Sergei Eisenstein
谢尔盖·爱森斯坦
Soviet director and film theorist, 1898–1948. He put his arguments about the collision of shots into practice in Battleship Potemkin and other films, and wrote extensively on theory. A project shot in Mexico in the 1930s was never completed, and his later work was subject to official interference.
Career
Eisenstein trained as an engineer, did propaganda work with the Red Army during the civil war, moved into theatre, and began directing films in 1924. Battleship Potemkin was made for the twentieth anniversary of the 1905 revolution and finished in 1925. He wrote and taught alongside directing, joining the state film school in the 1930s; his essays on montage were widely translated.
From 1929 to 1932 he travelled in Europe, Hollywood and Mexico, where the backers took possession of the footage and the film was never completed. Bezhin Meadow was stopped in production after his return. Alexander Nevsky and the first part of Ivan the Terrible won Stalin Prizes; the second part was banned and not released until 1958, ten years after his death.
