In Focus: Eisenstein and His Contemporaries
In Focus: Eisenstein and His Contemporaries
January 17–May 2, 2018
Explore the work of celebrated Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in the context of his times with screenings and lectures by Eisenstein expert Anne Nesbet.
Read full description-
October
-
Battleship Potemkin
-
The General Line
-
Earth
-
Bed and Sofa
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
A Life for a Life
Evgenii Bauer
Russia, 1916Wednesday, January 17 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Bruce Loeb on PianoView DetailsA wealthy matriarch juggles her two daughters (one adopted) against a merchant and a dashing prince in this chamber melodrama from one of silent Russian cinema’s great stylists, Evgenii Bauer.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
Lev Kuleshov
USSR, 1924Wednesday, January 24 3:10 PMLecture by Anne NesbetView DetailsA fearful American and his cowboy bodyguard find themselves in over their heads in Soviet Russia in Lev Kuleshov’s frantic, absurdist comedy. With Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda No. 21.
Strike
Sergei Eisenstein
USSR, 1925BAMPFA Collection Print / BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!
Wednesday, January 31 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsA strike by a group of factory workers and its brutal suppression form the backbone of Eisenstein’s agitprop masterpiece of ferocious montage. With short Glumov’s Diary.
Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein
USSR, 1925BAMPFA Collection
Wednesday, February 7 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Discussion with Peter Bagrov; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsEisenstein’s classic can be appreciated for “not only the perfection of its form, but the humanitarianism and enthusiasm that impregnated its revolutionary subject” (Georges Sadoul).
Out of the Vault: Sergei Eisenstein and His Contemporaries
JUST ADDED!
Friday, February 9 1:30 PMView DetailsA panel of visiting scholars—all experts in the field of early Russian and Soviet cinema—joins Moscow-based scholar and archivist Peter Bagrov for this program of rare shorts and excerpts from the BAMPFA Soviet Cinema Collection.
The New Babylon
Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg
USSR, 1929BAMPFA Collection
Wednesday, February 14 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Discussion with Peter BagrovView DetailsOriginally banned for its excess and aestheticism, and inspired by Impressionists like Monet and Degas, this visually magnificent avant-garde extravaganza tracks a shopgirl and a soldier in the 1871 Paris Commune.
The End of St. Petersburg
Vsevolod Pudovkin
USSR, 1927Archival Print
Wednesday, February 21 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsAn exploited peasant suffers through the horrors of war and capital before awakening to the possibility of revolution in Vsevolod Pudovkin’s epic made to mark the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. With clips from Esfir Shub’s The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty.
October
Sergei Eisenstein
USSR, 1928Digital Restoration
Wednesday, February 28 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsMade to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, October fictionally recreates the revolution’s power and fury: so well, in fact, that some of its scenes have been reused in documentaries as the “real thing.”
Bed and Sofa
Abram Room
USSR, 1927Digital Restoration
Wednesday, March 7 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsAn army veteran moves in with his old buddy and his wife in a crowded Moscow flat—with predictably disastrous results—in this daring early Soviet film.
The General Line
Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov
USSR, 1929BAMPFA Collection
Wednesday, March 14 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsEisenstein’s “Russian Gothic” tells of a peasant woman’s struggle against superstition, hostility, and greed in her attempt to form a collective.
Earth
Alexander Dovzhenko
USSR, 1930BAMPFA Collection
Wednesday, March 21 3:10 PMLecture by Anne Nesbet; Judith Rosenberg on PianoView DetailsUkrainian villagers take on their rich overlords in order to collectivize in this startlingly poetic work from the legendary Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko.
Que Viva Mexico!
Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov
USSR, 1931/1979Wednesday, April 4 3:10 PMLecture by Anne NesbetView DetailsSee Mexico through Eisenstein’s eyes in this compilation of footage shot in 1931, intended for an epic hybrid of documentary and fiction that the director never finished. With short Bezhin Meadow.
Alexander Nevsky
Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitri Vasiliev
USSR, 1938BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!
Wednesday, April 11 3:10 PMLecture by Anne NesbetView DetailsEisenstein’s first completed sound film has a score by Sergei Prokofiev to propel its tale of a thirteenth-century hero confronting foreign invaders.
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Sergei Eisenstein
USSR, 1944Wednesday, April 18 3:10 PMLecture by Anne NesbetView DetailsIn sixteenth-century Moscow, the newly crowned Czar Ivan battles both the nobility and the church in an effort to unify Russia. Scored by Sergei Prokofiev, Eisenstein’s painterly film is like a fresco come to life.
Ivan the Terrible, Part II
Sergei Eisenstein
USSR, 1946/1958Wednesday, April 25 3:10 PMLecture by Anne NesbetView DetailsThe second part of Eisenstein’s unfinished trilogy follows Ivan’s return to the throne and his ruthless opposition to the schemes of the nobility to keep Russia divided among its princes and foreign interests.
Wings of a Serf
Yuri Tarich
USSR, 1926BAMPFA collection print
Wednesday, May 2 3:10 PMView DetailsDirected by the Belarusian Yuri Tarich, this extraordinary 1926 Soviet silent film set in the sixteenth century was influential in the direction of Eisenstein’s two-part Ivan the Terrible (1944-46).