NONINDIFFERENT NATURE

Contents

Pu

Cambridge

Th
32
lo

2IRP

I:::duTtio_n by Herben
Easre
Acknowledgmen
Notes on the Eanslation

ia

@-Cambridge Universry press l9g7

Firsr pubtished l9g7

unity and patos

Eiscnsrcin, Scrgci, 1898_I948.

Nonindiftcrcnt naturc.
(Cambridgc srudics in tilm)

U Patos
,/

1. Moving-pictures
- Aesthetics. 2. Moving-pictures _
Psychological aspecrs. 3. Aestherics.
+. .i, _---,
Psychological aspects. I. Marshall,

d the Holy
g columns

Moving-picturcs

791.

:l'ot

PN1995

lsBN 0 52t 3241s

Superconcreteness
" quesrion of suprahistory

IThe kangaroo
Once agin

fV

Nonindifferentnature

Notes

154
159
15

178

6 the sEucture of things

i:i;t:i:r"#dscape

Epilogue
postscript

r12
r23

183

III

38
38
59
95

Grail

Piraesi or the flux of form

of ecstasyl
$amnles
The Gothic

nerUert,

II. Tirte. IlL Series.

PNt995.E53l3 1987 791.43 86_33457

l.

3
10

'franslation of: Ncravnodushnaia

priroda.

l.'l-irtc

!nthe suuctue ofthings

Organic

Library of Congrcss Czttaloging-in-publication

l)ata

Brirish Library Catatoging_in_publication

Data
izenshrein, Sergei
Nonindfferenr narure. _ (Cambridge
studies in lm).

ro<iii

Poor Salieri (instead

ofa dedication)

Printcd n thc Unitcd Srarcs of America

1906-

vii
xxii

and the fate ormontase

counrerpoint

200
216
276
383
388
397

Index

419

Introduction
by llerbert Eag1le

Nature to '.poor Salieri,,,who,

laments: ,'...True tone I

must be followed by ,.ever

do." Thus, Nonindifferent

Portrait scurprure of serge-i Eise_nstein by Fredd.a_Brili

a',t, rggT (acquired by ttre
Ministry of Culture of rh;USSR for tne fisenstein
Museum).

unrque approach to the art.

vu

IDtroduction

InEoduction
stage ofthe

D(

and music,

ultimately
expositions
pa'
an

ph
Th

rson, the visible thing, is only an

given in the quality of a semantic

In his articres of tle late 1g20s (inctuding

rhe famous programmatic
starement, signed by his coueaguei
the directors pudovkin and Aroradrov, abour the function or son-ini.r
,o, being reduced to rhe

stein emphasized the collrsrbn of

the superstitious).

to t-he problem of
suar,, aspecrs

ii*:

"?lffiri
rgenic
and syncretic
rating inpulses along

Intoduction

In "on the structure of rhings," Eisenstein designated by the term

"pathos"

the heightened emotionar s tate produced by works

oi urt. s,r.h
works must possess qualities that arouse passion in
thei receivers.
Eisenstein asserted that this could occu onfy
y means of ..a composi-

tional structure identicar with human behavioi in the gr

oi panos,
(taking the term in its originar Greek meaning).
Such behavior entailed a
leap out of oneself, ex stasis, ecstacy: "T be beside
oneserf is unavoidably also a transition to something else, to somethinl-itr"r.rrt
i'
quality,_ to something opposite to what preced.ed
it." -[tre probrem then
was to fuse the structure of human emotinat behaviorwith
the receive/s
experience of t}te content.
Eisenstein looked to both physiorogical and psychologicar.
manifestations of emotions, from irregutar breathing, quickened
heartbeat, and

emphatic aesture to metaphorical and poeti speech.

The structual
elements of such phenomena wourd. uo" to be recreated
in the
composition of the work of art. seeking them, Eisenstein
anJyzed his
own fiIms Battleship potemkin (1925) and. Alexanaer
ruevsry f939), as
well as Emile Zola's prose, Arexander pushkin's poetry,
anJtrr painting
The Boyarina Morozovaby v. I. surikov. From
t,ese comparative studies,
Eisenstein derived two key principles: organic unity
and the leap to a
new quality.
Although

the notion of organicity might seem to be somewhat

of a
clich, Eisenstein took_the concept quiteliterarly a''d.
specificalry: ,.The
organic unity of a work, as well as the sense of org.rri"
unity received
from the work, arises when tre raw of the construction
of this wok
corresponds to the raws of the structue of organic
phenomena of
nature-" rn Battleship potemkin, Eisenstein found t}'at
att five parts of

the film, as well as rhe film as a whole, *" goo"_"a-V't"

structural law (evidence of a general organic order).
In each "*"
part,
revolutionary broterhood. grovvs from a sman incipient ,.cell,,
into
a
manifestation of greater intensity or larger scale, and
there is a turning
point (Eisenstein terms it a "caesua"), when the
action'.leaps ove/, fom
a quieter protest to a more angry and violent clash: The
ipproacning
execution under a tarpaurin of resisting sailors ',reaps
ou"'t', ioto th"
shipboard mutiny; the mourning for th maftyred sailor
vakulinchuk
"leaps over" into an angry demonstration; th peaceful
faternization
between ship ar'd shore turns sudd.enly into a massacre
with the scream
of awoman and the appeara.nce of a rank of firing tsarist
noop" *,rr",op
of the odessa steps. From the points of trasition at these
caesuras
Eisenstein derived an important principle:
And t is also iemarkable rhat the jump at each point is not simply
a sudden
-ti:ne
jump to anothe mood, to anoter rhhm, to anotre event, but eaci
it is a
transition to a disrnct opposite. Not contastive, but opposite, for
each time it

IDoduction
gives te image of that same theme from the
opposite point of uiew and
same time unavoidably grows out of it,

at

the

The caesuras in each of the firm's parts echo a

centrar caesura in the fiIm
as a whole: the sequence of mouming for
the dead Vakurinchuk. At rhis
point, the stolmy actions of rebelionre
replaced by near stilIness, and
th
tionary embrace must begin to build again
parr of the fitm: tne spreJa of the rebeilion
::
ru
ntire tsaist fleet.
was 'The reap to a new qualiry" howevel, that
became for Eisenstein
- Itmost
the
important charactristi r f the pathos construction.
It was to

this subject that he devoted the series of chapters

written in tg46_7,
entitled "Pathos,"

which comprise most of the first harf of rron ind.ifferent

.varue. These studies constitute a detailed

elaboration of the ieap

into a
particular, the teap from the literal into
the
rging of opposjtes into the organic unity of

rheotdandthervew(re2r)tlJ'H"""tH:lfi:::"*::;
the work of various writers (Zora,

whimr an, zweig,pusnni

(the actor Frdick-LeTatre, the poet naayar<st;i;performers
his own
and atists (Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh,
ft
Cr""oir"onardo
".".:9),
da Vinci).
and the 1rew, his filmic paean ro
n of agriculture, patos consttuc_
Ie than they are in potenkn where
task in rhe otd and thervewwas ,"
through expressiveness a
led Fiencrr
ttl"
""iti""- ,r,
"tltose a"rr""oiJ-sita"
and.its.
"enaerine" "everydav phenomena.

;:i.ilT;*r::t:tlj;Jl
nstein's techniques

epic lyricism" over

.;-*ff;::

:31cat''with "Dionysian ryricism."lisenstein focuses

his attention on the

o see if the separator will work,

two_shots to close_ups of faces.
ots of spinning disks and the feed
ll the more frequently at various
,, use gradually
brighter lighting,
ion,' gradually become daker. Ai
s occurs more often, the disks spin

Introduction

x
faster and faster. A drop

begins to swell.
a sta_rlike spmy.

Finally ttt. ii rur,

Eisenstein
descriles the

O*r-11, fom the body separator,

into the pail.

Infoductiou

xlu

'.l?:;'",'fr ,ff ;"ili:;i;"H;:ny:::1,?jf

expro din s ?,*effectsby
into ch oth er
*i*
###i":'"
:Pt
";;;;
Two
ea

jer

of the most insuin--n:r^

"',i:]lt
in the
NonindifferentNatue concern
cases, Eisenstein rlescribes

earlyvariant to yield
variant. He explores

lorrns;

tlre art of El G

pathos section of

-"ai""n"Ji'
----vl t"

sequence

movements in at sho

preceding featues

overflowing into

*e;

each

Eisenstein, witrr rr
ocperience ur -"t
meaning of achite
Banleship potem*n
composition to cinem
embodied itr rtorr", '
'the image or a

fieurativerhetoricrits

impressionism and
of realism,s objects.
they themselves are
as. This ecstacy, which
esi), is akin to the state
e construction elements
g of emotional seizure."
ineering and his early
;essed by the symboli
utilizes so brilliantly in
3 compares achitectural
;othic churches ecstacy
reign of Tsar Nicholas
-

;i,,'"i:r;i,",:::::

si,s work is reflected in

ot only in stuctural

but also in the poetic

The inspiration of
designs for lvan the

Terrible, whee u
deeper into te di
is occupied by crose-up_s
of parts of heads. An of
is based on the effect ofthe
telescopg of one thin
He draws anarogies also to
;;r;;;triatiorr" upon accererations,,in
scrence: nucrear chain-reactio"

oo-"-t'o-;. and multistage

rockets, in
accompanies each succesive
stage.
, Eisenstr '
ati cre i",r,"-'i",;:T,
g j:J,j1,1:
preference for the u""tti"cott
..^:_)^9:sol,s
i. i,
rsenstein,
for the
forms
other forms, oi.i.
_of
ther, is

ff

u".i,uru*.

?ii,iii

Introduction

xlv

one another), in the practice of yucatan

;;i*;
that bu't py'amids
directly over previous pyramids, in
the spiral repetition of featues in
design motifs in many curtues.
Moreorrer, notes Eisenstein, there
are

InEoduction

A decade later, in the fiLm Chapayev (7934),

which dates from the
period of soviet film's retum
to rruriiJur narrative, the paros
embodied
throughout potemkin-uv

r l".p-"*" from prot and the hero is now

accomplished by means of
a ro".""i of the r"up. irr"-i.
cnup"y"u,
main prot
t, does not push rorward ar,eaa

oullT:,gL::e

or the

erevated"**i---'u1?n,n",o,:"lj:.oliff:ffi::,jl:,",;i

words.

