SERGEI M EISENSTEIN

51. See also the section “Montage in Multiple Set-Up Cinema” of Montage (Montazh, pp.
156-295; Engl. transl. SW2, pp. 109-223), as well as the chapters “Athens’s
Acropolis” and “Ermolova” (pp. 116-121 and 135-155; Engl. transl. SW2, pp. 59-67
and 82-105).
52. “In Van Eyck’s portrait of the Arnolfini couple there are no less than three
perspectives derived from different viewpoints” creating a “tension between
contrasting impressions of depth” (“Vertical Montage” [Vertikalnyi Montazh”] in
Neravnodushnaya priroda, vol. 1, p. 105; Engl. transl. SW2, pp. 344-345).
53. A 1905 portrait of the actress Maria Ermolova by the painter Valentin Serov, which
Eisenstein discusses in a chapter of Montage entitled “Ermolova” (Montazh, pp. 135-
155; Engl. transl. “Yermolova” in SW2, pp. 82-105).
54. Eisenstein discusses Leonardo’s Last Supper in “Vertical montage” (Neravnodushnaya
priroda, p. 105; Engl. transl. SW2, p. 344).
55. Inhisessay“ElGrecoandCinema”Eisensteinanalysesthe“elasticity”ofthefigures
paintedbyElGreco,andexplainstheirsometimes‘impossible’posturesasaformof
‘montage’ of different phases of a same movement distributed through the different
body parts. The tiny figure drawn by Eisenstein in these Notes for a General History of
Cinema,however,containsanotherimportantreference.Itreferstotheinterpretation
given by the psychiatrist Jean-Martin Charcot and his assistant Paul Richer in their
volume Les Démoniaques dans l’Art (1887) of the figure of a young, possessed boy
represented in the fresco by El Greco entitled The miracle of Saint Nile. According to
Charcot and Richer, who were interested in finding in the history of art the
representations of bodily postures that they explained as visual manifestations of
mental illnesses such as hysteria, the possessed young boy in the fresco by El Greco
showed one of the typical forms of the bodily posture described in Charcot’s
psychiatry as arc de cercle (cf. J.-M. Charcot – P. Richer, Les Démoniaques dans l’art
(1887),followedbyLafoiquiguérit,presentationbyP.FédidaandG.Didi-Huberman,
Macula, Paris 2000, p. 49.). Eisenstein, after having discussed Charcot’s and
Richer’s interpretation, explains on the contrary this same bodily posture as a form
of bodily‘montage’ endowing thefigure with ahigh level ofdynamism andmobility
(cf.f. S.M. Eisenstein, “El Greco i kino”, in Montazh, pp. 442-445; French transl. in
Cinématisme, pp. 100-102).
56. Eisenstein refers to one in the series of portraits of infantry soldiers from the
Zouaves regiment stationed in Arles, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1888. In this
particular portrait, The Seated Zouave, Van Gogh creates the impression of the seated
figure’s“elasticity”throughtapainterlyeffectbasedonthechoiceofabrightredfor
the pants of the soldier (cf. “El Greco and cinema”, in Montazh p. 449; French transl
in Cinématisme, p. 104).
57. At the time it was forbidden in the USSR to celebrate Christmas, but Eisenstein
decided nonetheless to insert an image of a Christmas tree next to the date of 25th
December 1947.
58. Eisenstein dedicates a chapter of his Memoirs to the Mexican painter Juan Manuel
Orozco, whom he met while in Mexico.
59. Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911) was a Lithuanian painter and
composer connected to Symbolism and Art Nouveau. He composed about 250
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