Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict

A colleague of the great Soviet director once remarked, ""I am absolutely convinced that Eisenstein was a Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century."" This biography argues for the validity of that claim. Drawing on the many documents that have become available to researchers since the end of the Cold War, Bergan's study ranks as a clear improvement over the last Einsenstein biography published in English, a translation from the Russian that appeared 25 years ago. For instance, Bergan demonstrates, as Eisenstein's previous biographer, Marie Seton, did not, that the director's celebrated development of montage was rooted in a long study of the visual arts, providing him with a mental backlog of images to realize on screen. Quoting heavily from Eisenstein's posthumously published memoirs, Bergan reveals that somewhere between the meticulously organized work of the former engineering student and the inchoate gay sexuality and occasional childishness of the private man lay a sensibility at once polymathic and in touch with the most elemental human emotions. The biographer also examines Eisenstein's abortive sojourns in Hollywood and Mexico with an incisiveness missing from Ivor Montagu's first-hand account of the period. Finally, Bergan presents the most detailed picture yet of Eisenstein's love-hate relationship with the Stalin regime, whose combination of meticulousness, philistinism and cruelty echoed the circumstances of the director's upbringing. Despite Bergan's effort to portray Eisenstein as a human being as well as an artistic icon, something about the director still remains distant and impersonal when the book is finished. But this portrait goes further toward resolving the riddles of Eisenstein's career than its predecessors, and will reward the attention of anyone interested in either film or Soviet history. Photos. (May)