Talk:Sergei Eisenstein

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[edit] No subject

Comment for the Ivan the Terrible films articles when written:

Apart from the last scene of Ivan part II no character looks directly at camera, and very few blink.

The colour scenes for Ivan part II were made with film captured from the Germans.

At least one clip from Ivan part III survived: it was shown at a screening of the two extant Ivan films at the Barbican, London, a number of years ago.

[edit] Could use sections

Can this article be subdivided?

Dvyost 19:27, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC):

Probably, but it needs to be finished first. Bulk of material is on Que Viva Mexico episode of his life, and some on montage theory; very little early life history (have heard he fought in the Revolution), no details on theatrical work or early filmmaking, almost nothing on Ivan, no personal information (I have heard he was married, e.g.).
Good point. Since I'm in no way qualified to do this, I'll add a cleanup tag.
An editor added Eisenstein to the List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people saying that he was bisexual. Since there's no further info about it here or there, it will be removed by the terms of that article's criteria. But reading over the biography I'd suppose that this guy must have had an interesting private life. Cheers, -Willmcw 10:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Eisenstein was married twice in response to political pressure, but his marriages were never consummated. His unexpurgated diaries, published in 1984 as "Immoral Memories," are filled with accounts of his infatuations with many young men, including his assistant, Grigori Alexandrov.


Mexico was NOT a 'right wing' dictatorship in the 1930s!

[edit] Mexico Picture

I added the discussion on the amount of film Eisenstein shot for the Mexico picture.

As a personal aside, I have to say I was shocked at how little he filmed over all that time. That Sol Lesser was able to extract a feature—let alone two features and a short, as he in fact did—is remarkable.

The idea that Eisenstein had, of making a six-part feature, is absurd. Unless he had been willing to use every scrap of film, no matter how awful the performances and the technical aspects of the material, there is simply no way he could have pulled it off—the only metaphor I can think of is squeezing water from a vacuum: You can't get what isn't there.

Looking at Eisenstein's bio more carefully, he's not the silent-film hero I thought he was. --TallulahBelle 15:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Imbalanced Article

This article places way too much emphasis on the period Eisenstein spent in Mexico and way too little on his first Soviet period. I've tried to correct this a bit by cutting back on the Mexico section, but more needs to be done. Jeremy Butler 12:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the solution lies in the exorcising of information. Perhaps adding more to his Soviet period would be better. Rainer Werner 14:48 1 October 2006 (UTC)

A separate article should be made for the film ¡Que Viva Mexico! and the other films derived from it (e.g. Thunder Over Mexico) which would help balance the biographical nature of the article. kosboot 00:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

YEs, there is waaayyyyy too much coverage of the mexican debacle compared to his notable and productive period. It really reads more like gossip than and encyclopedia entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.154.65.131 (talk) 06:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I started the ¡Qué viva México! article based on what was written here, so we can sift more of it from this article. dvdrw 01:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Origin

Out of curiosity, why has Eisenstein's origin been twice changed to indicate that Eisenstein was born Jewish? Biographies do not indicate this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.171.180.126 (talk) 20:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About Mexico's politics in the early 30's

As an unsigned anon mentioned earlier, Mexico was not a "right-wind dictatorship". In the time frame of Eisenstein travel trough Mexico (1930-1932, as I infer from the article), the country had (as it still does) a presidential system as a result of the 1917 constitution. During that period of time, there were two president: Emilio Portes Gil and Pascual Ortiz Rubio, and they weren't neither dictators or right-winded. The first one even went as far as founding a socialist party in Mexico, and the second one was from the National Revolutionary Party, that was populated with remaining leaders and participants from the 1910 Revolution. Because of this reasons, I will edit the article to remove the factual error. --Legion fi (talk) 02:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What about Eisenstein's gay preferences?

