Sergei Eisenstein in the Classical Tradition

Winkler, Martin M.

Cambridge University Press（2026/09発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 448 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781009761772

Full Description

This is the first study of Sergei Eisenstein's relationship to classical antiquity. Eisenstein regarded the cinema as a Gesamtkunstwerk and considered the ancient Greeks among its ancestors. He detected what he called "cinematism" in Homer, the Laocoon sculpture group, the Acropolis, and elsewhere. The book interprets Eisenstein's chief concept, montage, as a visual analogy to clever juxtapositions in Roman poetry and examines his conflicts with Stalin and the Communist Party over Bezhin Meadow and Ivan the Terrible alongside the classical rhetorical strategy of formidable speaking in the face of absolute power and the Russian practice of Aesopian language. Eisenstein also influenced the design of the New Acropolis Museum via an essay about the Acropolis' architectural promenade and his epic Alexander Nevsky. The cinematism of the Parthenon Frieze, American cinema architecture modeled on the Parthenon, and Eisenstein's image of the cinema as a temple reinforce his importance within the classical tradition.

Contents

Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Dedication; Prolegomena; 1. Cinema and classical antiquity according to Eisenstein; 2. Laocoon: from Lessing to Eisenstein; 3. Montage as callida iunctura; 4. Eisenstein's lion: cultural and cinematic contexts; 5. Word power before absolute power; 6. Acropolis and Parthenon: architecture, Eisenstein, cinema; Epilegomena; Bibliography: 1. Works by Eisenstein; 2. General; Chapter Index.