SERGEI M EISENSTEIN

11. Eisenstein had in mind the ironic nature of stringed instruments of a symphony
orchestra as tools for extracting sounds using the sinews of slain animals, taken
from the American novelist Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914).
12. Gap in the manuscript.
13. There are no references to the “earth” instrument that interested Eisenstein in the
book by the American pilot Faustin E. Wirkus, The White King of La Gonave: The True
StoryoftheSergeantofMarinesWhoWasCrownedKingonaVoodooIsland,NewYork,1931.
The source of this information has not been located.
14. Thisideaof“a-synchronous”colormontageisatthebasisofEisenstein’sunrealized
film project on Pushkin, entitled Love of a Poet (Pushkin), as it is documented by his
notes written in 1940 and in the chapter of the Memoirs entitled “ Poet’s Love
(Pushkin)”, in Beyond the Stars, pp. 712-724.
15. EisensteinisherereferringtoChapter10of“MoralityandRights.Equality,”thefirst
part (“Philosophy”) of Friedrich Engels’s book Anti-Dühring.
16. Eisenstein writes about this screening in one of Riga’s oldest film theaters in his
memoirs (see Beyond the Stars, p. 699).
17. Bill (William) Hayes, postmaster and creator of the infamous “Hayes Code,” which
regulated the “morality” of Hollywood film production, was in fact a censorship
board, marked by extreme conservatism. In the manuscript, Eisenstein made a note
in the margins: “List the details.” Eisenstein wrote about the reasons for his break
withtheParamountcompanyintheMemoirs(See“Colleagues”inBeyondtheStars,pp.
329-ff. There is also a detailed account of the reigning atmosphere in Hollywood at
thebeginningofthe1930sandtheHayesCodeinanarticlebyEisensteinfrom1932,
“Catch Up and Overtake” (in the journal Proletarian Cinema, 1932, no. 15-16, pp. 20-
32).
18. See above, n. 1.
19. “The always imitative ‘laughing saxophone’ – in comic music it’s ‘both yes and no’
(both person and non person) par excellence” [note by Eisenstein]. In the
manuscript of the third fragment, mostly covered by notes, there is the following
plan: “Shake up You and Heredity* [by Amram Scheinfeld (1939)]. 1. Imitation. 2.
Early virtuosity and the inheritance of musical abilities”.
20. A lens with a focal length of 28mm was, at the end of the 1920s, the shortest-focus
lens available, allowingdeep definition withinthe shot. Sequences from thefilm The
General Line (later renamed Old and New), like “Marfa in the Kulak’s Courtyard” and
“TheBull’sWedding,”werestructuredontheoppositionofthedifferentforeground
and the oblique shortened background that Eisenstein emphasizes. A series of
reflectionsontheaestheticand“ecstatic”qualitiesofthe28mmlenscanbefoundin
the essay El Greco i kino (Montazh, pp. 407-415; French transl. “El Greco y el cine”, in
Cinématisme, pp. 106-107).
21. A letter from Eisenstein to the director of photography Vladimir Nil'sen has been
preserved. In the middle of the 1930s, Nil'sen was working on a system of
“transparent shots” (shots on the background of a transparent screen with
projections of previously shot action on the other side of the screen – so-called
“rear-projection”). In this letter, the director established the possibility of “reverse
perspective”infilm(asiniconpaintingandinByzantinefrescos),andinvitedNilsen
notes 481