In Excess: Sergei Eisentein's Mexico - Cineclub

Recommendations

Info

Figure 39. Image from the “Epilogue.” Courtesy Mexican Picture Partnership. frida kahlo’s girl with death mask A perfect counterpoint to these images from the “Epilogue” is a painting by Frida Kahlo done seven years later, one of her minor and lesser-known works entitled Girl with Death Mask (1938). <strong>In</strong> it we see an isolated image of a little Mexican girl wearing a mask exactly like the masks from the Day of the Dead, with a similar mask placed on the ground next to her. She is surrounded by a harsh and deserted landscape, and the combination of the infantile tenderness of her little body, the delicacy of her frilly dress—which is either festive or perhaps just a nightgown—and the helplessness and uncertainty of her clasping a fl ower with both hands are in sharp and uncanny contrast to the solid lifelessness of the mask she is wearing. The sky in the background is very similar to the sky in the execution sequence of Eisenstein’s “Fiesta.” The painting achieves the same remarkable crossing and blurring of the various boundaries as Eisenstein’s images—between life and death, between the human and the nonhuman. The death mask, central to the painting, serves a variety of functions similar to those in Eisenstein. It is a reference to baroque allegory whereby all, the young and the old, the rich and the poor (the girl in the painting, like Kahlo herself, is coded through her dress as decidedly middle class) are equal in the face of death. The painting ironically reverses conventions: the skull is also a sign of non-Western cultural otherness, functioning similarly and possibly in reference to the African the “epilogue” : 173
Figure 40. Frida Kahlo, Girl with Death Mask, 1938. © 2008 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av. Cinco de Mayo No. 2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtémoc 06059, México, D.F. masks in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Unlike Picasso’s painting, where the masks serve as markers of a radically different culture, of strangeness and otherness, here the mask is rendered as mere cultural commonplace in Kahlo’s own environment, through the reference to the tradition of the Day of the Dead in <strong>Mexico</strong>. 65 This painting is also, 174 : chapter four
Page 2 and 3:
IN EXCESS
Page 5 and 6:
Masha Salazkina is assistant profes
Page 8:
CONTENTS 1 2 3 4 Acknowledgments :
Page 11 and 12:
Kern, Ilya Kliger, Brendan Moran, E
Page 13 and 14:
which rearranges the material to cr
Page 15 and 16:
Two books that deal with Eisenstein
Page 17 and 18:
twentieth century modernism.” I w
Page 19 and 20:
question, shared by all the authors
Page 21 and 22:
dangerously close to Socialist real
Page 23 and 24:
Trying to fi nd internal correspond
Page 25 and 26:
etween roles), who either literally
Page 27 and 28:
To this list of similarities I woul
Page 29 and 30:
As a result of its revolution, Mexi
Page 31 and 32:
of baroque excess and imagery to hi
Page 33 and 34:
in a postrevolutionary Mexican disc
Page 35 and 36:
the cultural ideology of postrevolu
Page 37 and 38:
cultural relativism in anthropology
Page 39 and 40:
vasconcelos and the arts: montenegr
Page 41 and 42:
Figure 1. Diego Rivera, Portrait of
Page 43 and 44:
and didactic application. Although
Page 45 and 46:
young picador and his adulterous af
Page 47 and 48:
twelve volumes of Frazer’s The Go
Page 49 and 50:
static shots, this material lends i
Page 51 and 52:
Figure 3. Coatlicue. Olivier Debroi
Page 53 and 54:
Anita Brenner deserves a separate i
Page 55 and 56:
“Corn for the pre-Hispanic cosmol
Page 57 and 58:
a reference to a god of corn, whose
Page 59 and 60:
Figure 7. Shooting the burial of th
Page 61 and 62:
Figure 8. David Alfaro Siqueiros, E
Page 63 and 64:
he worked on exactly at the time of
Page 65 and 66:
2 ------------- “ SANDUNGA” ---
Page 67 and 68:
mythical/utopian past, it is the do
Page 69 and 70:
Figure 11. Alexandrov at camera, Te
Page 71 and 72:
muted background of many shots of t
Page 73 and 74:
for future Mexican productions.”
Page 75 and 76:
However, this visual specifi city,
Page 77 and 78:
The ornate dresses and decorations,
Page 79 and 80:
cinema, in which spectacle is usual
Page 81 and 82:
the patriarchal social norms and th
Page 83 and 84:
of Rivera embodying the Tehuanas an
Page 85 and 86:
alternative to the horrors and deca
Page 87 and 88:
has a matriarchal society next to t
Page 89 and 90:
At the same time, neither the Sovie
Page 91 and 92:
Figure 16. Image from “Sandunga.
Page 93 and 94:
own observations and experiences in
Page 95 and 96:
appear in their place may be seen a
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 and 144: phenomena in general: “The proble
Page 145 and 146: fullest and most fl exible realizat
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: In a similar leap, allegedly, he tr
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
Page 194 and 195: very moments in cultural history—
Page 196 and 197: particular did research on orally b
Page 198 and 199: 27. We will return to this observat
Page 200 and 201: horses. Here the revolutionary idea
Page 202 and 203: 40. Katherine Anne Porter, The Coll
Page 204 and 205: chapter four 1. Geduld and Gottesma
Page 206 and 207: Mexico, 1923-1940 (Valencia: IVAM C
Page 208 and 209: BIBLIOGRAPHY works by sergei eisens
Page 210 and 211: Ivanov, Viacheslav. Ocherki po isto
Page 212 and 213: Beltran, Neftali. Poesia. México:
Page 214 and 215: Hanssen, Beatrice. Walter Benjamin
Page 216: Trexler, Richard. Sex and Conquest:
Page 219 and 220: aroque aesthetic (cont.) Viva Méxi
Page 221 and 222: death (cont.) Mexico, 145; spectacl
Page 223 and 224: “Epilogue” (cont.) focus, 144;
Page 225 and 226: jicaras, 44-45 Jiménez, Agustin, 1
Page 227 and 228: modernism (cont.) 149; fascination
Page 229 and 230: “Psychology of Composition” (Ei
Page 231 and 232: Strike, 6, 51, 100, 102, 107 “sup
show all

In Excess: Sergei Eisentein's Mexico - Cineclub

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?