50 Fun Facts About Sergei Eisenstein

In which city, then part of the Russian Empire, was Sergei Eisenstein born in 1898?

His father was an architect; the family later moved to Saint Petersburg in the year of the 1905 Revolution.

Eisenstein is considered a pioneer of which theory and practice of film editing?

He believed the 'collision' of two independent shots could create meaning and manipulate the audience's emotions.

The mutiny dramatised in Battleship Potemkin took place in which year?

The film was commissioned for the 20th anniversary of that first Russian revolution and premiered at the Bolshoi in December 1925.

What sets off the mutiny aboard the Potemkin in the film?

The ship's doctor insists the maggots are merely insects that can be washed off, and the crew refuse the borscht.

Battleship Potemkin's most famous sequence, endlessly imitated, shows Cossacks firing on a crowd where?

Cossacks march down the steps firing into the crowd; the real staircase in Odesa now bears the film's name.

Which of these films pays homage to Potemkin's staircase massacre with its own runaway pram?

Terry Gilliam's Brazil and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith are also listed among the tributes.

Why did Eisenstein hand-tint the mutineers' flag red in 108 frames of Battleship Potemkin?

Orthochromatic stock rendered red as black, so a white flag was used and coloured by hand for the premiere.

Until which year was Battleship Potemkin banned in the United Kingdom for its revolutionary zeal?

It was then X-rated until 1987; France and Japan also banned it, and Germany cut the violence.

At which 1958 event was Battleship Potemkin named the greatest film of all time?

Whose written introduction was cut from Soviet prints after he fell out with Stalin? Trotsky's.

Which sailor's body is displayed in a tent in Odessa with a sign reading 'For a spoonful of borscht'?

He led the uprising and was killed as the sailors overwhelmed their officers.

What was Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, released in 1925?

It began as one entry in a proposed seven-part series called 'Towards Dictatorship of the Proletariat'.

The climax of Eisenstein's first feature cross-cuts the crushing of the workers with footage of what?

Animal metaphors run through the film, with police spies given the identities of beasts.

October: Ten Days That Shook the World was commissioned to mark which anniversary of the 1917 revolution?

Its international title came from John Reed's 1919 book, and it earned Eisenstein a roasting from Soviet critics for formalism.

Which experimental Soviet artistic institution did Eisenstein work for when he began his career in Moscow theatre in 1920?

He also worked as a designer for Vsevolod Meyerhold and wrote his first theoretical article for the journal LEF in 1923.

Which Japanese theatrical form, encountered while stationed in Minsk, did Eisenstein cite as an influence on his pictorial development?

He also studied Japanese and learned some 300 kanji characters.

What did Eisenstein study in Petrograd before joining the Red Army in 1918?

It was his father's profession; his father backed the anti-Bolshevik side and ended up in Germany.

How much was Eisenstein's short-term 1930 contract with Paramount Pictures worth?

He proposed a Basil Zaharoff biopic, Shaw's Arms and the Man and Sutter's Gold before Paramount suggested a Dreiser adaptation.

Which Theodore Dreiser novel did Eisenstein script for Paramount, only for the studio to reject it?

An anti-communist campaign by Major Pease helped end the contract 'by mutual consent' in October 1930.

Which American socialist author bankrolled Eisenstein's Mexican film through the 'Mexican Film Trust'?

Charlie Chaplin had recommended the meeting; the contract stipulated a 'non-political' film shot in three to four months.

What was the title of Eisenstein's unfinished Mexican project?

Sol Lesser later cut Thunder Over Mexico and Death Day from the footage; Eisenstein never saw them.

Which two Mexican artists did Eisenstein mix with socially, inspiring him to call his films 'moving frescoes'?

He had secured 500 soldiers, 10,000 guns and 50 cannons from the Mexican Army for the never-shot Soldadera episode.

Who sent the film's American backer a telegram worrying that Eisenstein had become a 'deserter' during the Mexican shoot?

Sinclair shut down production, and US customs then found pornographic sketches in the trunk of his brother-in-law.

Which suppressed 1937 Eisenstein film, long thought destroyed, was based on the story of the boy 'martyr' Pavlik Morozov?

Its title comes from a Turgenev story; Eisenstein publicly recanted the film as an error after the government halted it.

Which head of the Soviet film industry halted the Pavlik Morozov film, and was later denounced, tried and shot in 1938?

Stalin decided the fiasco was the fault of the executives supervising Eisenstein rather than the director himself.

Which 1938 film, an allegory warning against Nazi Germany, was Eisenstein's first sound film?