If Eise

leap_

into the poetic, the Vasiliev

ccomplish a leap from poetic

expecta_

nall'

of Nonindifferent Naturg actuaily

written in 7g45,
consists 'con(r
of t,e extended study "rrr
n,rri. of Landscape and the Fate
-s9.
Montage
of
Countemoin u. u Nw
It is the culmination of
work n tJ e subject or ,ic
mr n_tase,,
and potyphonic

":fr:""'"
lg3g_
Eisenstein

.Iskussryo Krno during

as Ie F?m Sense.l

indicate the process of

integr
ctural
levels of cinema:
landscape *a
miqo-an-o^^^
"""".i.
coror.rn*t""';;T,""-",.i;"i:::,rr","H:i"f,
":.i_:31:"",?
these tevets should eflect
r" d.;;;;:;
of
a
unified
theme, one which
govems
superposition and

material in an ecstatic work of

art.
ome object

tlat

prod.uces

in him
cy, in itself, is objectless and
ally. Howeve the aftist recon_

all the choices in all the partpating

]he

.,lines,,:

juxtaposition of rlese pa:tial

details in a
life ad fobes into te ght ,ti-""r
pardcipated

and whicb u ns togetr,;i;

that genera_ized atistic_ir"ge
*h""jin

experiences re theme.
rne-rilm

".".,or,
s""'p. rl

Eisenstein's work with prokofiev,

with the ciaematographers Tisse
Moskvin, and with tr" .".o."-'
and
i;;;
le Teniblewas-to embody tris
process, for t,'e arch^il1cto1i""
of tn"-"i,.the framing, the lighting,
canera angles' the costuming,
the
the intonaion and gesture"
ornu actors,
and the musical score aLl nlurea
in aorr,"g" constuction wheein
integration had to tat
eFce";;""iv.r""nta'y
(in co'isions from
shot to shot) but also vertically:
Through the

progressi.."jlg: u.eniT|Iine,

pervading re enre orchesta,

and

T:iiL:i?l"ik"*-..*l',iol,".,,i""_o.,",o",,i_ithewhore

when we turn from this rmage

of the orchestrar scoe to that
visual score, we find. it necessary
of the audioto add a new paft to te rnstumental
-.
parts: this
new pan is a'sraff ' of visuals
. where rr,"i r-ri"i"
rn.o,,nn

ffi #"rI

* S. Eisestein,
The Eiln Sease; J. Leyd.a,

ed..

and ans., Faber & Faber, London,

r9s3.

Irtroduction

xvi

InEoduction

xvii
historians whom Eisenstein quotes
consistently discuss these
painngs in musicat
scroll
terms, i;;-,h""

r"m",,t-"u.""i,,"au""y-*;-;t"lJt:"i"ffi

::*"lr:::":11

ffi ,i:r!:",: throus h ";;;ariation ; o,,i; i',",

o,,

u,,.",

The comprem""i:1-prilcipres
of segmentation and continuity
in chinese 'aadsca-pes as tney
figure
o in a number lf disparate
cultual forms
(Eisenstein cites' fr *"r"pi",1"r,
spir painting and. Greek ,,oxtuiror'r* writing). Erements ih"'a
;";tilcr
in their oppositions to one
another ale integrated into
u
whole
.r""chain; they
form a poryphonic.steam'-F'm
"o"r*"o",
"r""s not onry embodies
*, i- Eisenstein,
these properties but raises
trrem torreeatest comprexiry
kinds or "unsl- "'iff"r"r,. s ieniryin in terms of the
:TffJ#.X'f"rent
s system s rh at

In all of tlese art forrrs,

Eisenstein contends,

voices of nurators

ff ii"ilT:i:#:"itffi

it is the

an

::'"i"*"ih:":|ff

human
cal terms,
painting),
ology), or

ii;","',i,,ii

Eisenstein's s<cursions into

anthropologicar theory are quite
fascina_

iJ;
g)

an

ldulrT."andmysteryii.i,i,:ri,1;ir""'itJJirivesretainrhequest
or
riddre stucture as we' (somewht-later,
the French structuralist
theoretician Roland g"t tt"" -*;d'"o
,ru.-" the drive
hemteneuc
he inclinatio

ro

answer

tein locates

;""::'f";o'lJ*o #:iff

*ii"l:i:

of this tonging of each knot to

-l^.-*j}t"g
yeamins
io tie rnots, :

p,ot comprications or

be

,* de"i,il,:ri;.:i:: ""
all the same, wherh"r i o""*,
; il graphic knots of Leonado and
oJt
o"lT"T"

.9

have seen,

frequencies of vibrations of
vowels that wind into the phonetic
knots of

or in the peripeteias oftrre

arrangement
equatly pushkin, |oseph conraa.-d;;ofthe_sequence ofscenes thar atract
weuesl

InhoductioD

x\,ltu

These are the methods that Eisenstein himself

emproyed
Terrible, devetoping the image o

in

Ivan the
through the integrated flow of
the lighting and camera angles
image (the "landscape,'in tlre b
tionar state of the tsar. Eisenstein indeed
sees his work on .Iva the
Terrible as rhe third (an_d culminating)
stage orrirfirst historicar stage, there was the- shooting of -o"iui"lrr.irrs tn"
long-shots, from one
setup and with no editing; the secol
wor
eP

ut
nc
(Eis
thererribte)istherehi,,."?"i?,li""l.:J"?lrtt*'Li*i:.rX j j::

and excesses'" Eisenstein's disavowa

excessive should be taken here with

"collision" the
valorization of
formalism had
Eisenstein might be seen as po
himself somewhat from this ,Torma
in 19-45 that many of rhe devices

in

Inuoduction

xD(

crushed ere seems to cower bel

somewhere deep within hims
affirmation arises _ at the sce
moods and drives is rendered
montage. The sharp camera a
shot from above that reveals
catafalque), the graphic lines of the
multivoiced sound track all con
stein breaks down tlre movements

t his work of the

a grain of sart;

1g20s as
because trre

ip

potemkin courd be
described. as the "exposed nerye" of
montage, whereas the "habor mist
sequence" represents "a fused sftucture
of contapuntat curients,, trrat
anticipates the potyphonic montage of. Ivan
tJ,e Tenibte.
But Eisenstein does not want to completery
d.isavow the shock tactics
of hs early "montage of atractions,,; rther,
he now sees those diverse
Batrles

ffi:J"*ra

urrimatery constitute an antithesis that

develops along rwo

The line of death

Anastasia, passe
theme of pimen's

_ is taken up by the
Basmanovs (father

tively how what was done in this di

from what had been done in potemkin.,,Thus,
what Eisenstein in the
1920s termed collisions of opposed elements
to fonn attactions, he now
calls a "systematic unity of diverse components.,,
The.basic principre of
an integrative montage structute, a synthesis
of diverse ,."oloprrrrt.t,,
stimuri, remains the same. Fisenstein simpry
expaads and refomrurates
hi.ideas so as to put some distance between
his theories of l94s and his
politically

servants

in the rear fies of the torches.

old man,s speech passes into the fiery

f the tsar, and ends with the flight oi
a physical manifesta_
systems of opposites.
ibe these oppositions

disreputable'Tormalist,, past.

The centerpiece of Eisenstein's discussion

of polyphonic montage is
; in potenkm ad fva the Terrible.
e death of his beloved Anastasia.
hrosinia Staritskaya, but Ivan does
ossibly a condemnation from God.
and, at this scene,s nadir, virtually

arance to the viewer,s perception.,,

of shots of grieving faces over

not only a note of grief but also a

Introduction
Introduction
sign of sociar crass and of other everyday
rife o<periences. The effect of
this suite is a porrrait of the unive.saii'ot
the grief over Vakulinchuk,s

death.

affects linear montlge

alize its own rhhmic

same time integmting
e

in fya theTerrible, Eisenstein also

who in the 1920s compared the ,.tu

turn from one compact verse to the next.
Accents within each shot come
from the various visual and audial rines (changes
in ught tona_rity,
actor's abrupt gesflrres, sudden shifts
in
vocal intonatioi or music);
these accents, in Eisenstein's view, are
most effective when the visual
accent counterpoints the- musicar accent,
so that the pattern proaucea is
anaLogous to that of bricklaying (where
tire unctures of the bricks at one
level should not coincide wittl-tire
akin to enjambement in poetry, w
of organization do not coincide,
tensions of the verse fonrr. In fi

i;"

*"

s enuin e rv emorion al land s cape

*T
#r$:"-.3"f
interpenetration of nature and man with
alr the overflowing variety of his
temperament"' such a total unity of
a randscape with the soul of its
creator is achieved in works srch as EI
Greco's storm ovet Toredo.
In the "Epilogue" to NonindifferentN;tu,
Eisenstein sought to justify
his own rore in the development of so;t
cinema in the right of the
theories he presented in th volume:
.

ffi:r""J""ngs

conrained a whole series

"r"

of books under te general title

I also rook on my films as being "didactic'to

a certain
that is, trrose
which' besides their immediate aims, .h;y"
",ftent;
contain reseaches
and ocperi-

ments in form.

These researches and experiments ae

made so tlat
and from anorher individual point ofview
they

- iD another interpretation
could be used late. cilectioely

by all of us working on the creation of nms

in general.

