Not Hollywood - Eisenstein October LSO Barbican

Tonight at the Barbican the London Symphony Orchestra provides live soundtrack for Sergei Eisenstein's silent movie October - Ten Days that Shook the World presented by Kino Klassik in a new edition of the film made in 2012.  The LSO will be playing the original music, composed by Edmund Meisel (1894-1930), not the better known music by Dmitri Shostakovich written for the revival of the film for the 50th anniversary of the revolution.  This performance is significant because Meisel was an extremely important figure in the very early years of cinema, writing scores for several films, including Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and Arnold Fanck's The Holy Mountain and other works still being unearthed.   Hollywood most certainly didn't dominate early film and music, for early film was decidedly not "Hollywood".

Meisel was connected to experimental film makers like Walter Ruttman who created Lichtspiele, using the medium of film as if it were pliable, like painting, to create abstract works. Think Cubism as movie.  See clips of Ruttmann's early work here.   Ruttmann's Lichtspiele were Like music! . They were made in co-operation with Hanns Eisler, who wrote music to be played live as the films were screened.  So again, the concept of music combined with film before the technology to make sound movies was even possible.  Eisler's contribution to music and to film goes much further than agit prop.  Yet again, he's a reminder that there's more to cinema than Hollywood, even in Hollywood.

 Meisel also wrote the music for Ruttmann's Berlin : Symphony of a Great City one of the most important films of its era, still an icon.  Why a symphony of a Great City?  Early film makers thought in terms of music, often describing scnes as "acts" as if music drama.  Ruttmann's film isn't narrative, but literally a portrait of the city, filmed on the streets, real people, real events, lovingly observed. The raw shots were edited and ordered much in the way that the sounds of an orchestra are put together by a composer writing music.  The subject is the city itself, the drama the drama of urban life.   Ruttmann employed innovative techniques  like odd angles and perspectives, expanding the idea of visual expressiveneess.  

Berlin : Symphony of a Great City is more than a movie, it embodies the concepts of modernism in art, film and music. It's not a film in theusual sense of a narrative motion picture.  Multiple, diverse images are used like themes in music.  They're layered and juxtaposed
like musical ideas. The images are grouped in several main "movements"that as a whole follow a trajectory from morning to night. A snapshot of the life of the city. Please read my analysis of this wonderful work HERE, describing the structure and individual images some of which aren't readily obvious.

Early audiences were often more used to music than movies, and several early films unfold as "movements". The full title of Nosferatu is Nosferatu : eine synfonie des Grauens, "a symphony of horrors". But Berlin : Die Sinfonie der Grossstadt develops the idea on a grand scale. Because it's abstract, much more detail is possible, and thus more possibilties of interpretation Truly "modern" art.  

And of Eisenstein's October ? It, too, was innovative, inspired by the new Soviet Union's brief fascination with futurism before Stalinist conservatism froze the tundra of Russian creativity.  Kaput to the dreams of the revolution and ideas of new art !  Shostakovich's score is thrilling, but Meisel's connects more to the spirit of the era,

Like Ruttmann, Eisenstein uses film like painting, creating collages and images applied in  painterly ways.    A statue of the Tsar is seen outlined against the sky. It's torn down by diagonal ropes.  A crowd cheers, arms raised heavenwards. Scythes are seen, en masse. Close ups of soldiers faces, grinning, then suddenly, we're in an ornate palace, with elaborate mosaic floor tiles. Cut to angular shots of heavy machinery, to images of starving children dwarfed by huge columns of stone, to shots of a crowd waiting, at night for a train. "Ulyanov ! It's him !"

Diagonals fill the screen, shaking up flat, "natural" order.  Flags and banners wave, crowds march, individuals lost in orchestrated movement.  Gunshots are fired. Suddenly the tightly packed march disintegrates,figures running wildly across a huge city square.  Cannons, horses fallto the ground, crippled.  The gates of a huge bridge open, magnificent abstract lines : but a horse is impaled in the machinery; the modern age versus the past, in one horrific image. In a palace, the Provisionalgovernment  gathers. Officials walk up and down grand staircases, pre-dating the works of M C Escher.  Hurried footsteps, leading nowhere.When the words "For God and country" appear in subtitles, we see, notOrthodox depictions of God but alien Gods - primitive sculptures,Buddhas, Gods so primitive and atavistic that they can't be identified.Tanks arrive to crush the revolution. What we see are rolling tracks, machines of destruction  terrifying because they are impersonal.  Close ups of guns and individual bullets : the proletariat will fight back.

