Sergei Eisenstein was a Soviet Film director and film theorist. He was born January 22, 1898, in Riga in the Governorate of Livonia in the Russian Empire. He was famous for his silent films in the early part of his career and is also considered a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. Eisenstein died from a heart attack in Moscow on February 11, 1948. Here are five of the top films of Sergei Eisenstein’s career.
1. Strike
‘Strike’ was a silent movie that was made in the Soviet Union by Eisenstein in 1925. It was his debut full-length feature film and was acted by the Proietcult Theatre. The film was composed of six parts. Between completing production of this film and its release, Eisenstein wrote an influential essay titled ‘Montage of Attractions’. The film is set in 1903 and is about factory workers in pre-revolutionary Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laJ_1P-Py2k
2. Battleship Potemkin
Eisenstein made ‘Battleship Potemkin’ in the same year as ‘Strike’. This is also a silent film that was made in the Soviet Union and it was produced by Mosfilm. The film starred Aleksandra Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, and Grigori Aleksandrov. It is a dramatized version of the 1905 mutiny which involved the crew of Potemkin, a Russian battleship, rebelling against their officers. In 1958, the Brussels World Fair named this film the greatest film of all-time.
3. October
The full name of this film is ‘October: Ten Days That Shook the World’, but it is usually simply referred to as ‘October’, as this is what the film was initially called when it was released in the Soviet Union. Eisenstein co-wrote and co-directed this 1929 silent film with Grigori Aleksandrov. The film is a celebratory dramatization of the October Revolution of 1917. This film was commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of this event. It starred Vladimir Popov, Vasili Nikandrov, and Layaschenko. This silent film was part of Eisenstein’s development of his theories relating to film structure and it used the concept of intellectual montage.
4. Alexander Nevsky
Eisenstein co-directed this epic historical drama with Demitri Vasiliyev in 1938. It starred Nikolai Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, and Andrei Abrikosov. The film is about how Prince Alexander, known as Alexander Nevsky, defeated the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire in the 13th century attempted invasion of Novgorod.
5. Ivan the Terrible
Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin commissioned Sergei Eisenstein to write and direct this film as he identified himself with Ivan IV of Russia, who this film is about. The film starred Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, and Mikhail Nazvanov. This is a two-part film and the first part was released in 144. There was a delay in releasing the second part as this was not released until 1958 as Stalin had banned its release. A third part of the story was intended, but filming stopped after the banning of the second part. What had been completed for the first part was destroyed following Eisenstein’s death in 1948.
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