Eistenstein was a gay man, whose two marriages were marriages of convenience; the trunk full of pornography seized by the Soviet customs authorities was male pornography and created severe problems for the director. There is a lot of useful information in the article, but absolutely the gay aspect needs to be brought in order to make this a more complete entry. A good starting place for more information is: http://gayfortoday.blogspot.com/search?q=sergei+eisenstein

Tjfloyddc 17:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Blogs are not generally considered as reliable sources see WP:SPS. But my wife (who has studied Eisenstein's history considerably) confirms what you say, but she has no time to spend on wikipedia. If I can find the time I will try to read some of her books and add them as sources. --Triwbe (talk) 08:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Any solid non-blog sources for this? I followed this a bit when gathering sources for Bezhin Meadow but found nothing concrete beyond a couple of comments referring to Eisenstein having said he wasn't gay. Lawrence § t/e 23:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's a review of one of the newer biographies: http://www.johnrechy.com/so_eisen.htm. Apparently the book seeks to throw "light on his homosexuality," but in the reviewer's opinion he offers more speculation than facts. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggested using the blog as a starting point, not as a final reference (even though Gay for Today is a top-notch blog). I'm glad that everyone agrees that continued exploration of this is worthwhile. I tried finding something on authoritative online. A quick search turned up this amusing tidbit on Carlton College's website: "After the February 1917 Revolution, he [Eisenstein] sold his first political cartoons, signed Sir Gay". More apropos is a (blog-like) entry on the Middlebury College website, which references Karlinsky's writing as well as an essay by Thomas Waugh, "A Fag Spotter's Guide to Eisenstein" in the July/August 1977 issue of Body Politic. URL: http://community.middlebury.edu/~moss/RGC1.html Tjfloyddc 04:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

This is just irrelevant, his contributions to gay studies are minimal or none. After reading the books listed on the article page for the last few months to add inline cites, I've seen one or two sentences about this among thousands of pages. Moreover, those very few mentions of homosexuality were in a speculative tone, and to include them in this article would seem to me to be OR. In the case of including them stating them clearly as conjecture, the issue would then be to consider the weight of these claims among the vast amount of information and literature on Eisenstein. There is so much to possibly include, this is just un substantiable and of little consequence. The article is already lacking with respect to his early revolutionary work and his later historical epics. I'm removing the Wikiproject:LGBT Studies banner from this talk page since it is too prominently placed here compared to the content- that and the Wikiproject:Religion banner. Both of these banners were "tagged" by bots and aren't relevant. dvdrw 04:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I was wondering if anyone thought (like me) that the lead image should be replaced. It seems to me to be too grim, with the subject of the sugar skull too anecdotal, and it is also already the cover of a book.[1] A replacement I have in mind which is floating around the internet but I can't find source info on but I'm pretty sure is {{PD-Russia}}, shows him at work with film,[2] if anyone wants to upload it. I would be happy with one we already have.[3] If we ever start a theory section, which seems to be developing, this would be my pick to illustrate it.[4] dvdrw 23:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I kind of like Image:Sergei Eisenstein portrait1.jpg best. Lawrence § t/e 23:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism?

Vast swathes of this article would appear to be plagiarized from http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=150906220. It is possible that the material on that page is taken from this one, but I doubt it. It is also possible (in fact, more likely) that that page is in turn plagiarized from material elsewhere. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 12:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'm beginning to think that it is this page that has been plagiarized by that other one, rather than vice versa. But I'm not sure. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
These edits from May/June/July 2005[5] show when most of the text of this article was added. I've been trying to source it over the last two months or so and hadn't seen the myspace page that you found, which isn't dated to compare. Here is some evidence that it was probably copied from us, from the myspace page, §DEPARTURE FROM MEXICO, 3rd ¶, "Finally, in mid-1932, the Sinclairs were able to secure the services of [[Sol Lesser], who had just opened his own distribution office in New York, Principal Distributing Corp.." Notice "[[Sol Lesser]," has traces of wikilink markup "[[]" around it.dvdrw 20:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm convinced now that whoever made those myspace director pages is copying blatantly from Wikipedia and other online sources. Compare F. W. Murnau with this [6]. In other instances, they are copying Wikipedia pages and partially acknowledging that fact in their "blog."(sorry blacklisted link not included) Furthermore, most of their articles are lifted from Wikipedia, Senses of Cinema, and IMDB, even though in they acknowledge that in most cases. Their Eisenstein article is an exception, and I believe it is directly cut and pasted from a version of this article that lasted until March this year.[7]dvdrw 21:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
OK. I was beginning to think that, too. Glad you've figured it out! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)