eisenstein & montage in prole cinema

[Anne McKnight]

Dear list,

I've been puzzled by something, and wonder if others might have read  
things I haven't gotten to.

I've been teaching one of the "flagships" of proletarian lit,  
Kobayashi Takiji's "The Factory Ship." Reading it, I can't help but  
make connections to Eisenstein's _Potemkin_ that go beyond the usual  
vision of the world in the mode of dialectics and collective  
subjects. The maggots/transformation motif, the setting of the ship,  
the presence of a benshi/witness to entertain the lumpen sailors on  
the factory ship. The statis of the dead body in both works that is  
required for the narrative motion to change...Etc.

But looking at the prole cinema materials that I have, Eisenstein  
doesn't seem to feature much. I read of _Potemkin_ being banned by  
the government, while essays and translations seem to focus on  
Pudovkin, and the presentation of Soviet cinema by French scholars  
(whose work remains untranslated in English to date). All this leads  
me to think that while people hadn't perhaps seen _Potemkin_ in  
Japan, they both heard about it, and/or may have seen it in Russia.  
Has anyone seen "story-plays" (eiga monogatari) of _Potemkin_, for  
example? Does anyone know anything good written on circuits of  
exchange between Soviet Russia and J-film-makers and writers?

Thanks for any leads.

Anne