UK Release Date: 16-07-2007
UK Certificate: 12A
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Country: USSR
Distributor: Tartan

Like many a cornerstone of cinema, Eisenstein’s films aren’t always so easy to track down, so three cheers for our comrades at Tartan for the first in a series collecting them together. Volume 1 brings us Strike!, Battleship Potemkin and October, spanning the years 1924–27 and the development of Eisenstein’s theories of filmmaking. Even if you’ve never seen Potemkin you’ll have seen homages to its famous ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence in the works of movie brats like De Palma and Lucas; the hugely influential original is a mixture of clunky mise-en-scene and brilliant montage, but it was its formal experimentation rather than its agitprop sentiments that secured its place in history; Strike!, his first feature, remains fresher to my eyes. By the time he was commissioned to make October to commemorate the Revolution’s 10th anniversary, the conflicts between Eisenstein’s increasingly experimental style and the propagandistic content saw him falling foul of the state. Two of the films feature vibrant new scores by Ed Hughes, but the lack of any extras to contextualise an extraordinary filmmaker working in an extraordinary social and political context may be a stumbling block for newbies. Essential viewing, nevertheless.