It was started, finished and distributed within a single year and won him the Order of Lenin and the Stalin Prize.

Which composer wrote the scores for Eisenstein's sound films of 1938 and the 1940s?

Eisenstein repaid him by designing sets for his opera War and Peace while both were evacuated to Alma-Ata.

Which invaders does the prince defeat in the 1938 film's climactic Battle of the Ice?

They had taken Pskov with help from the traitor Tverdilo and were marching on Novgorod.

Which actor played the title roles in both of Eisenstein's historical epics of 1938 and 1945?

He was 39 when cast as Ivan and played the tsar from the ages of 17 to 53.

To which Central Asian city was Eisenstein evacuated in 1941, where he first conceived Ivan the Terrible?

Most of the film was shot there in black and white; the colour scenes were filmed in Moscow.

Who commissioned Ivan the Terrible in January 1941, intending the tsar to be shown in a positive light?

Stalin admired Ivan as a 'great and wise' ruler and wanted parallels drawn between them.

In which year was Ivan the Terrible, Part II finally released, after being shelved by the authorities?

Mosfilm first screened it to a panel of historians who agreed it 'could not discredit Soviet art, ideology, or aims'.

What happened to the footage of Ivan the Terrible, Part III?

Only a few filmed scenes survive; Eisenstein had considered an ending in which the aged tsar dies alone after murdering his son.

What was the subtitle of Ivan the Terrible, Part II?

Submitted in February 1946, it was expected to 'exonerate Ivan the Terrible' and instead drew heavy Central Committee criticism.

According to one account, how did Eisenstein reply when asked why his blood-soaked tsar was repenting?

He added: 'Let him see this and perhaps he'll repent.'

Which cinematographer shot every Eisenstein feature from 1924 and accompanied him to Hollywood and Mexico?

For Ivan the Terrible Eisenstein switched to Andrei Moskvin because he wanted a different look.

Which perennial collaborator co-directed October with Eisenstein and released his own version of the Mexican footage in 1978?

His 1978 cut won an Honorable Golden Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival despite breaching the copyright.

Which of these is NOT one of the five editing 'methods' Eisenstein set out in his theoretical writings?

The five were metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal and intellectual, laid out in books such as Film Form and The Film Sense.

Whose film school did Eisenstein briefly attend, sharing a fascination with editing but disagreeing that it worked by 'linkage'?

Eisenstein argued instead for the 'collision' of shots, from which a new idea would spring.

Which Wagner opera was Eisenstein assigned to direct at the Bolshoi Theatre after his 1938 comeback?

After Germany invaded in 1941, his 1938 anti-German epic was re-released to wide distribution and international success.

Which pioneering female filmmaker's 1906 comedy The Consequences of Feminism influenced Eisenstein as a child?

He was raised Orthodox Christian but later became an atheist.

Whom did Eisenstein marry seven months after homosexuality was recriminalised in the USSR?

Almost all his contemporaries believed he was gay, though he denied it to his biographer Marie Seton.

At what age did Eisenstein die of a second heart attack in February 1948?

His ashes are buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.

Which Balzac novel did Eisenstein use as the basis for exercises with his directing students at VGIK?

Another classroom scenario staged the Haitian struggle for independence from Vinogradov's The Black Consul.

How many steps does the Potemkin Stairs have after eight were buried by port works?

The staircase runs 142 metres and widens from 12.5 metres at the top to 21.7 at the bottom, creating an illusion of greater length.

What was the profession of Eisenstein's father Mikhail, which Sergei initially trained to follow?

Sergei studied architecture and engineering in Petrograd before leaving for the Red Army in 1918, while his father backed the other side in the Civil War.

Which Hollywood star steered Eisenstein toward Upton Sinclair after Paramount dropped him?

Sinclair's books were widely read in the USSR, and within weeks he had secured Eisenstein permission to travel to Mexico.

Where in Moscow were Eisenstein's ashes buried after his death in 1948?

His body lay in state in the Hall of the Cinema Workers before cremation two days after he died.

Which documentary pioneer was first hired as instructor on Eisenstein's 1923 debut, Glumov's Diary?

The short was made for the Proletkult theatre production Wise Man, the same year Eisenstein published his first theoretical essay.

Eisenstein's first essay, 'The Montage of Attractions' (1923), appeared in which art journal?

LEF was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts, the avant-garde circle around Mayakovsky.

Eisenstein's most developed Paramount pitch was a film of Sutter's Gold, a novel by which writer?

He also floated a Basil Zaharoff biopic and Shaw's Arms and the Man, but none of the ideas impressed the studio's producers.