learns some of his visual lessons.

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