In Excess: Sergei Eisentein's Mexico - Cineclub

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etween the development of different societies and human organisms. 82 Conceding the positivist model of evolution, which defi nes the primitive with relation to a telos, notably the technological scientifi c culture of the West, he nevertheless rejects the idea that the primitive is equivalent to the negative, even seeing virtual utopian moments in what is regressive. This virtuality comes into focus only when seen from the perspective of a revolution, however. And it is that revolutionary leap that no positivist notion of progress can comprehend. Here the issue of the free will of the agent of history comes into play. In his theory, Eisenstein includes the unconscious and the individual will, mediating between the individual and the collective conditions in which that will is situated and theoretically capable, in the revolutionary act, of overturning those conditions. The baroque, which positivism can only look upon with horror, and which historically, in its modernist guise, can be seen as a reaction against the emerging modern rationalist thinking, becomes the fi gure of that which stands in opposition to rational thought—the subconscious. Eisenstein theorizes that the libidinally invested and prelogical subconscious is a throwback to the primary state of things (the protoplasm), the fl uid and the dynamic fl ow, defying the logic and the economy of the evolutionary model. Much as Freud’s ontogeny of the subject references the physiological conditions of infant development, Eisenstein’s ontogeny of the revolutionary ‘superman’ references the mythical conditions of history, as revealed by archaeology and ethnography. As elsewhere in his writing, in his letter to Pera Atasheva Eisenstein fi nds an equivalence between this personal (psychological and physiological) dynamic and the same dialectic as it manifests itself in art and ultimately results in social transformation. Commenting on the synthesis of analysis and experience that resulted in his ability to consummate the sexual act, Eisenstein rather enigmatically brings Mexican plastic arts into the equation: “For the fi rst time, I am experiencing and not evaluating . . . Here it seems as if things came together for the fi rst time. Besides we have here the case of aesthetic unload (discharge)—which is of course thoroughly sexual. And my adoration of the Mexican stone plastic arts is merely a static sexualism of a dynamic plasticity turned immobile.” 83 The Mexican plastic arts are presented here as another manifestation of the same “dynamic plasticity,” sexuality (and, implicitly, bisexuality, as the highest manifestation of this primal plasticity), which just a few months later he would fi rst term the “protoplasm,” turned immobile. On the level of artistic creation, fi lm technology is what brings motion back to these works—through the fi lm that Eisenstein was in the process of making. “The Mexican picture in its conception is perhaps the “going all the way” : 133
fullest and most fl exible realization, in order to thoroughly embody this internal cluster fertilized by the highest stage of the ecstatic-dialectical insight—from irony to crude buff, to the wit of a formula or an example of the most abstract statement.” 84 Since this “highest degree of ecstatic- Figure 31. Sergei Eisenstein during the scouting for “Soldadera,” Tehuacán, Puebla, December 1931. Ivor Montagu Papers, The British Film Institute, London. 134 : chapter three
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IN EXCESS
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Masha Salazkina is assistant profes
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CONTENTS 1 2 3 4 Acknowledgments :
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Kern, Ilya Kliger, Brendan Moran, E
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which rearranges the material to cr
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Two books that deal with Eisenstein
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twentieth century modernism.” I w
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question, shared by all the authors
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dangerously close to Socialist real
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Trying to fi nd internal correspond
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etween roles), who either literally
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To this list of similarities I woul
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As a result of its revolution, Mexi
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of baroque excess and imagery to hi
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in a postrevolutionary Mexican disc
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the cultural ideology of postrevolu
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cultural relativism in anthropology
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vasconcelos and the arts: montenegr
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Figure 1. Diego Rivera, Portrait of
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and didactic application. Although
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young picador and his adulterous af
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twelve volumes of Frazer’s The Go
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static shots, this material lends i
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Figure 3. Coatlicue. Olivier Debroi
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Anita Brenner deserves a separate i
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“Corn for the pre-Hispanic cosmol
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a reference to a god of corn, whose
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Figure 7. Shooting the burial of th
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Figure 8. David Alfaro Siqueiros, E
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he worked on exactly at the time of
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2 ------------- “ SANDUNGA” ---
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mythical/utopian past, it is the do
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Figure 11. Alexandrov at camera, Te
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muted background of many shots of t
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for future Mexican productions.”
