SERGEI M EISENSTEIN

This said, the historical development described by Eisenstein is neither linear
norprogressive, butrather characterized by “continual shifts forwards and backwards,”
since the latest phase of the history of the arts sees the appearance of
twoartforms,twomedia,whichareentirelybasedontheproductionofa“negative”image:photographyandcinema.
The appearance of these two media is described by Eisenstein in “Rodin and
Rilke”astheresponsetoaneed,a“thirst”(zhazhda)thathumanshavealwaysfelt
to “transpose” their “physical actions” and “psychological processes” into “mechanical
devices” (apparaty), as it happened with the hammer that replaced the
punchgivenwiththefist,orthemechanicalloomthatreplacedtheweavingdone
by hand. 206 The most advanced art form, cinema, rejoins therefore the earliest
ones: the technique of the “detaching of the mask” (technika sniatiia maski) used
for the production of death masks reappears in the technique of the “super
mask” (technika supermaski), the technique of the photographic negative that lies
atthebasisofcinema. 207
Thepassageof“TheHeir”thatwequotedabovereturnstotheideaspresented
in “Rodin and Rilke” in 1945, and makes the connection between photography
and death masks explicit. To this connection it adds another one to which we
will return later, that with Egyptian mummies: “Photography as a craft* begins
with the mummy – Egypt. The death mask – Rome (the naturalism of the death
mask).” 208
The following line (“The pyramid and the idea of resistance against transience
– immortality. Nostalgia for the imper[ishable]. In this – photo is nec plus ultra”)
further develops the interpretation of photography and cinema contained in the
Notes: after having been presented as a technique developed in order to respond
to the “lost paradise” of the intrauterine state – a loss which, as we have seen,
Eisenstein interpreted as generating a never-satisfied desire to return in the
mother’swomb, indicated in Metod withthe acronym MLB(Mutterleibversenkung) –
photography is now presented as the nec plus ultra of a “resistance against transience,”alongingfor“immortality.”
209
Such a longing is presented in another passage of the Notes through a reference
to one of the most famous verses from Goethe’s Faust, the verse in which
Faustexpresseshisdesiretoarresttheflowoftimewiththeexclamation“Verweile
doch,dubistsoschön!,”“Stay,youaresobeautiful!”:
“Verweile doch, du bist so schön!” 210
OnecanviewallartisticactivityalsAuswuchsdiesesTriebes[asdevelopmentfrom
this urge].
Beginning even beyond the bounds of art itself. Woher dieser Urtrieb? [Where
does this primary urge come from?]
Man is eternally subject to the power of creation and destruction, just as
nature, history, and society are.
eisenstein’s media archaeology 75