:ori

Chaacteristically, Eisenstein
the criticism tfrat n sometimes
on the other, he assens a much

the validity of

sstons too far;

se very experiindetibre

ments and his postanalysis

of th
impact on te dvetopment of
the crnema as an afi ,orroTo
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

H. E.

Acknowledgments

Notes on the translation

I wish to first express^gratitude to

my fellow transrator Roberta Reader
of
Harvard. university for her .o"""i""o"s
and painstaking work on
Eisenstein,s text and notes.
outhern Illinois University at
Dean of Communications nd
of Reseach projects Michael

Eisenstein s language and style

incrudinswordproces,,.'n,.1!',ttTl:t"i"ii"i-T.iffl#i",it;li
go to Alan Cohn and Caol palmer
Library, and to

indefatigable typi
word processing.
many thanks for
work on the indexing of Nontndi
ferent Natue and his expert assistace
in editoriar work fo the center.
I want to acknowledge also assistance t'at
is ott"r, iorgon;i, ,t or
the pubrishe/s editos Ms' Elizabeth
Maguire, Mr. Michaer Gnat, an.",Ms.
Ernestine Franco, whose conscientious
and rriDgent supervision of my
manuscript tlrough the press was essential
ior it"
beautiful book.
"_"rgirg as a
Finally, my eternar thanks to Fred.da Br'riant,
my wife, feilow-artist,
and fellow-writer, whose help in all my
work is indispensable.

difficult
d. This

d
quoted, the

tike Fre

I have ri

but despite
eITOrS.

Herbert Marshall

, away.fom the immediate actual

,,Some
chapters begin with one
niscence and, finally,
hapter, I never know
there is another forrridable obstacle
to

xxu

n that the eader will

have a general
often confused background. of Russian

Notes on the tanslation

Notes oD the Eanslation

history in generar and of certain periods in particurar,

for orample, the
reigns of Iva the Terribte, peter the Great, ichoras
I, and Nichoras II;
the civil war; foreign intevention; the

Lenin); the nature of the Communist

nre rne cin

e b anre s over sryre s

"r'if i:ff :i t'ffl,itJt"':"ti::

realist; the aims of the proletcurt and such srogans

as ..the tiving ma,,;
the growth of Stalinism and its totalitarian stucture
and terror; the
growing control and totar dictatorship over
form and. content of all the

arts; the necessity for soviet citizenJto deverop the

'.doubre-thik, in
as to utilize the double entendre,
he really feels, as compared with

lir:it,l'#"T"T::f:i

was a master at this kind or writins:

criticism of the communist party i"
writins, u", du"p down it
-y of his
is there - as his autobiography rmmonr
Memories-vmtl eveaf to those
who can read between tlre lines.
Then there is a speciar d.evelopment of Eisenstein,s
styre into what I
call "cinemaric montage" - his eriberate habit of ureaiing-own
nis
sentences into montage pieces of very short tength.
so trre ade must

not be surprised to find a sentencl broken into severa-r

lines set,
paragraph fashion, sometimes after a courma,
sometimes not, and
starting with a rower-case retter, then breaking off
at aroth",
again to a new line, with still no period or capital
"o--u,
letter.
That is the essence of Eisenstein's litemry styre
tl,e
continurty
and
clash of lines, as if trreywere firm shots, to rorm
cinematic sequence of
word:' This explains why he used, a great d.ear
more inversion tran is
usual in prose;

it i

and often the basis

other writing techn

can be consurtma
painfully awknard and obvious. I hope that my
Eansration has done its
best in conveying Eisenstein,s cinemiatic styte.
Foohotes and endnotes

origi
which ae
usually by the Russia editors
tley
were
intended for a Russian
cessary or
applicable or were poli
large, the
translator has kept the
they have
been edited with the aim sf objectivity. The same
numeration of the
endnotes has been kept so that any inteested parry
can check with the
original.
The tanslator has kept the

H. M.

Ptor Salieri

(instead of

dcdication)

.. .Tue tone I smotered, dissecting

music like a corpse. I test wir
algebra pure harmony.. .
- Pushkin, ,,Mozart and Salieri,,

As it is,
Past qer

dedica

cass.

dedicare this wor Salieri.

Pushkin's poor Salieri.

"oiUf..
to a stop to be terminated., without movement
an. without

Photo porait of Sergei Eisenstein,

1931.

,rrJo "o-"
Al because there was, as yet, no
had not come into existence that w
taking its life, or kilng its s
tune into and stud under
vivre, not only its algebra
differentiaLs; without which,

go very far.

is the st reason why I am not afraid

of dedicating my book ro
The second lies in
my opponents, when
4.a term used by
"Grau ist die treorie

,^H:

Poor Salieri

CIIAPTIIT

I
On the structure of things

Therefore,

as werl as a dedication to the

tagicmemory of the searcher,
satieri, this volume is.simultan"""icted
arso . ,rr" *-ory of

%y49trq.--r-YE

Let us ass'me we ale to present grief on

trre screen. There is no such
as grief "in general.;, Grief ii
tlematic; it has a vehicre
when a chaacter is grieving; it has
"orr.i",",
a consumer when sorrow is

tling

in the depiction of grief:

s joy in the viewer, who
These ideas ae childishly obvio
compler problems of the sucture
: most vital aspect
of our work: tlr

ented.

ssing this -l
d'throuh'

must treat the representation so that

it

shows, ow the author relates to

viewers to perceive, feel, and sense
Let us tace this phenomenon fro

lj

*::*::_.1'::$fin 1.?o'loonthatrh;,;;;"'n",;
literature at a_ll.
been mendoned

The object of representation

jili:i#i

and the raw of structuring by which it

is
presented may coincide. Thisis
the simprest case, and one can more
or
less cope with a compositionar proutemithis
type. rrris is a stucturing

I. On the ?nr-trro ^f *L:- --

On the struchre of things

i^rt

"

lt

The intense throbbing of an o(cited heat dictated the rhythm of the

galloping hooves:
visually depictive - rlis is the jump of tbe jumping knights.
compositional - this is tle intense beating of the excited hea:t.

rrow or rrs or that passion and, by

screen,

tis "graph," coming

back from the

' hir is where tre

ositional passages in
to tle bases of com_

secret of trre genuinery emotional effect of true

composition lies. using as its source the structure of human emotions, it
unmistakaby also appeds to the emotions, unmistakably evokes the
compler of those emotions that engendered it.
In all aspects of at - and in film art more tlan anywhere else it is
exactly in this manner and mainly in this way that what Lev Tolstoy
wrote about music is achieved: "It, music, immediately, directly transports me into that spiritual state in which the one who wrote the
music

found himself."*
This - from te simplest instarces to the most complex _ is oDe of the
pjpljrygs of the sructure of things.
^+-ut there is also another case when an author, instead of a resoluti,on
o!-the type ')'oyftl joy," must sorve, for exampre, the theme of ,,rife-

""ir
/"^tr+gic!l+e-*"
ir.^
"n

oJhuma

its structual

)l

-s!th.'

.Flow can tnt be done here?

Lr u5 .aKe as n -rhl^
ure or me most successful
one
scenes in
of the aftack.of the _
,\ndge,,
?an
on
ning of the ',Battle on tlr" f"".,i

It is quite obvious that in such cases the law of the structure of things

is no longer provided etrclusively by elements directry flowing out of

natural and common emotions, states and feetings or a person that

accompa.ny the given phenomenon.

However, the lar of composition
case.

still remains the same in the given

But the seach for the primary scheme

in
assage.
* E. K. Rozenov,
I. S. Bach

Alaxander Nevs is

process of this experience.

n, caesura, te increase in

ego od(J.S. Bact ad.I{,s

Kind), Moscow

,l9ll, p.72.

will lie not so much in the emotions accom

ted as initially in the emotional relationsh
But this case is quite rare and not ob

such cases a very curious and often un

transmission of the phenomenon by a structure not at alr co'rmon under
*_L. N. Tolstoy,

'The KreuEer sonata," xXIII [in six sorr sro,'eq M. wenlin, ans., Deil,
- HMl.

New Yor 193

).
)

I.

On the sEuctute of

things

"normar" circumstances. Literature is overflowing

with examples of this
in all its nuances.
such primary elements of composirtistic images, resolutions possible
compositional
themselves,'ar

defined, nouri
extravagant reseaches.
The example
classics becaus
concerning the
menon, was embodied

On the gtructure of things

solved by Zola

Rougon_

pitaph to his novel: ,Vengeance

is mine; I wil
M' Sukhotin' in a retter to veresayev
t*r 23, rgoT,cires Tolstoy,s
words on the sisnificance
_"j
thili;;ph,
which h;J;;i."d veresayev:
"f
...Imus

evil that
from Peo

her.3

In

Tolst
Th
stage

in them wi

in the course of his

epigraph.

s consequen
which Anna

the

;r

*l:t:

this excerpt has been taken,

evil that man commits.,,
e to feel it in forms of the
highest
one to assess the evil act
of the
son as _ muder,
es an evaluation of the charac_
by alt the means of expression

The crime murder, having

become the basic et<pressive
of the author- to re pnen-oenoi-]
relationship
i""o_es
at
rhe
same
me re
or au '"i" ii*i"-t
o composxionar eatnent

::::#-",t

or the

what a murderer must feel

of tife. The body he had
a_r.acte_t:,

himself on the body, as though with

sky covered he face and shouldes
she held his hand and did not move. yes!
These kisses were what had been
bought by tlat shame! yes, and ,bi;
il;;ch
wit always be mine, is rhe
hand of my accomplice.r

In this excerpt from Anna Karenina (part

2, chap. xr), in the figurative
system of its comparisons, the whol
scene is totally resolved with
magnificent cruelty from the very depths
of the autho/s ,"i"rrrnip to
the phenomenon, rather than t o-'trr

ieerings an. emotions of its

participants [as, for er<ample, this
very same theme in nrmerous
*

lAnna Karenina, L. Maude and A. Maude uans.,

Norton, New york,

1970,

p.l35 _ HM.l

actions, prescribing

stic of love, in fonns

charac-_

him.self on the body, as

so Vronsry covered he

of

:J

:::ii'J,1HT";,j.lJ

well. This image is a favorite

LI
c J\

I. On the structue ofthiags

In

On the suctue of rhingg

the ,,Keutzer Sonata,,

pozdnyshev,s srory will

give
children) broadens the fram
surprises by its outer composi

sketeton of the trearmenr of the

German officer.
#"l:t::::j:
rnrs j:Jf
onglnal casse-corse* ,
:ip.
.' \":::
T]_{lsse_croise*,"u,.o.,'o'iil:"i:'iT,1i
the wellKnown story',Mademoiselle
Fifi.,,

entirely from the inner relatio

ffi:X;1r:""1r^T.".;1."::_"_r: T*l:,ryoman

is woven our of an the

::"jS"n'ocsornob'ityonnectl;;'#i;":i"""ri"i::iii
an officer.