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However, this visual specifi city,
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The ornate dresses and decorations,
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cinema, in which spectacle is usual
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the patriarchal social norms and th
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of Rivera embodying the Tehuanas an
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alternative to the horrors and deca
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has a matriarchal society next to t
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At the same time, neither the Sovie
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Figure 16. Image from “Sandunga.
Page 93 and 94: own observations and experiences in
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Page 97 and 98: It is obvious that “Sandunga” c
Page 99 and 100: Figure 17. Eduard Tisse, Sergei M.
Page 101 and 102: 3 ------------- “ GOING ALL THE W
Page 103 and 104: eligious, sexual, and artistic. Bot
Page 105 and 106: Figure 20. Sergei Eisenstein, Mexic
Page 107 and 108: audience of early cinema, especiall
Page 109 and 110: and statues, now as the mother of t
Page 111 and 112: A bullfi ght is a perfect attractio
Page 113 and 114: of his femininity. The positioning
Page 115 and 116: Eisenstein always strives for in hi
Page 117 and 118: the Virgin with his mother because
Page 119 and 120: Figure 22. Hacienda Tetlapayac, sum
Page 121 and 122: Figure 24. Sergei M. Eisenstein and
Page 123 and 124: in the period from 1919 through the
Page 125 and 126: the political implication of this m
Page 127 and 128: Figure 25. Sergei M. Eisenstein and
Page 129 and 130: Figure 26. Image from “Maguey.”
Page 131 and 132: He conceived the whole fi lm as a c
Page 133 and 134: Figure 27. Image from “Maguey.”
Page 135 and 136: While accompanying the crew on thei
Page 137 and 138: the image of the bisexual gods, and
Page 139 and 140: the two genders. Thus identity, bot
Page 141 and 142: announces that he is in love, and t
Page 143: phenomena in general: “The proble
Page 147 and 148: it as transference from the sexual
Page 149 and 150: efl ex; i.e., nondiscarded stimulus
Page 151 and 152: The obvious success of the visual i
Page 153 and 154: artists. They turned to lubok for r
Page 155 and 156: Figure 32. Image from the “Epilog
Page 157 and 158: epresentation of death in the fi lm
Page 159 and 160: search of a form of resistance to v
Page 161 and 162: fi lms, however, particularly Potem
Page 163 and 164: various commodities of the modern e
Page 165 and 166: aroque artists employed the allegor
Page 167 and 168: of natural time; but it also stands
Page 169 and 170: “the principle” (or, later, “
Page 171 and 172: sector can neither absorb completel
Page 173 and 174: striking as it was in the period be
Page 175 and 176: cement to sell and happened to comm
Page 177 and 178: Figure 35. Image from the “Epilog
Page 179 and 180: had located in the mechanization of
Page 181 and 182: only sees the corpse from the outsi
Page 183 and 184: In a similar leap, allegedly, he tr
Page 185 and 186: Figure 40. Frida Kahlo, Girl with D
Page 187 and 188: which he kept as a “souvenir” i
Page 189 and 190: attempts to comfort, papering over
Page 192 and 193: NOTES introduction 1. In 1950, Kenn
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very moments in cultural history—
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particular did research on orally b
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27. We will return to this observat
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horses. Here the revolutionary idea
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40. Katherine Anne Porter, The Coll
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chapter four 1. Geduld and Gottesma
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Mexico, 1923-1940 (Valencia: IVAM C
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BIBLIOGRAPHY works by sergei eisens
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Ivanov, Viacheslav. Ocherki po isto
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Beltran, Neftali. Poesia. México:
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Hanssen, Beatrice. Walter Benjamin
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Trexler, Richard. Sex and Conquest:
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aroque aesthetic (cont.) Viva Méxi
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death (cont.) Mexico, 145; spectacl
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“Epilogue” (cont.) focus, 144;
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jicaras, 44-45 Jiménez, Agustin, 1
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modernism (cont.) 149; fascination
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“Psychology of Composition” (Ei
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Strike, 6, 51, 100, 102, 107 “sup
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