The Legacy of Eisenstein

Last night I started watching the epic and pseudo-historical film Alexander Nevsky directed by Sergei Eisenstein and photographed by his longtime collaborator Edouard Tisse. I'm hoping that this will be the first in a long line of films made by directors I've studied over the past several months that I will see between now and my departure for Moscow in late August.

Eisenstein is a giant in the history of cinema and his magnum opus, The Battleship Potemkin, is regarded by critics at the British Film Institute as one of the ten best films ever made. Not a bad praise for only his second major film. There is one particular sequence that stands out from that film, a scene known as "The Odessa Steps," in which a crowd sympathizing with a group of mutinous sailors is brutally attacked by Cossack soldiers. "The Odessa Steps" is the premier example of how Eisenstein splices together sequences of film to create a visually stunning and emotionally poignant aesthetic.

The climactic sequence of the scene is the depiction of a baby carriage careening down the long steps across dying bodies with its now-orphaned passenger screaming in terror. The scene may have looked familiar to some of you. This is likely because Brian De Palma pays homage to Eisenstein's groundbreaking sequence in his 1987 film The Untouchables. In one of the film's best, if incredibly violent scenes, Elliot Ness and Al Capone's henchmen have a gunfight in the middle of Chicago's historic Union Station.

(as an aside, notice the clock above the doors shows 12 o'clock. In the film it is midnight, but the scene also has the drama of a "high noon" showdown common in Westerns...and beware of a swear at the end of the gunfight.)

The tension in the scene is heightened by interspersing the scene with shots of a baby carriage careening down the stairs of the station. However, although we hear the sound of guns, glass, and footsteps on the marble floor, we don't hear the screams of the mother as in Potemkin.

The symbolism in De Palma's film is the reverse of Eisenstein's. Ness, like the Cossack soldiers, represents the power and authority of the State and is positioned at the top of the stairs. Unlike in Potemkin, the authority figure descends the stairs not to destroy life, but to save it (Ness hesitates, wary of giving up a more advantageous position, before chasing the carriage). While the Cossacks' descent highlights their amorality and depravity, Ness' reiterates his values and his integrity in sacrificing his own life to realize them. In essence, De Palma is using the same scene to give the reverse message. For Eisenstein, the State is powerful, brutal, and bent on subduing the will of the People, a message that meshes well with Eisenstein's revolutionary views. De Palma, on the other hand, reiterates the good of the State. Even in the face of overwhelming odds (Ness must initially face 6 men on his own), the State is virtuous, protective of the innocent, and has the integrity to do what is right even in the most dire circumstances. In spite of this De Palma, shooting his film sixty years after Eisenstein, constructs the scene in a way that shows clear respect for his predecessor and is a visual testament to the influence that Eisenstein has on film directors even today.

And then....there's this. I guess not all homage pieces are good ones.