Writings, 1934-1947: v. 3

I.B.Tauris is delighted to announce the reissue in paperback in three volumes of the definitive, most comprehensive edition, in the finest translations and fully annotated, of the writings of this great filmmaker, theorist and teacher of film – and one of the most original aesthetic thinkers of the twentieth century. Volume 3 follows on from the 1922-34 writings of Volume 1 and parallels Volume 2’s essays on the theory of montage. In the period covered by this volume, Eisenstein’s film-making ran into the difficulties generated by the Soviet authorities’ increasingly restrictive definition of Socialist Realism, by the show trials and the purges, the Second World War, and the post-war proclamation of rigid cultural orthodoxy by Stalin’s henchman, Zhdanov. Here we experience Eisenstein’s reaction to this hostile environment, as filmmaker, theorist and teacher, from his public obeisance over ‘Bezhin Meadow’ to his private defiance with ‘Ivan the Terrible’.

Author Biography

Richard Taylor is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Russian Studies at Swansea University, Wales. His many books on Russian and Soviet cinema include ‘Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany’ (1998) and the KINOfile Film Companion to ‘The Battleship Potemkin’ (2001), both from I.B.Tauris. He is Series Editor of ‘KINO: The Russian Cinema Series’ (I.B.Tauris). William Powell studied Russian at Clifton College, London University and Voronezh University. He has translated other writings by Eisenstein, including his memoirs, ‘Beyond the Stars’, and a selection of screenplays by Tarkovsky.