Table Of ContentMONTAGE EISENSTEIN
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THEORIES OF REPRESENTATION AND DIFFERENCE
General Editor: Teresa de Lauretis
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- llln- I II •
MONTAGE
EISENSTEIN
Jacques :bumont
TRANSLATED ev--
Lee Hildreth,
Constance Penley, and
Andrew Ross
- BF! Publishing, London
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington and Indianapolis
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First published in the United States of America by
Indiana University Press
10th and Morton Streets
Bloomington, Indiana
and
Published in Great Britain by
The British Film Institute
127 Charing Cross Road
London WC2H OEA
Copyright o 1979 Editions Albatros
Copyright o 1987 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher. The Association of American University
Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this
prohibition.
Manufactured in the United States of America
This translation was made possible by a publication subvention grant from
the Research Board of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aumont, J. (Jacques)
Montage Eisenstein.
Translation of: Montage Eisenstein.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Eisenstein, Sergei, 1898-1948. I. Title.
PN I 998.A3E5334 I 3 1985 791.43'0233'0924 85-45074
ISBN 0-253-33874-3
ISBN 0-253-20366-X (pbk.)
1 2 3 4 5 90 89 88 87
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Aumont, Jacques
Montage Eisenstein.
I. Elzenshtein, Sergei
I. Title
791.43'0233'0924 PN l 998.A3ES/
ISBN 0-85170-187-6 (pbk.)
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. , CONTENTS
Preface ••
Vll
- ] -
Notes Towards a Biography 1
- 2 -
Eisensteinian Concepts 26
- 3 -
Eisenstein Taken at His Word 73
- 4 -
Montage in Question 145
Notes 200
Bibliography 223
Index 236
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To Bertrand Augst
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PREFACE
Appearances to the contrary, writing on Eisenstein is not an easy
task. No other film director has been studied so exhaustively. Dozens
of books have been devoted to almost every conceivable aspect of the
Eisenstein "case," and few other filmmakers have achieved anything
like the same kind of notoriety both during their lifetime and after.
Indeed, there is no one else in film history who has so intricately
combined filmmaking, film teaching, and film theorizing; no other
director has written as much, has commented on his own work at such
length, or has so obviously thought of himself as an aesthetician, a
journalist, a philosopher, a semiotician, and a draughtsman (even if
others have exhibited the same penchant for "mastery").
Far from facilitating the critic's task, this array of knowledge pre
sents him or her with an awesome burden-the cloying impression that
everything has already been said. While I certainly cannot claim to
•h ave read all that has been written in every language on "the greatest
filmmaker of all time," I am acquainted with practically all the books
of any importance-and a significant number of articles-on Eisenstein
in English, French, German, Italian, and Russian, and I hope I will
not sound too immodest if I say that this book is indebted to none of
them. In fact, what I found in most, even the better ones, tended to
obscure rather than illuminate my understanding of Eisenstein's work.
Indeed, all these books and articles are more or less subtle illustrations
of a given thesis about Eisenstein: to Marxist critics, Eisenstein can
only be seen as the epitome of dialectical materialism as applied to
film and film theory; to Bazinians, he is the malignant architect of a
conception of cinema as montage which shatters the reflected order of
a transparent world; to his established biographers, he is the true Leo
nardo of the twentieth century (pathologies and all); to film historians,
he is a forbidding monument that cannot, however, be ignored. To
each of them, he is a myth.
I wrote this book between 1976 and 1978, at a time when I was
actively engaged in translating and editing Eisenstein's writings which
had been discovered (o r, in part, rediscovered) some five to ten years
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before. The more I familiarized myself with these writings (or, rather,
the more I immersed myself in them), the more certain I grew that
the Eisensteinian myth, like all myths, was a grave misrepresentation
of the originality of Eisenstein's figure as a thinker. For I remain con
vinced that, in spite of the obvious aporias of his work, he is one of
the great philosophers of art of our century.
Within its limitations (if only of size), this book attempts therefore
to renovate the literature on Eisenstein in at least two respects. First,
I have striven to be as thorough as possible in my knowledge of Ei
senstein's work, notably his written and theoretical work; as far as I
know, this is the first (and to date, still the only) book that is informed
by a reading of all the available writings of Eisenstein: namely the six
volumes of Collected Works published in Moscow in 1965-70, plus a
few articles here and there. If I were to rewrite it now, I would, of
course, have to take into consideration a few important texts that have
been exhumed since 1978, most notably the major collection published
(in French translation only) under the title Cinematisme: a collection
that is highly representative oft he art essayist in Eisenstein, and which,
if it had been available to me then, would undoubtedly have helped
to improve the balance of this book.
