topics: |  literature | film | critic

A powerful discourse on the process of narrative. Makes wide connections across a vast body of literature, paintings, and film - revealing the brilliant mind of Sergei Eisenstein more than anything else. Along the way, you are treated to unparalleled insights into the process of storytelling. May be compared in its vast erudition in literary analysis and in the ability to link up disparate sources, to Edward Said perhaps.

The text was originally a 1941 lecture given on the eve of the Nazi invasion, a call to arms to make small films with a pointed narrative. To illustrate his point, Eisenstein refers to an Ambrose Bierce story, and in the end, gives the full text of two re-workings of the same plot, a straightforward tale, and a re-working by L. Leonov. There is also some audience interaction.

Interestingly, it was first published in Calcutta, by Seagull Books. That this English translation of an extraordinary Russian work came to be published out of Calcutta and not anywhere else speaks for the intellectual traditions of this film-loving city.

The Art of Narrative Construction

In a general sense, Eisenstein is talking about the art of narrative
construction p.14 

MONTAGE: p. 10-11
Before the war, a scene of a corpse being discovered would have been shot in
this way:
- scene begins with a boot lying in the corner of the room
- the ticking of a clock
- a window with curtains drawn
- an arm hanging over the side of the bed
- only then - a man lying on bed with his head smashed in

The viewer follows each successive piece with interest.  Why is there a
boot in the corner? is he asleep, or did he just come home and take it
off? Your interest is piqued: what happens next is unknown.  You start
to think - if it's night, then nothing unusual about a boot in the
corner.  But if its day?  The director gives the first answer - the
clock - 3 AM - but is it day or night?  The window, daylight.
Something is wrong.  An arm hangs - is he asleep?  sound: Something is
dripping.  Finally the man.

By contrast if everything develops straightforwardly, you are bored.

This structure resembles the detective novel (e.g. Brother Karamazov or Crime
& Punishment).  Some traits:

Gradual accumulation of evidence:
   In Maurice Leblanc's "The Red silk scarf", Arsene Lupin and
   the detectives hunt down the criminal. criminal wears a monocle, a
   overcoat with fur collar, carries a cane.
Shifting of suspicion.  5-7 people, all equally capable of having committed
   the murder, but only one is the criminal.  One chapter presents evidence
   of one person's guilt, then of another, etc.

e.g. in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin:
     Resplendent, half ethereal,
     Obedient to the magic bow,
     Surrounded by a throng of nymphs,
     Istomina stands: she, [transl. Nabokov, p. 105]
each "shot" is a means of concealing Istomina before fully presenting her.

Linear compositional development vs Plot development

Former develops by attention to microscopic details: montage, rhythm, etc.

Michaelangelo's statues: tomb of Lorenzo de Medici - all joints are in diff
stages of movement, but the whold does not give a feeling of movement.  He
even tries to _bind movement.
==> feeling of tragic constraint - movement which strains, but cannot break
	loose.

Narrative may be from one person's p.o.v. - the narrator.  May be a border
	guard.  Or Dr. Watson, as in Holmes.
Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon river anthology - poems as set of epitaphs from a
	cemetery - large complex interwoven stories.  One fallen girl who was
	persecuted.  Next to her is the rich banker who ruined her.

The complete short story by RL Stevenson: 

The citizen and the traveller

	"Look around you," said the citizen.  "This is the largest market
	in the world."
	  "Oh surely not," said the traveller.
	  "Well, perhaps not the largest," said the citizen, "but much the best."
	  "You are certainly wrong there," said the traveller. "I can
	tell you..." 
	They buried the stranger at dusk.

---
This story contains everything needed : characters with personalities, and a
dramatic denouement.

A story from Ambrose Bierce: 

The sheep and the shepherd

  A sheep making a long journey found the heat of her fleece
  insupportable, and seeing a flock of others in a fold, evidently in
  expectation, leaped in and joined them in the hope of being shorn.
  Perceiving the shepherd approaching, and the other sheep huddling
  into a remote corner of the fold, she shouldered her way forward and
  said:
    "Your flock is insubordinate: it is fortunate that I cam along to set
  them an example of docility.  Seeing me operated on, they will be
  encouraged to offer themselved."
    "Thank you," said the shepherd, "but I never kill more than one at a
  time.  Mutton does not keep well in warm weather."


---
a frightening plot... The personality of the sheep is so precisely delineated
- esp her feeling of superiority over her comrades in the front...

Bierce: The affair at Coulter's Notch

Bierce's description of the war: compresses the horror but debunks literary
traditions like extolling of military bravura, heroic young women, notorious
front line camaraderie...

[whole story: A general orders the brave officer coulter to fire on the
enemy from a dangerous opening.  The narrative opens slowly to reveal
that the general had had an affair at one time, with coulter's wife.
he now has coulter fire upon his own home with his wife and child
inside.

the story comes out very indirectly.  An untalented person would
exploit the idea of the general avenging himself by forcing the captain
to fire upon his own family.  His choice of a title - e.g. The
general's revenge - would give the plot away.  First he would provide
an exposition of the war using archival footage.  Then he would
demonstrate Coulter's bravery - CAPT COULTER WAS VERY BRAVE" - Coulter
being a Southerner seven times - seven shots.  Fade out.  Then "ONE DAY
A NORTHN REGIMENT STOPPED A COULTER'S HOME.  The wife greets them
coldly, the general likes her.  An incident with the wife.  Discipline
prevents Coulter from demanding satisfaction. Fade-out.  
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  Southern regiments in action (archival footage).
"COULTER'S HOUSE IS CAPTURED BY SOUTHERNERS."  Wife and child are
arrested and locked up in cellar.  and so on.  In the end the general
leaves with a devilish smirk.]

But Bierce's narrative is extremely clever.  Coulter's bravery is made
known by the Colonel's unwavering confidence.  But in the convesation w
the general we are forced to suspect if he is indeed that brave.

not O'Henry's mechanical endings - more like Shakespeare's endings-
Romeo & Juliet, say.

Note: consider narrative techniques in
The Reluctant Fundamentalist or
GOST - AM

Two narratives of a Partisan story: Comparisons

Next, Eisenstein presents two complete scripts for a story where a
Ukrainian woman poisons a group of invading German soldiers, eating the
poisoned food herself, and dies along with the Germans.  p.35-55.

First version shows partisans fleeing, and germans entering and
shooting an old man.  Then they enter the house w the old woman, in
prayer.  She is authoritative. Eventually they eat her feast, and die.

In the second version, the partisans are shown as individuals, and the
woman, herb-doctor, is delineated earlier in her relations with her
husband etc.  One mechanically peels off a thin strip of chipped
paint and crushes it between his fingers.  Pensively: "Always meant to
re-do this porch.  My nephew promised to send us some whitewash, but I
guess he forgot..."  The story is told more directly, with more detail.

On the whole a tour de force of its subject, in a very compact and effective
style.  The book ends with some Q&A from the audience.

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