The bridge across the Neva is raised again,  but a ship- with fourimpressive funnels. We see sailors, and cadets marching, as the massive
gates of an imperial palace are pulled shut.  A  half naked woman cavorts on the billiard table of the Tsar.  What's going on ?  Through a
collage of images,   Eisenstein recreates the tension and uncertainitythat people must have felt in the upheaval.  This is cinematic techniqueas art, not unlike the fractured visuals of Cubist painting.

The Bolsheviks mobilize. Eisenstein shows images of hands operating telegraph machines, of armed men rushing up and down staircases, men with bayonets. swathed in smoke.  A ravaged looking woman looks up at a marble sculpture : without explicit dialogue, is Eisenstein suggesting the idea of redemption through the high ideals that art can symbolize ? Or something completely different ? Because the nature of art is notnecessarily specific, but the opening up of possibilities. Foir all we know, that's why Stalinists needed conservative "realism" where no-one needs to think.

The army declares for Bolshevism: a forest of bayonets. Wheels are turning, the machine surging ahead.  Machine gun clips fire, and
cannons, in such rapid sequence that the images hardly have time toregister.   Troops swarm into the palace, ascending the marble
staircases : we can "hear" the sound of their boots in short, sharp images.  The Revolution is won ! we see the faces of clocks mark the
moment, in Petrograd, in Moscow, around the world.

Revolution : Russian Art and Eisenstein

At the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the exhibition Revolution : Russian Art : 1917-1932 runs until 17th April.  "This far-ranging exhibition will – for the first time – survey the entire artistic landscape of post-Revolutionary Russia, encompassing Kandinsky’s boldly innovative compositions, the dynamic abstractions of Malevich and the Suprematists, and the emergence of Socialist Realism, which would come to define Communist art as the only style accepted by the regime."

"The Revolution That Changed Everything" - watch the RA Video on the website -it's short but good.  There will be discussions on the role of art under state control and weekend course on  the effects of revolution on Russian art.  The overthrow of the Tsar was just a beginning. Several revolutions were taking place all at once - political, social and artistic. For a moment, Russia was the vanguard of  progressive innovation.  Futurist ideas inspired new approaches to visual art, music, film and literature.  Lots of interesting issues arising. What is "the Art of The People" ?  What is propaganda and what isn't ?  Does it depend whose side you're on ? Most provocatively, who are "The People" ?


A good time to revisit Sergei Eisenstein's October : Ten Days that Shook the World (1927) reflecting on ten years of revolution.  Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the soundtrack for the re-issue of the film on the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The narrative is straightforward, told with broad brush directness. But whatb Eisenstein does with the story is turn it into a work of art.  A statue of the Tsar is seen outlined against the sky. It's torn down by diagonal ropes.  A crowd cheers, arms raised heavenwards. Scythes are seen, en masse. Close ups of soldiers faces, grinning, then suddenly, we're in an ornate palace, with elaborate mosaic floor tiles. Cut to angular shots of heavy machinery, to images of starving children dwarfed by huge columns of stone, to shots of a crowd waiting, at night for a train. "Ulyanov ! It's him !"

Diagonals fill the screen, shaking up flat, "natural" order.  Flags and banners wave, crowds march, individuals lost in orchestrated movement.  Gunshots are fired. Suddenly the tightly packed march disintegrates, figures running wildly across a huge city square.  Cannons, horses fall to the ground, crippled.  The gates of a huge bridge open, magnificent abstract lines : but a horse is impaled in the machinery.the modern age versus the past, in one horrific image. In a palace, the Provisional government  gathers. Officials walk up and down grand staircases, pre dating the works of M C Escher.  Hurried footsteps, leading nowhere. When the words "For God and country" appear in subtitles, we see, not Orthodox depictions of God but alien Gods - primitive sculptures, Buddhas, Gods so primitive and atavistic that they can't be identified. Tanks arrive to crush the revolution. What we see are rolling tracks, machines of destruction  terrifying because they are impersonal.  Close ups of guns and individual bullets : the proletariat will fight back.