>'

:""xi111,i1ffi

German officer

It is all part ofthe story

I killed her and what I

of Octoberwith a knife.

or improvins it.
became evident
eYwere a means

Funhermore, the ch'den i#'i:i:

as soon as they appeared, and the older

and an object of-iss.rr.iorr.

rif *". oot

usht
as

:i:'r'::i

hi

s were usuarlY

hers,
,

this, but we were too much

of them.T

hat example we might take, the method

of

names are generally

fonned by doubling

rmmeasurable enriched significance and

emotion.
t."t:
Oi1?
oo" more example. rt is curious because in
it,
,- the ::,t_ib]_".::
in
delineation of thelrr,two charact"r" 'r"pr"""rrted,
not only are the
stncture

and features in contast to the ones usually

and uitely
characteristic of them, but by means of constuction.
. . a exchange of
structures is consciously produced!
These characters are a Germar office and
a French prostitute.
The structure of the image of the ,.nobl.e officel,
is assigned to the
prostitute.
?e structu re of the image of the prostitute in
its most unatractive
*

_L.

N. Tolstoy, "The Keutze Sonata,,,XIII,

op. cit. p. 3l.

lbid., XVI, p. 328.

the
Josephine'-'in;;,;:*oo"
suppositio. t

Ernest - "Neness,;
only emphasizes our

ilifj"H:.u""::Tl:_:_" l.1I, a sood moder of how a common,

il:if#":"T:T:3^':-"^1111l':"'u'i"*"t"*i*:::"'ffi ::iii

very same
changing places.

I.

On the structure ofthings

l0

Organic unity and patos

11

an psychology, nourishing the most complex

composi_
form, in exact the same way it nourishes and
defines

organism as Engels defines

it in The Dialectics of Nature: ,,. . .
an
-nff1:::1 of couse, a higher
;.
These considerations td;.."tto.,r,
""i.1
to rhe first theme of our
to the quesrion
uniq/,
of the srructure of
"f
Letusapproach
fromthe nremise set forth
3,3tIhe-

work for itsel.

I wourd rike to ilusuate these positions in trro quite

compricated and.,
it would seem, formally quite .l ,t...t examples that
apply to the
composition

whgm neiter the

"organic." This .^ lT-f::
au ditoriums
T,u"i"
unity of the stucrure of a
work i" ah" sense us
I woutd say there
"-.rrp, r o.surric uniry.

,;#"iiT:i i.r."l:'j:

"""
-ri*T:li;::*................:;;workinsenerarrhatpossesses
In this case,organic unity is defined
by the fact that the
governed

where pathos achieves the greatest dramatic tension.

Laer, we wilr
generalize this for the entire fiIm as well.
our analysis will be concerned with how the organic
unity and pathos
of the theme were resorved by means of the coposition 'it."ti.
r' tt u

e rest

that here we

ose viewers who, because

rve attitudes toward the

Let us take two of the most outstanding features

o1 potemkn and ty to
discover by what means they were achved, especialy
in t""ro" of composition' The first feature win be examined.
in th composition itrre arm
as a whole' The second wil be examined in
the "odesa steps,; episoae,

stas ecstasy, inspiration, we shall con-

rla;*rraE='*

,""",

c unity of th

Organis unity and patos

such as love, hate.', (H. G. Liddell and R.

niversity press, Odord, lg6l, p, Sg4); but

{
."o'-/'o.gu-i"'

t,oi

when Potemkin is discussed, usualy two of its features

ae observed:
the organic unity of its compostion s a whole, and
the pathos* of the
film.

same way one courd anaryze how these same

eremnts were resorved. by
other elements, as, for example, by the actors, performance,
by the
treatment of theme, by the coror range of the
firm, uy use of randscape, by
treatment of mass scenes, etc.
Howevel, we wilr confine ourselves here to one particurar
problem, the
problem of te structure of things, making
no pretense to a thorough
analysis of all aspects of the film.
However, it is in an organic work of art that the
erements contibuting
to the work as a whole permate every feature composing
this work. A
single norm pervades nor onry the wnle and
each fu it, iurt" but arso
each erement rhat is carled to participate in the
creation otttrewrrte. one
and the same principle will nourish o"ry putt,
appearing in each of them
with their own special qualitative distinctions. a,,a
onty in this case can
one speak of the organic unity of a work, for here
w understand an

.h;1;;ic

;:ttr".

Battleship potenkin.
For the theme of the structure of things and composition
in the wid.est
sense of the word, they wilr serye as examples
ad. confimatio" oiwi
was stated above. From the point of view t poten
kinth"v *iii ,"rve as
research material for the film itself.
of.

by a definite taw oi
subordinat1 tni" ta*.

work is

"a*"*rrmg, and all its separare parrs are

r wourd can rhis type or

unity re orsanic ,ntv oi
,":iJ",i::,9;',j,T:::"_"^T:11:ians,
. In the given case it
is
a lfof trr one
ni"n
:^t'lipt:

:_lqpi:
quite

3:i:iy,liii"l-:.":_*::i;;!ie"#i,i:;i'":Lt',".1
-,i' ;"i:,ii,.,i;';h""l
i"';"1il'LY"o:::,:"t^*i^;i;;Jd;";ffi
n",,"rar exists ",,

Hi,:1.,,1o"

::ili: il*f:

ff"ii:l
f:3t"::::13::-: olt'u-r phenomena are srructured
j:":::::a:::i:",,lift
i;ii::
;Tii::?
tat work of at is stucnrred.
,or
i

;::.#,r,T":*::-:,"",.*:

occurs

when not onry the

"-"-::r-1ype
ff#iffi1,: j,.:tr:::lclir"ru.ilii::i,:::T:l,T

lii"ii"-iJ:ly*ll":1';::lli'#,*,i.iH?"'"i:i:::,::j

Particularlyinterffi

Here we have a case where

the work of art

an anificiar work

ofthe book, set in italics to emphasize

lJ"::i"""1',."?:,?:l,iiidi"?j;:,,1"ft:ffi::ff,_*'trJ;li,ti;1i,,1,tjj

is

I.

On the structure of things

t2

structured according to the same laws by whi

ch nonaniicia.r phenomena
- "organic," natural phenomena _ are itucned.
And in this case not onry is a realistic theme proper
but the forms of its
composirional embodiment arso fulry reflect
trr taws p"""*i reality.
It is obvious that a work of this type has a very particurar
effect on the
perceiver, not onry because it is iise
to the same rever as naturar
phenomena but arso because trre raw
of its strucnrring is arso the raw
work, for they too are a part of organic
ical.ly tied, merged,

ad united with

mersed with the

ii:ffii*.-t

orsanic environment and narur"

To a greater or resser degreethis feering is ievitabre
in each of us, and
the secret consists of the fact that in
both us and the work are
governed by one and the same carlon"u"Ii "u""
of law. The natue of this raw wilr
also be examined in both our exampres,
which anarlze, i *ola
two different and independent q.r"rtio.r"
but which, however, in tJre"""-,
end,

come together.
The first example wilt be based on an analysis
of this law ud.er static
conditions;

Organic unity and pathos

13

Pan I - "Men and Maggots":

Exposition of the adion. The
situation on the
battleship. Maggoty
-"i. Dis"orr;"*;;;
rre sa'ors.
Pa'- il - "Dmma ott t"Quarterdeck"o "uanas on deck!,, Refusal
to eat the
the tarp aurin' "-B;ers " n"r",.i
, o r. Muriny.
i:i"#

;:;

Pan IIr

t"::."

"The Dead Man-Appeals": Mists.

vakurinchuk,s corpse in the odessa
rle Uoay. Meeting i ir"rr."",ion.
Raising the red flag.
Pary- "The odessa steps-: Fratemization
of tre shore with the banleship.
The
*;
fff"'".,"q:
"hooti"sithrru steps. rhe battreship ririns on

port. Lament ove

Paft

v -'Tvfeeting the squadron": Night

of orpectation. Meeting rhe squadron.
Reni ar or
t soot. n atue sr,ip p
* u ctori ou ry
"q"u.ii
"r

ii:ffi ;i:iffi

Based on their adion, the episodes

of each part of the drama are quite
doubre

tr",:l"i:a

'"p"ti;;;;;;' t"*

u,,a ,"u, o

."*",',

the second. w'l be examined ,rner dynamic

Thus in the first example we will discuss the
divisions"o.ritiorrr.
and. propor_
tions of the structure of the work. In tre second.,
we
wilr
d.iscuss the
process of the structure of tlings.

Thus the resorution of the first question concerning

trre organic unity of
Potemkin's structure must begin with
an interpretation of whether this
structure is subordinate to the first condition-te organic uiry of a
general order.
Potemkin tooks like a chronicle of events
but acts as a drama.

ii,i:',ii":i'"':-i::i:::":l:::,.:9."_@':""1t'"g>*1.
- tle

five-act tragedy.

The events, raken armost as bare facts, are lri"a

i*" oi"r";
tragedy, in which the facts have been chosen
ad selected in a sequence
where they answer those demads that crassical
tragedy imposa on the
third act as opposed to the second, on the fifth act
as opposed. to trre first,
etc., etc.

The advantage and law of serection of the five-act

consuction of
tragedy, of course, is arso not accid.entar, but
the result oi prorors"
natural serection; however, we wil not dwer on
this here.
that as the basis of the initiat division of our drama, It is sufficient
it was at i, u"ry
structure, validated by the centuries, that was
selected. This is even
emphasized by the fact that every "act" has its
own indepenent titre.
Let us briefly mention these five acts.

encountering the muzzles of

the ad
th9m. And the muzzles ae lowered:

with them.

