Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich (1898–1948)

The Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein started his career in the theatre, but found it too limiting. In his film work he often used non-professionals as actors, as he did in Battleship Potemkin, made in 1925. This also demonstrates his intelligent use of montage.

Latvian-born Soviet film director. One of the giants of the film medium, his Battleship Potemkin (1925) remains a landmark achievement in the history of world cinema. An intellectual, he wrote extensively on the subject of film theory, and helped pioneer the concept of montage (the juxtaposition of shots to create a particular effect) as a means of propaganda. His other films include Strike (1924), October (1928), and Alexander Nevsky (1938).

In the early 1930s Eisenstein spent a period lecturing in the USA and attempted unsuccessfully to find backing for a number of projects in Hollywood. Before returning to the Soviet Union he began work on Que Viva Mexico! (1931–32), but was never allowed to complete the film. Back in Moscow he encountered constant difficulties under Stalin until the time of his death in 1948. In the early 1940s, he was commissioned to direct a three-film epic, Ivan the Terrible. The first instalment of 1944 was a critical and commercial success, but the second, completed in 1946 and clearly alluding to the Stalin regime, was banned. Footage from the third film was destroyed.