Sergei Eisenstein

Few individuals have made as much of an impact upon a single medium as has Sergei Eisenstein upon cinema. His ground-breaking movies, such as "Battleship Potemkin", "October and Aleksandr Nevskii" make regular appearances upon 'all-time best movie' lists, whilst classic sequences from these movies, such as the baby in the pram on the Odessa steps ("Battleship Potemkin"), and the battle on the ice ("Aleksandr Nevskii"), have entered the public consciousness and are referenced constantly by artists and film-makers alike, from Fellini to Hitchcock, to Godard, to Martin Scorsese. Sergei Eisenstein, a new addition to Reaktion's very well-received and successful 'Critical Lives' series, analyzes the complex life and works of Eisenstein as film-maker, artist, and writer.
Drawing heavily upon Eisenstein's extensive writings, both published and unpublished, Mike O'Mahony explores the major pathways and stages within his career. Unlike previous studies the author evaluates the life and work against the context of the social and historical circumstances of the first three decades of Soviet rule.
He considers the director's major film releases alongside his other works, including his uncompleted film projects and his copious writings and drawings, to bring to light the singular personality of the subject and the unique circumstances in which his work was produced and received. A wide-ranging, deeply-researched and yet accessible account of a key figure in twentieth-century film, this book will appeal to the wide audience for film history.