;";;,;,_T::::'"T^:.:.suo-tsm of the fleet

of

as a whole _ tbis is

And

6e
and

the

it

is

e fraternity

ived in a cell within

tle film, not

film as a whole, but it goes far
aps,

it might be sufficient

to

be sEicter concerning the

form.

f the work.

I.

Onthe structute ofrhings

t4

Organic unity and pathos

Its five acts, connected to the main direction of

the theme by the tleme
of-

revolutionary fraternity, otlerwise bear littre resembrance

other' But in one respect they are absolutely identical: to each
iact part
distinctly divides into rwo almost equar harves. This particurarly
is
crear
in the second act.

before a hansition that is played by

separate shots within the separare
parrs. Acrually, from this moment
orr, tn rheme, t u"irrg ir.n-trre
cir.t"
bound b

ing the
merging

The scene with the tarpaulin _ the mutiny.

Mourning for Vakulinchuk _ the angry meeting.
Lyrical fratemization - the shooting.

soldiey's

again to
We see how o
me is, and at the same
time we see that
theme, is unjred in the work
united rn its basjc parts.
The law of organic
of a general order, as we can see, has been
completely observed. 'nity

Nervous awaiting the squadron _ 1 rmph.

as"

Moreover, at points of a'break' in each part, there

always seems to be
a pause - a type of ,,caesura.,,

In one case - it is severar shots of clenched fists in which

the theme of
mourning over the murdered man jumps to the trreme of
rage (part uI).
There is the subtitre "suDDENLy," cntting short trre
f fraternization in order to tasfer it to the scene of the shooting
"""rr"
(pafi 1.
The motionless rifl_e muzzres ae rhere (part II). rne jaiing
muzzres

of
the guns are here (part . And the shout "Brotheis!;'
uieaking the
deathly pause of expectation in an outbust of fraternar
feelings is in
both parts.
And it is arso remakabre that the jump at each point
- is not simpry a
sudden jump to another mood, to anothr rhythm,
to anotherevent, but
each time it is a transition to a disan"t opposite.
Not contastive, but
opposite, for each time it gives te image of that same
rheme from the
opposite point or uiew and at the same time unavoidably go*"
out
of t.
The outburst of the mutiny after the maxmum point of
tension
the muzzles of the guns (part II).
'nder
or the outburst of anger organica[y bursting out of the theme
of the
masses' mourning for the murdered man (pat fU).
The shots on the stairs as an organic "concrusion"
of the reaction to
the fratemar embraces of the insurgents from the poten kin
and the
population of Odessa (part fV), etc.
The unity of a similar law, recurring in every act of the drama,
is
significant in itself.
But if we look at the work as a whore, then we wilr see that
the same
thing occurs in the whole structure of potemkin.
Actually, near the middre, the firm as a whole is divided by
the dead
pause of a caesura; the stormy movement of the beginning
pauses totarly
so that it can gather momentum a second time for its seond
half.
The role of a simila caesura in terms of the fiIm as a whole is played
by the episode of the dead Vakutinchuk and the Od.essa misrs.
For the film as a whore, this episode plays the same role of
the pause

15

.fil'""tJ1#iJ:

Let's examine further and check: Is the raw

of organic unity not carried
deeper? Do we not observe in the ra*"a"t"
of iotemkin not onty the
principle but

the very forrrura of thai basic raw thar

exists as a
phenomenon of orgaaic nature.
For-T we must penetrate into the very nature
of this basic law, define
it.. and
then check: Does the

"o-.r.,.*'i.;^.rr

.*,,^+!r;^

_-

,l

+,Jp vvver

"*)
^

vLvpuruons

Dy

wnrcn porcmki.n is struCtured

and to what degree

the srrucflrrar rhwlt1t
th:;;';;;portions win correspond with
the
"f of natirA pnenomena.
rhythm of the basic laws
For this we must recat and detenrrine
what are .ose ',formuras,, and
h is expressed the characteristics of organic
organic wholeness, and the indicatiois
of
its parts'
The easiest of au is ,o ,"oro
differentiates living organic natu
menon is grovvth, and aound th
organic phenomena, we shall c
speak now of growh, and not

primitive evolutio

havi
e compl* behavioal graphic. We
will
speak below abo
phase of d.evelopment in contrast
to
growt.' which takes place organi
ny not only in nrurat pt
but
also in society.
"nomena
the 'rormula" or srowrh as rhe primary
rypicar sisn
development

",lrii';Hl:;t
In the area of determined proportions,

in

the dynamics of this

phenomenon erressing itserf in sttics,
trre formura emerges, which in
aesthetic srudies is usua_lly termed .tn" gota".,
section.,,

I.

On the structure of things

Organic unity and pathos

17

In school we cared a similar proportion the division of a segment in

the relationship of the middte to the exremes.
Let us p
and in a brief digression let us rry to
show how
den section the atrual cunedgrowth
of natural
s with the matlematical image for

expressing

In investigating the "formulas" and the genera_lizing

genera_lizing
that would express the idea of organiC growth, re
question have gone in two directions.
On the one hand, they went along the simplest p
measurements of actua,l growing objects
On the other hand - they used ,'pure'

\-y
l,

Figure

1.

formula that wouLd express in a mathematical image

necessary sign of organic unity, that is, the princ
inseparabiliry of the whole and. of all its merging
Wreaths of leaves and flower stems, pine cones

served as objects of measurement for the first. The latt

of the most graphic images for observation: The t
growth is apparent in the sunflower seed., as in the
The measurements and conclusion of the cu
particular cases led to the following position: The

OA OB
OB OC

OC
OD

for any meaning m (see Figure 1).

It is obvious that every logarithmic spiral carrie
image of the idea of uniform evolution'*
However, it is also very obvious that the actual
^.^^h.^ cu
all possible ones turns out to be the on/y definite on
one that will be able to link the vectors betwee
(according to the second condition of organic unity)
more connection, that is, betlyeen consecutive vectors
is a.so characteristic of the unity of the whole and.
And both series of quests meet at this point: the
'

Except in cases when this spiral tums into a circle, suaight line,

of the corresponding

oB

: oA' oB: o' oB : '

concept since our school days

-,.the division of
ship oi the miate to the extremes,,,
or the so_

ot
. D. Archer-Hind, ed., Ayer, New yok,
rg73, p. g7

HM.l

I.

Onthe s.trcture ofrhings

18

9lganic unity and pathos

Professor Grimm writes in "summing up the Exceptionar Features

of

the Golden Section":*

' . .2.

only the golden section, of all divisions of the whore, gives a

constant
relationship

between the whole and its parts; onry in it do ioth preceeding

membersl exist in fun dependence on th basic magnitude
and on the whole,
while the relation between tlem and to the whole is noi accidental,
but a consrant
relation equal to 0.18. . .in any meaning of the whole.

79

ileoyaffv rue for a section of a tree rrunk

as well as for rhe

for ttre.stru*ure of an animal,s horn and
ur the
rrrtr
:::,"^:t^1:_.Tl_"*r,,
section of human bones is insena.rnr. ."^*-,.1 -^:::i:^" for
lastic
tasttc

^gP"-^Ta

e UA,
OA,

rr

thar most closely embodies the

-a.propomon
of.the
unity of the whole ano its parts.
T:peand. propo-ol,
il ril ;;h*"- ;;#;*;," ati c s, rh e
P:.^-T^:*:rs
idea
of orsanic unirv is ario embod.ied,
process ahd facts of organic nature.
Thus, in the area reJStinS to proportion, ,,organic,,
proportions are the
proportions of the golden section,

consists of bones, muscles, nerues, etc.

However, it is immediately clear that this d.oes not have the
same sense as te
statement has that a piece of granite consists of the above-named
substances.
These substances are quite indifferently related to thei combination
and can
exist very well even without this combination; various parts
and members of an
body are maintained only-in their combination and, separate
from each

an excursion in and of itseE of course, is

fascinating. However, it is
undoubtedry too speciarized to dwel muctr
ronger o" q"rtio"s touched
by it or to ueat them in greater detail. Mo."orr"r,
for our theme the most
important is the concluiion: What

obviously, this

is the maximaly

accessible approximation

of

mathematical scheme to that condition of organic unity of the

whole and
its parts in nature as Heger defined it in those p.g"" of the ,ncycropedia" with which Engers operates in Te DialectiL

of

' .They say,

tley

Nature.t

it is ue, rat an animal

::l::^:"^_"
.H:.T?:":L

"'nil; il;ffi;ir"i;:i

Such

cease existing as such.f

and organs of a living body must not only be oramined as its parts,

. . . Members

since they present tlemselves in such a way that they are presented onry in a
unity, and by no means rerate indifferently to the latter. These rimbs and organs
become simple parts only under tre hand of anatomy, but it then no longer
is a
matter of living bodies, but of corpses.#

It is naturar

It

to ask where the connection actualry is between the

golden section as te most perfect mathematical image
of the unity of the
arithmic spiral as the most perfect lineat
e principle of proportional evolution

i.n

consists in this, that of all possible ones

at outlines not only the image of the
al but is in accord with the actual growth

one

in which the relationship

arto(q

should pass through the point o

golden section consists of a divis
constituents, where tjf,e smailer rcrates to
the latger as the ratger does to
the whole,
Expressed by whole numers, trre proportion
of the distance of te
point of the golden section from the
eas-ot ne
ations by the following series:
""g-"rr,i. "*pressed in
--A-

./

l\

the grcater segment,

(O.Ae.).tot
\--l

considering the

rding to
n art for

th
it

built in

tc. the conesponding OB, OC, etc. serve as

the grcater of the two segments into which they are divided by the golden

section.