The bridge across the Neva is raised again,  but a ship- with four, impressive funnels. We see sailors, and cadets marching, as the massive gates of an imperial palace are pulled shut.  A  half naked woman cavorts on the billiard table of the Tsar.  What's going on ?  Through a collage of images,   Eisenstein recreates the tension and uncertainity that people must have felt in the upheaval.  This is cinematic technique as art, not unlike the fractured visuals of Cubist painting.

The Bolsheviks mobilize. Eisenstein shows images of hands operating telegraph machines, of armed men rushing up and down staircases, men with bayonets. swathed in smoke.  A ravaged looking woman looks up at a marble sculpture : without explicit dialogue, is Eisenstein suggesting the idea of redemption through the high ideals that art can symbolize ?  Or something completely different ? Because the nature of art is not necessarily specific, but the opening up of possibilities. Foir all we know, that's why Stalinists needed conservative "realism". where no-one needs to think.

The army declares for Bolshevism: a forest of bayonets. Wheels are turning, the machine surging ahead.  Machine gun clips fire, and cannons, in such rapid sequence that the images hardly have time to register.   Troops swarm into the palace, ascending the marble staircases : we can "hear" the sound of their boots in short, sharp images.  The Revolution is won ! we see the faces of clocks mark the moment, in Petrograd, in Moscow, around the world.

Пир Ивана Грозного

Пир Ивана Грозного - the Dance of the Oprochniks from Sergei Eisensteins' Ivan The Terrible Part 2, music by Sergei Prokofiev. This is a crucial scene. The Tsar, long driven mad by conspiracies around him, is locked in a struggle with his aunt and the boyars. The Oprochniks are his personal henchmen "Tied to him by blood". But as Ivan says, so is his formidable aunt, whom he admires for whacking his men with her staff when they confronted her. The film is stark black and white, to heighten the extreme contrast, and evoke the Tsar's possibly schizoid paranoia. It also means sinister, creeping shadows, stark contrasts between the luxury of the court and ascetic monks. . Ivan slides snake like through maze like corridors, his beard pointing forward, his cloak leaving a wake of menace. Ludicrously stylized shots, but which have purpose : no one acts independently in this world til the director cries "Action" and the actors suddenly stiffen into pose, eyes dilated, hypnotized by fear. There's a masque about fiery angels whom Nebuchadnezzar of the Chaldees could not burn in his furnace. (a pun on Prokofiev's Fiery Angel?) God will prevail over evil rulers. Ivan knows there's a plot to assassinate him so he invites his cousin Vladimir to a party and gets him drunk. Suddenly the film turns into colour. Early technology means the film bleeds red, which is rather appropriate. The Oprochniks dance and sing. Note the "female" mask and outfit. Something terrible is about to happen.

Prom 21 Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky - full movie download

It's the 13th century and the Mongols are invading Europe from the east, and Teutonic Knights are invading Slav lands from the west. Novgorod is an idyllic city, open to the waters on one side, vast steppes behind. Clean, pure living. Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod, Man of the People, is out fishing with his people as a good Soviet hero should. This is the classic film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, for which Sergei Prokofiev wrote the music. At BBC Prom 21, Andris Nelsons (a Latvian) is conducting Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky Cantata.

This is one of Sergei Eisenstein's masterpieces, made in 1937.  Note date and place.  Despite Stalin's repressive anti-modernism, Eisenstein manages to create a modernist icon by playing along with Stalinists stereotypes. One of the glories of this film is the stylized design, totally in tune with western avant garde film at the time. The Soviets can't wipe the Church out of history, so Eisenstein neutralizes it by depicting it in stylized art deco. See the neatly dressed peasants and priests. Then the Teutonic Knights at Pskov, dehumanized aliens in bizarre helmets. Look at the bishop in black, among monks in white. Or the mad monk in black who plays a portable organ to remind us that Religion Is a Drug. (it's powered by monks with bellows).

Wonderful camera angles, long sweeping lines, even clearer in this film than in Battleship Potemkin. Panoramic scenes, shot from heights to maximize scale. Fabulously choreographed crowd scenes and battles. The Battle on the Ice is magnificent! This is propaganda elevated to High Art.