In Excess: Sergei Eisentein's Mexico - Cineclub

nondifferentiated primary matter, characterized by its infi nite plasticity
and ability to transform. The term “protoplasm” becomes central in
Eisenstein’s writing in 1932, the year of his return from Mexico:
In addition to this year’s discoveries: the protoplasm. [It’s a] social
moment in biology: the emergence of the social from two . . . cells:
that’s already a confl ict of interests! . . .
We have everything. It’s time to create the system as a whole. And
we must.
By all means.
Mexico?!!!
I challenge myself!
The challenge is accepted. 62
In these notes Eisenstein not only dates his “discovery” of protoplasm as
an operative category in his method, but also explicitly links it to Mexico,
and through Gogol to the themes of religious ecstasy and homosexuality:
“Gogol is methodologically the best example of the shifting of art toward
ex-stasis (religiosity, homosexuality, and Grotesk komisches).” 63
Anne Nesbet claimed that the concept of “bi-sex” fi rst appears in
Eisenstein’s notes from 1932–34 in reference to clowns in the circus and
ritual transvestism. 64 However, we should move up Nesbet’s dating,
since we already fi nd this term in the notes to Brenner’s article written
in 1931 and used in direct relation to ¡Que Viva Mexico! Eisenstein
interest in ritual transvestism could be gratifi ed by observation among
indigenous peoples in Mexico. Ritual transvestism was not uncommon
in most cultures of ancient Mexico. Among huicholes (one of the indigenous
groups in Mexico), at the inauguration of a new temple in honor of
the sun and fi re deities, men dressed as women danced around columns
adorned with long ribbons, imitating intercourse. The ceremony concluded
with the preparation of corn tamales as offerings to the gods, thus
connecting ritual androgyny to the symbolism of fertility. Oaxaca, the
state where Eisenstein fi lmed the “Sandunga” episode, is known not only
for its remnants of matriarchy, which survive to this day in the smaller
villages around Tehuantepec, but also for the symbolic role still played by
transvestites in some traditional communities, especially in Tehuantepec.
This is also the case in parts of the state of Guerrero, where Eisenstein
also shot some of the footage. While homosexuality was punishable by
death in most ancient cultures of Mexico, in some cultures berdaches (“a
biological male who dressed, gestured and spoke as an effeminate” and
who “served macho males by assuming the female division of labor”) 65
occupied a different status: they were seen as almost deitylike, mirroring
“going all the way” : 125