Thus we see that this curve, which is acnrarly present in

tried very hard to show why this

cases of

, artd why it is just this taw 6i

^--.-at

orsanism,

;':;,

re3o, p. 2rs.

ir not our sour, *",

-purti'rHi il*", ""ffi,::i

movement - growth conespond to what

has bien pr"""rrt"Jto us in a
work of at.
once upon a time the "blood" tie of man witr a futue
bu'ding was

I.

Onthe stucture ofthings

established physically

20

Organic unity and pathos

by the bloody remains of a human sacrifice that

27

The gorden section passes along the thirteenth

rine (out of twenty),
cutting it into tr,rto sgments of riterary materiar,
of which the larger is
exacrry 0-62 0f the whore volume (the golden
section: o.tgJ.-rrom tre
content itserf, it is obvious that it is just at this
spot that the thematic
division of rre mass intg
putt"
o"tnrs,
from
*ilr,
ii"ity totto*,
that the golden secrion is lwo
by n means * ub"tru"t ,,rrrr
ori,;iora ,n"a
it is closely connected with the content.
The extent to which it is sharpty distinguished
can be seen by the fact
that in t''e whore exampre this is the ottt! un"
intemrptJ;l,li"
by the
mak of 'Tull punctuation" _ the period.
A second orample:

resolved by the golden section.

As we have said, questions of the golden section have been worked out
very thoroughly in the area of the plastic arts.
They are less popular in application to the other arts, altlough here
they probably have an even greater aea of application.

phere of poetry. An
d mostly from E. K.
a very high percen-

";l^

umerous. Pushkin
two of my favorite
ion in the lines the
period. The period

th
th
th

only in the area of the golden section.

The first example has been taken from the second canto of -Rusl an and
Lyudmila:

:"j"
The basic

...Fom the doorstep of my hut

saw, amidst summer days,

When behind the timid hen,
The arrogant sultan of the hen-coop,
My rooster, ran around the yard
And with lustful wings
His sweetheart he embraced;
Over them in sly circles
The old tief of the chicken village,
Having talen destuctive measures,
Rushed, floated, the gray kite,
And fell like lightning on the yard.
He screamed, he flew.ll In...terrible claws
Into the dakness of safe crevices
He carries away the poor rogue.
In vain, struck with gef
And cold fear
The rooster calls out to his beloved...
He sees only flying feathers,
Brought by the flying wind.*
So

* [My translation

HM.]

" A:B=6:4;

more

The masses

within

and B also break up accord.ing to the golden

section,
of approximation.

The
Andas
period

3tr"1,:?"#H1:

The data of both exampres (7gr7-2o and rg29) have

been
in order to show that these erements of "organic arso
unity,,
are
equally characteristic of pushkin in compretely differea
,gu" of his
work.
examined

It seems to me that a "checK'of works of filn at for

the golden section
has never been made.
And it is even more curious to note tat it is pote^kn, empiricaily

well

'

Po)tava, 1829, 3rd canto [my

tanslarion _ HM.],

I. On the structu-re

of -hings

and patos

22

23

known for the ,'organic uni!y', of

its stuctute, that is completely
constructed according to the law
of the golden section.
It was not accidentar that *"
tt
""iJ.r" at trre division of each

&"-l

4"4>t
.Vt

at-$e interval from the beginning

:i|i i:":

once counted rrom

such a '.double golden section,,

from

enter the action not at the beginnin

This example is particularly interesting

work disputed by.no one as the greatest because it is taken from a
representative of the rearistic
direction in painting.

s-econd, adding the missing 0.lg

to
the film, which gives the result

corresponding to the golden section.

analogical porportion of the point o

parts of the film.

erve as a reproach

But, probably, the most cuious thing

of
golden section is observed in po
movement _ it is also true for the
point is the red flag on the mast

realism, that the

ot important and

ar is that the law of the

part, but the film as a whole,

I _ at the point of complete stasis
a_rate

lg#;t

picture ad that artist, abourwhose

trurhtulness stasov wrote (in
created a pictue which,.in my opinion,
is the best of
theme

from Russian ntrl.rr;.. il;;;;;;or

autbenticiry with which sukoys

a, our

truth, the

""",-or"i"'orearhes is

mposition once and for all be

let us analyze the question of

And linked to this jact, the very same

Surikov wrote the following

about his stay ar the Academy

parhosandthosecomp,ositiona-rmeans;;i:m"-"ir"r:?r.i:ifi
is embodied in the pathos of the pi"tor"'.

ot-n:-

. There they called

of composition. At

However, before turning to the question

of pathos, let us note that
Potemkin is not alone in the fact trat
otrr trre moment of curmination
as

:kFHlii.*fffi *rm*:",f,*"+:":

"

r'S.lffi:1ffiff3"";;l:se/'his
And the most outstanding

is

whore rire. Anv or his paintinss

is

The Boyarina Morozova.

* [The wife of
a bovar. who was a nobreman
of the rst ra_nk in rbe coun
exctusive privitege of possessing
of the tsar, with the
u" . -";;;:,rM.f

I.

Onthe structute of things

24

Here the combination of "naturalness" and beauty in composition has

been presented perhaps most richly.

But what is this combination of "naturalness and beauty,,, if not te

"organic unity" in the sense we spoke of above?
But wherever it is a question of organic unity, there...r.ook ror ttre \
goden section in the proportions I
,/
The same stasov wrote on The Boyarina Morozova as a '.soloist,'
surrounded by a "choir." The central "part" belongs to the boyarina
herself. The center portion of the picture is assigned. to her role. It is
bound by the point of highest flight and the point of lowest descent of the
picture's theme. This is the upward ascent of Moozova's arm witr
the
two-fingered sign of the cross as the highest point. And tlis is the hand.
helplessly stretched toward that same boyarina, but this time the hand
of an old woman - of a wandering beggar, a hand. from under -which the
end of the sleigh slips out arong with rhe rast hope of sarvation.
These are the two central dramatic points of thJBoyarina Morozova's
role: the "zero" point and the point of maximum upward ascent.
The unity of the drama seems to be designed by the circumstance that

both these points are confinea to trre decisive centrar diagonal,

determining the whole basic structurg of the picture.

They do not coicide riterally with this diagonar, and it is precisery
this that distinguishes a living piy'ure from a dead geometricacheme.
But the strving toward this diagonal and the cnnection with it is
evident.

Let us try to determine spatia[y which other decisive dividing lines

pass c.ose to these two points of the drama.
A small sketch - a geometricar diagram (see Figure 2) wilI show us
that both these points of the drama include betwen them two vertical
dividing lines that pass at 0.18 . . . from each edge of the rectangle of
the picture
The "lower point" completely coincides with the dividing line ,48,
going to 0.iB . . . fom the teft edge.
And how does one treat the "highest point"? At first grance we have an
apparent contradiction: Actually section.4,181 as it goes to 0.1g . . . from
the right edge of the picture, passes not tlrough the hand, not even
through the head or eyes of the boyalina, but appears somewhere in front
of the boyarina's mouth ! That is, in other words it is a d.ecisive dividing
line, a means of attracting maximum attention, as if passing through the
air, for no purpose, in front of the mouth.
Agreed, it is in front of the mouth.
Agreed, it is through the air.
But we cannot agree it is "for no purpose."
!

On the contrary!

r.fe solden s.ectiql cllg ne91P-",3.{f"int. And

r}re unexpected-

l]

^o
o

E
L

0)

a)

,v
0)

F
th
N

-- :(

. ut

.U)
r ,=

>\,
>c)

R'
o

\5
o

<!

c .9

-
\Y

.
o(!

qr9

)
xk
t.

oO

F.'
Ng

9!

.?,

I. On the structrre

of

things

Organis unity and pathos

26

viewer. And, proceeding from the nature of the effect, we

ness is only that the very thing that is most important is unportrayable
plastically.
The golden section A1B1 passes through the word. that flies from
Boyarina Morozova's mouth.
For it is not the arm, not the burning eyes, not the mouth which are
the main thing - but te flaming word of fanatic conuiction.
It is in this, and precisely in this, that Morozova's greatest strength

-lies.

That same stasov writes about it, saflng it is 'That same woman of
whom Awakum,e the head of the fanatics of that time, said. in those d.ays,
that she was 'a lion among sheep,."
However, the hand - is depicted. The eye is depicted. The face is
depicted.
The voice - is not.
what is Surikov really doing? At the place where t.e ,,plastically not
depictable" voice would burst out, he does not put any detail
of
attracting the viewe/s attention. But he forces the viewe/s attention
"up"bt. to

remain excitedly on this spot, for this spot is not a plastically depicted
point of transversal of two decisive compositional divisions, lading the p.
eye along the surface of the picnrre, but namely a basic compositinal '\
line of a diagonal and a line that passes through the golden secion. Here
by means of compositional division surikov goes beyond the frame of a
narrowly depictive plastic exposition, and he does this in ord.er to allow
one to feel what it would be impossible to show by means of any plastic
depiction! He attracts attention not only to the Boyarina Morozva, not
only to her face, but also seems to attract attention to the word.s of the
flaming invocation bursting from her lips.
As we can see, the true highest point as well as the lowest, as in the
case of Potemkin, both appear on the axes of the golden section.
It is curious to note that the resemblance goes even d.eeper.
we just evealed the transition in surikov from dimension to
dimension on 'The point of highest ascent." The undepicted sound is
applied at this point.
something quite analogous occurs at "the point of highest ascenf, in
Potemkin as well: At this point the red flag appears; at this point the
black-gray-white light range of photographs is suddenly urled to
another dimension - to paint, to color. Depiction by light becomes
depiction by color.
Let us keep this in mind and now turn to an analysis of the principles
of patos, where similar phenomena will be given the requiredttention.

we will not discuss the nature of. pathos "as such,, here. we will limit
ourselves to examining a work of
perception of it, or more exactly

27

i"!
1

will try to define

general conclusions.
In order to do this, we must first outline t}re effect of patos in a few
words. we will intentionally do this as glibly and tritely as possible.
Then the most obvious and characteristic features will come out
immediately.
The most primitive way appears to be a simple description of the
most superficial signs of the external behavior of a viewer overcome by
pathos.
. However, these signs also appear to be so symptomatic that they
immediately lead us to the basis of the problem. According to this sign,
wfat foJg"" rhe viewer to jump out of his seat. It is what forces
ratos
! hl- to flee
is
his place. It is what forces him to clap, to cry out. It is
whlt forces from
his
eyes to
rv gleam
lru evrqI
ecstasy before
----:vrv tears
Ls4l (rr
uvs with
of uustasy
ecstasy appear
'
appear
ii
.J
L..
_--:f1 in them. In word, it is everything that forces the viewer to ,'be beside

;l\imseH."