Second, I have tried to engage one of the main difficulties in deal
ing with Eisenstein, namely the extreme diversity ofh is work, his many
different interests and talents, and above all, the ceaseless transfor
mation of his conceptual system: in short, everything that might lead
(and has often led) to the legitimate conclusion that there are several
Eisensteins. One of the most basic assumptions of this book is that it
is impossible to describe and evaluate Eisenstein's achievements-both
in the domain of filmmaking and of theory-without taking into con
sideration the imbrication of his life (itself mediated by his autobio
graphical texts) with his cinematic production (including the innu
merable unrealized projects, scripts, his drawings, his writings) and
the less tangible space where theoretical production and elaboration
takes place. Aside from a regrettable neglect of Eisenstein's drawings
(which would deserve a study in its own right), the very structure of
this book demonstrates, I hope, my concern for the complexities and
the idiosyncrasies of the Eisensteinian opus.
My research began as a doctoral dissertation on "The Evolution
of the Eisensteinian Concept of Montage," and so Eisenstein the theo
retician remains central to the finished book. However, one of the
results of my research was the recognition that there is no unitary
"concept of montage" that comes to theoretical fruition over the course
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Preface ,x
of his career-at least, not in the limited, rationally defined, and con
stant form by which one could characterize a true concept. Neverthe
less, the principle of montage plays a crucial part in his writing as well
as in his films, and occupies a central place in his philosophical and
aesthetic system. Accordingly, I did not feel that I could expound my
thesis without first probing and testing its consistency; that is why this
book concludes with a chapter on montage, while the two preceding
chapters attempt respectively to analyze the work of montage in Ei
senstein's films (in two very different film sequences), and to describe
the status of montage in the overall theoretical system elaborated by
him (of which I have tried to provide a sketchy account). Finally, I
had to account for the fact that Eisenstein's career as a filmmaker and
as a thinker is absolutely inseparable from biographical (political, psy
chological) determinations: hence a first chapter that is entirely devoted
to a few fragmentary reflections on Eisenstein's "character."
Written in deliberate intellectual isolation, this book, like any other,
is a particular product of a personal history. Unlike most intellectuals
of my generation, I discovered cinema rather late in life, and the period
of this discovery was the true origin of this book. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that I owe most of its inspiration-not so much
the knowledge as the passion-to my friends in Cahiers du cinema
around 1970; daily screenings and discussions were our unchanging
diet, and I benefited more than words could say from years of work
and friendship with Pierre Baudry, Pascal Bonitzer, Jean-Louis Com
olli, Serge Daney, Pascal Kane, Jean Narboni, Bernard Eisenschitz,
Jean-Pierre Oudart, Jacques Rivette, not to forget Sylvie Pierre, who
was absolutely quintessential to my education in film.
During the later period of actual research and writing, help and
encouragement came from other friends, colleagues, and students; I
have been greatly stimulated by the cordial support of Michel Marie,
Dominique Noguez, and Peter Schofer; Raymond Bellour was officially
my advisor, but his role has been far more vital, intellectually and
psychologically, than this official title indicates; with characteristic gen
erosity, Christian Metz did much to hasten and facilitate the original
publication of this book.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the enormous debt I owe to
Anne Faisandier for help, comfort, and the example she set.
Among my American colleagues, I owe special thanks to Rick
Altman, Dudley Andrew, David Bordwell, Edwin Jahiel, Constance
Penley, and Kristin Thompson, not only for what they did, directly
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and indirectly, to facilitate the publication of this translation, but also
for the pleasure of their continued friendship.
In preparing this English edition, Lee Hildreth, Constance Penley,
and Andrew Ross have been ideal translators; indeed, they have man
aged to substantially improve the book's style, without ever betraying
its impulse.
Lee Hildreth's translation of Part II of "Eisenstein Taken at His
Word" and "Eisensteinian Concepts" appeared originally in Discourse.
I am grateful to the editors for allowing it to be reprinted here.
I did not need to think twice about the dedication of this English
version of my book: to anyone who knows Bertrand Augst, it will
.
come as no surpnse.
Paris, April 1985
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