eisenstein & montage in prole cinema

[wgardne1@swarthmore.edu]

Hi Anne and everyone,

This is an interesting question, and I'd be glad to hear more about it if
anyone on the list is researching it. From what I know, regarding
Eisenstein & montage, in addition to the Sasaki Norio book mentioned by
Markus, Eisenstein's writings on montage and Japanese culture (the
"ideogram" etc.) were introduced in a three-part series of translations
"Nihon bunka to Montaaju" by Fukuro Ippei in Kinema Junpo in February
1930. Of course, this is after the first publication of "Factory Ship" in
1929. Film critic Iijima Tadashi travelled to Moscow in 1928 and some of
his reports from this trip, including an article on Vertov as well as
Eisenstein/Putovkin/Alexandrov's "Manifesto on Sound Film" (aka Sound
Manifesto/Statement on Sound) are included in his book Eiga no kenkyu from
1929-- but I'm not aware of anything on "Potemkin."

I do recall seeing some discussion of Potemkin in journals circa 1930 by
writers who had seen it in Soviet Russia or who wanted to... but
unfortunately I don't remember when or where, or by whom. If I come across
anything in the future, I'll report it to the list.

Best,
Will

P.S. I'm afraid I have to disagree with Michael about Kinugasa, in that I
found "Jujiro" to be a very worthwhile film!




On Tue, October 23, 2007 14:40, Mark Nornes wrote:
>
> On Oct 23, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Anne McKnight wrote:
>
>>
>> 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?
>
> This is an interesting question, and I'd love to see it researched by
> someone. Pudovkin does seem to get all the glory when it comes to the
> Soviets. Sasaki Norio published a book of his translations from
> Eisenstein (Eiga no benshoho) in 1931, and a second collection was
> published in 1940 (believe it or not). Books of Pudovkin's writings
> were published in 1930, 1935, and 1936, and all of those got revised,
> updated versions published shortly thereafter.
>
> Some magazines were known for doing photospreads and scenarios of
> Soviet films; however, the only one I've seen for Eisenstein was
> Zensen in one of the Prokino journals.
>
> A couple things come to mind.
>
> First, this is late. In fact, long after the Kobayashi book. The
> proletarian film journals don't really start until 1927-28, and I
> don't recall them writing much of anything about Eisenstein?or Soviet
> cinema in general. You can see them here, in my reprint series:
>
> http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/publications/cjsfaculty/
> filmprojournals.html
>
> The earliest book is from Murayama in 1928 (Puroretarian eiga Nyumon;
> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.bbx2322.0001.001), and that has almost
> nothing on Eisenstein.
>
> One place you might be able to find some things is the back end of
> Puroretarian Eiga no Tenbo; look around page 247:
>
> http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?
> c=cjfs&cc=cjfs&idno=bbx2327.0001.001&q1=dlps&frm=frameset&view=image&seq
> =263
>
> Second, those first journals are mostly about screenwriting because
> they didn't see production within their grasp. Pudovkin wrote some
> fairly practical things about screenwriting, and I think the first
> book translated was on that.  This could explain the preponderance of
> his writings.
>
> Third, also because this is all happening late, the criticism of
> Eisenstein and Vertov's formalism has probably started affecting
> Japan. Formal experiments like Iwasaki's Asphalt Road were
> criticized, so it would make sense that Eisenstein's films were
> overlooked in favor of Pudovkin's more pedestrian style of montage.
>
> Fourth, this involves translation, and from a fairly unusual
> language. You never know how personal predilection of the
> translator=gatekeeper plays into this.
>
> Of the articles I've read on montage by Iwamoto and others, I don't
> recall a discussion of this. But I have always wondered what was
> going on.
>
> Markus