Putting it more etegantly, we might say that

Y. Such a

thing, since ex stasis (out of a state) means literally tlre same thing as
"being beside oneself' or "going out of a normal state" does.
All the signs mentioned stictly follow this formula. Sitting he stood
up. standing - he jumped. Motionless he moved. silent he- shouted.
eyes
(tears), In every

out
"To
self

side oneself."
not ,.to go into

a tansition

to

g opposite

und, etc.).
atic effect,
sic feature

the constmction must have in a composition of patos.

In this stuctule the condition of "being beside oneself" must be
observed in arl of its featues, as well as the constant transition to a
different quality.
To be beside oneself, to be out of the usual balance and state, to move
to a new state - all this, of course, contributes to the conditions

necessary
And the

s.

accordng to

the degree
In this series the condition of having this general quality in the highest

I.

Onthe rtructure of things

28

degree belongs to productions of patos. Apparently the construction of

pathos is the culminating point on this common path.
And apparently it is possible to examine all other varieties of the
composition of artistic works as certain diminishing derivatives of a
maxi.mum case, maximally "being beside oneself'- a case of the patos
rype of construction.
'\- Let no one be afraid that, in speaking of pathos, I have not once
me ad content. The discussion is not of
in what way patlo3 is realized in comenter into a work of art in any aspect of
osition of content to a genuine hyrnn of
artistic meails that raises the "esonance"

important here.

ip
a

enles as an embodiment of the author's

the same time forces the viewer also to

\o\= o'lT:::T'
\ sociallY rela
t-,
l/ o relationship

is obviously socially conditioned. We are

(in the a priori

'lelationship" to the
"nature of phenomena" is realized by composition in the constuction of
a work of patlros.
Thus, following the same position, which has already justified itself in
the question of organic unity, we will agree that to achieve maximum
"being beside oneself in the viewer, we must propose to him a
corresponding "prescription," following which he will anive at the
interested

presence of both) in the limited problem of how this

desired state.

The

ve behaviqr

will

be,

0-"

himself."
Here the structure

will coincide with the depiction. And the object of

depiction - the beauior of the figure himsel will agree witl the
conditions of the "ecstatic" structure. Let us examine this in tle form of
speech. Nonorderly in its usual flow, the sEuctu.re, imbued with patos,
quickly takes on the imprint of a growing rhythmic quality; not only
prosaic but also prosaic in its forms, it soon begins to sparkle with forms
and turns of speech that are chaacteristic of. poeay (startling comparisons, vivid figurative expressions), etc., etc. No matter what form of
speech or other expression of the person be taken at that moment, in

Organl unitY and pathos

29

everhing we will find that progression from quality to a new qualiry.

ris is the first step on this path of compositional possibilities. The

find this in Shakespeae. In this respect the example of Lear's "frenzy,, is

classic, frenzy going beyond the limits of the chaacters into "frenzyi' of
nature itself - iDto the storm. . .
"Being beside oneself" - a ansition to the foLlowing dimension with
the aim of evoking a pathos effect - is general characteristic of
Shakespeare.

Let us recall such a chaacteristic example of "pathosization"* of the

fact that '"the king will drink to Hamlet's better breath," in the words of
King Claudius, raising his goblet to Hamlet in the scene of rhe duel with
Laertes.
The king shall driDkto Hamlet's better breatl
. . . Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the rumpet speak,
The uumpet to tlre cannoneer without,
The canons to 1'be heavens, tle heaven to eanh,
Now the king dinks to Hamlet. Come, begin. . .

cv.ii)
Hee the'Tnethod' o1. pathos is a_lmost reduced to a "device.,, And this
is very valid: Ttre king raises the goblet to the man who, according to his
information, must perish in the duel from a tiny scratch of the poisoned

rapier!

This is also the reason for revealing the device, and the choice ofthe
actral means, because of the fact that Englishmen, instead of. pathos,
here use "bathos" - excessive pomposity.

\4lhat is more important fo us is that here, in an extremely

"accentuated" manner, is the method of how pathos is constructed by

Shakespeare.t

Let us not forget that he is true to his method at moments of the

highest tension in his uagedies.

* An equivalent of the neologism created by Eisenstein HM.

1
We will find an analogous otample later, in the last section of this work, in the descriptions of the somewhat oraggerated manner of acting patos by the great Frdick
Lemaue.o

I. On the sEucture

of

things

30

Thus, from English the exclamation jumps into Zaan: *Ard you, too,
Brutus !" - ("Et tu, Brute!") on the rips of Julius caesar, dying from the
assassins' daggers at the foot of pompet's statue.
which ae also resolutions based on any
s, can be found in abundance among the
artd especially in Zola himself.
ails,
and
they
e for
but it is particularly apparent in
tos and raises those events to the
are often not necessalily fiIled with

Orgenis unity and pathos

31

Let us examine ttre system of how the events are presented and
grouped together in it.
_ First of all, arang noted the frenzied state of the people ad masses
being depiaed, let us trace what structural and composltional features
are necessary.
Let us do this in terms of movement.
First, there ae the dose-ups of the figures rushing chaotically, then
the long-sors of the fig'ures rushing chaotically.
Then tle chaotic movement passes over into the stamping of sold.iers,
feet rhythmically descending the steps.
The tempo quickens. The rhythm gows.
ownward is suddenly
ses downward passes
solitary figure of the

The masses. Dizziness. Downwad.

And suddenly:
A solitary figure. In uiumphant slowness. Upward.
But only for a moment. And again a reverse leap to the movement
downward.
The rhythm grows. The tempo quickens.

And only in the third and last place does this school sometimes also
apply those same
purely compositional:
to such a movem
e rhythms, within the
nature of langua
re movement of an
episode or chain of episodes.
This part of the work historically falls instead to the lot of the schools
that displaced the school of "naturalism,', schools that in their enthusiasm for this aspect of a work, in many cases accomplished this and are
accomplishing this, even to the detriment of a high-quality .,Rubenesque,,
concreteness of depictions, which is so characteristic of ZoIa.
But after all has been said, let us now turn to the basic object of our
investigation - to the .,Odessa Steps.,,

Close-ups leap to long-shots.

chaotic movement (of the masses)
soldiers).

to rhythmic

movement

(of the

I.

On t]re structure of rhings

QlSanic uniry and pathos

action is carried downward, strictly repeats the jump in steps from

quality to quality, in terms of the intensity and dimnsions Ieading

However, it was diffeent

upward.*

theme of pathos, here rushing down tle

e shooting, also permeates completely the
events have been plasticaly and rhhmi_

Is the episode on the steps unique in this respect? Does this feature
In it are

remove it from
those features

into a culmina
ting in its trag
Moreover, this compositionar feature has sometrring
a surprising supplement for a silent film.

s it were
culmina-

erse

that is quite

I was somehow forced to write that, in terms of practicing sound fiIm, I

am like the last guest arriving at a wedding: I am the youngest director of
nd film and entered this aea later tlan anyone else.

q, \.,,,,t

tL

4'

-,'

on this i
My first work on sound film was in 1926.
it concerned that same potemkin.

-provided wij}lL@-Fen especially fo, it,

f'"effie

ft is not a question

-was

one of the few films

thatffi

clGit'd-Tr

r";1-

is arransed..

here, however, of the fact that Edmund MeiJeIr2

wrote special music for Potemkm. Thee were even cases when silent

films

ha

;H":

d (this is particularly the

K";;i"-

bY Ludwis

But in our case what is important is how the music for potemkn was
written,

ev
composer and the director.

ack, always and

cocreation of the

Actually, despite everhing even now sound fiIm music is armost

by the film" and doesn't basically differ from former
"musica illustrations."
aLways "close

* Incidentally we daw attention

to the fact that the compositional su:uctute of the .,odessa
steps" is identical to the behavior of man overcome by patos, as we have described him
above.

the
the

hip,

33

with

n everhng

nough while

oi
aa

it was long

I about the
A''d especially about the "music of the machines,, in the
encounter
with the squadron.
For this episode-I demanded categoricauy that the
composer reject re
usual melodic quarity arrd the emphasis on ne uare
rnytnmic percussion
bea but, by these demand.s, I elsentially
forced the music
this decisive spot to 'Jump ovef, into u ,,n"* quality,: as werl in
into a noise

structure,

potenkin

At this point
styristicauy expr.odes beyond the timits of the
system of "silent picture with musicar ilustration,,into
a new area _ nto
ound rirm, where true moders of this aspect
of art rive in a unity of fused
musicar and visuar images,* which thereby ceated
a sigrc

audiovisual
image of the production.
It is mainly due to these elements, antjcjp ating the possibility
of the
inner nature of the composition of soundi'rm,
thai the icene ,.Encounter
with the squadron" owes its shattering effect, and being
cited n a..
antrrologies of cinematography abroad equar to
that of the ,,odessa
Steps."

I am particurarry interested here in the fact that within

this area, which
in the generar structure of potemkin is also a jump into
a new quarity_ in
the very eatuent of the music itse/f the
j".*"aiing conaition of
pathos constuction is observed the conditio.,
".-u
f a quaritative reap that,
as we have shown in potemkn, is inseparabre from
the organic theme
itself.

music also must be governed. not onry accordng to those

same images
and themes but arso by the same bask laws an principtes
of structure
that govern the thing as.a whole,T
It is amusing to recan that even its first acal showing was to end
with its own particular "being beside oneserf' of the firmas
a dro.re. This
was i the Bolshoi rheater of the ussR in December
Lg25 _ on the
r As we have seen,.our."cim"
coming out two years laterra (in 1g2g), estabrishing
an audiovisual image, arJo had cenain prasmaicaiiy lrin"a

;HHi.r

rhe

experince

t In ma^ny of its parts we

were also able to achieve this in sound film in the fisr
of ou
sound filrns, AJetr'ander Ne.vs' we accomplished this tte."
ttr"oo-tl the cooperation of
such a remakable and brilliant master as S. S. prokofiev.

I.

On the sucture of lhings

Organis unity and pathos

twentieth anniversary of trre Revolution of r90s,

in whose memory the
film had been made.
According to the directo/s idea,
oncoming nose of the battleship _ had
The screen had to be cut in twond rev
solemn meeting of rear peopre the participants
of the events of r90s.
By this device potemkinwourd
a series of anarogicar cases of
"o-lret"
the past.
Once, as Kasimir Malevichrs later told me, in
the same way a curtain
was torn open revealing the first per rmance
of the Russian futurists in
a theater on officer Steet.r sut this was not crowned
by a whore
performance and by its logical completion
but instead the co
"slap in the face
on the memorable July 14, 17g9, acompletely
different great surge of social pathos ripped opr, g"*
that
separated the audience from the adoiJ in the paisian
"
"rrtuin Des
theater

was a pure expression of that same paros by which

this film was
inspired, realized, and completed through montage.
And now it is appropriate to recau what we spoke
of above, concerning
the acrual chaacter or_those two parts, into
which each of the five a*s of
Potemkin's drama is divided accrding to
the proportions ot'it e golden
section."
we spoke of the fact that the action inevitably ,,leaps,,
and ,.hurrs
itself" ttrough the caesura, and we did not use
this term accidentaly,
but because each me the diapason of the new quality,
into which the
first half passed, was t,'e maximutn possible: arr
time it ,, a leap
into the opposite (see above)
Thus, it appeas that in al-I

"...the veil of trre tempre wai rent in

nnrain

-t

o*

trr" top to the

bonom" at the momenr of the compretion of the tragedy

of cigotha.te
Potemkin does have ill-matched ancestors!
And ir is difficult to
which of these associations and memories
contri
of
' It is curious that in spite of this decree,
was revived at the beginning of the ninetee
theaterc, this measure was adopted by the F
HaIl, and a series of other auditoriums.

curtain agaiD
ds of the large

te Montabor

elements

ecstatic

And just as in the gorden

sectin and its proportions we spoke of

above, so here in the
couse of the production we have the same
sectet of the organic: Sctoul
For_a transition by

DIassements Comiques.

In its insatiabre battle against popurar (fork) theaters, the

comdie
Franaise,t' whose directoi *ur pt.i"t er-Varcour,
obtined
from
the
government the restoratiol 0f ar types
of oppressive rures that,
according to its privileges, the comdiehaa tue riirrt
to impose on smart
theaters: a prohibition against actors speaking,
pronbition to have

more than three actors on stage at the same time.

Added to this was the
primitive and absurd condition that the actors
be separated from the
audience by a permanent gauze cutain of tulle.
On fuly 14 the news of the taking of the Ba
Valcour, and in a burst of true pathos he punc
tulle curtain and tore it in two with the exclamati
on January 73, r79r, the revorutionarr government decreed
the feedom
of the theaters.
(see: L. M. Bernardin, La comdie Italienne
en France et le Thtre de
la Foire et du Boulevad 1570-1791, paris, 1902, p.23J)*
And, finalry' one may also add the most famous
i' riteratue of
an explosion of patos accompanied by the ripping
"u"" of u curtain _

35

tormula of

ula of developmenT-

':::y:r:!::^

units, subordin ui" to n"'"oit;r;.;"ry;;:r;;;1

y:::,!!_: !:! "o!"*"? rr,q social, consciousty participatins ili"j;
rn irs
:i::::,::11:::."_y"__$atrris3*r,i"l-;;i";;-d,,:,:ili

3.u^:_t1'3l::ould,1uy
ihat for the third dme;;;;;" ui".ir,r,"
unity of Pofenakn , for
the leap that characterizes rhe structure
or
-the
compositional unk in the whore 's te introd.uction
nto
of composition of tJae most decisive element of
the content
ta of
ut
,:y?|,!.:"ry etrprosion aE one of the reaps, ay il
tn"
}jT:::
ter'nq)ted chain of progressive conscious
"o"];fL;;ii'p^, "

a leap. A uansitio-n
lom qqantity to quality. A transition inro

opposite.

rhe

inro which

th

And this is the source of both the structure of a complex

production as
well as of any structue of. pathos one might say
that
o
compers us,_in repeatin! its
"t*"t,rru
f^rh:"^:j-* of
ih]q
culmination and becom;ng
",,ri,1o"or*"
,ror_riffi

lgT.-"ts
nr-lr

9L-th"

"The m.inent of culmination is understood

hee in te

.r.--:'..*-^*J

sense of trrose

On the

strufiule ofthings
3

,ft"i. o*n i""ri.rgi

teap, they would

ecstasy.

;ln
greatest rurning poirr,X
:

exPerience

.ipation in

them.

rhe

oppottuniry to

ment of history is imbued

with the greatest
ith this p.o""r". a ,""r"
iuii
iri
*it,
e participation in rt.

","p

in the metlod.s of ptos

in art. Here, born out of
, re compositio"_l strucn;;;;"j,:
., rrnn,"
h organic, sociat,,and

*,1

lTlr"^1_ot

{t ".;"*es

of rlre

.gorefri*"*ith this
.*d
ousness, an ttr_area
thi-arf
I " ll-*lr,q1"i f""ri;'
o.......-..-t

*lffj"""

q,e

+$tqlpr,qs,matica_uy

sition? A standard?
A prescripon?
,,

every true production

Jl

of

path,

,.'.lii:';::::n*i'"i;:xi"*i:"""i.1",:.i:"i:1?i

.-*

atone,.

craftsmanship atonr
'i :ktll
.fechniques is insufficient.

'

Fo,

s".,,i,,"i:i:i:li:,-.1::i'

the totar mastery or

one or their

,n*""i'"ii",i:t:,ilt"i}1,t"t"r"r_f:sasitshishestrorm
become organic

""4
;i*:;'.iiffi,,i:iJi
*ith
uniry

- r.r,n" rl'^I-ll

whote

author.

;h;

thoughts,

feetin

""J"
i,_or

orgar

ng and existence of the,;

only then w'r organic uniry

appear in the sictest
forms of

the

Organic unity and pathos

37

The

CHAPTER

II
Pathos

milk sepaator and the Holy Grail

39

Furthermore, the most desirabre

exampte here wourd have to be
such
where pathos was,gyq{r4<JyJdd
inro cerran qLL
,ouriur that, in
itself (per se), conrarned no parhos
at 1.
We were fortunate to_
u".or, ;,rr, such an example immediately
upon the completion of "_o-"
potemkin.
This did much to further our understanding
of methods for structuring
works of patos in general.
These very years saw the birth
of the cotective farm system and
mighry srate farms, which in the rutuil
*o ,o ft"y ;";;nn"nric rore
in the economy of ou counrry ; ,h"
building of socitism. such
grandiose sociar perspecrive"
,rol urr, u" a oorc"nspi.ution.
At the same time, the theme"ur
o inustriarization of agricurrure
courd
not but be appearing in itsetf. otr"
in min tnt inose years
the image of industry was one of -.r"t1eep
the most popular with the anists
of our
generation.
with regards to this firm,* it cannot be
tasf qa sotved profoundly or effectiveiy said that the first part of our
enough.
And this, no doubt, is betause
*;;Jir
pti;ry
,o the ,.paros of rhe
machine," rather than to the sociai .nuiy"i"
of those profound processes,
which our vilrages experienced in trreir
transition to forms of collective
fatrr economy.
However, if this fiIm as a whore
did not rive up to the vastness of its
theme' then in the snh.erg ormetrrootos;ar
research into the problem of
pathos, that so interested me,
it turnJ"," be precisery what
I needed.
Ir was our firm T.n3 ,rd a-na tne Nfuith
a variant titre, Te General
Line, 1926-g), which acquired its ram"
iy heralding the ',pailros of the
milk separator.,'

Much had been, and st'l is being

written o3 this firm, particurarry
enterprisins earment of an object
o : ugri"rliriiJq,rip_"r,t
*::,
_":
rn an ecstatic light and how in reponse
to the ar'ision oi,rrJr"p".u,o.
being lit by an "innerJiql.l'as if an imas;ottre
HoIy Gra',r I retorted. at
the time: 'Whar the hell do we
;;
Spanish vesset tor. . .,,.2
But in this direction the film i
"""dacrrieve a certain
degree of pathos.
some additiona-r confirmation ortls
,.eyewitness,,
u.i""a
from
general
reports' made soon after viewing
the fiIm, would. be beneficial. Let
us
quote a few excerpts froT u-ottt
rhe sea of printed
gushed
-""";;;
out in reply to the cascade of mili,
which stre"-ed forth from the screen
in this film tFiS. 31.
a tew lines taken from.E[rsrorie
du cinmaby

,"ffl|
''

'

Bardeche,3

It is not to be wondered at that, from

considering men as the members
of

* lThar is,
The Old and the New _ HM.]

II.

Patlos

40

group almost as if they were animals, * the Soviet film at one stage in its evolution
should have come to take nature as its principal character...It is certainly true
that nature, that agricultural labor, are noble themes which literature has
forgoften for two thousand years. It is not the novels of peasant life which carry
on the tradition of Hesioda and of Virgils: They lackthatmixture of precision and
of poetry which constitute the true "Georgic." Eisenstein and Dovzhenko are the

trueVirgils....l

Here prefty photographs alone would have been insufficient, it was necessary

for the cinaste to esurrect in himself the ancient poets so that he himself
became a singer of man's struggle with the soil, a comtempory Hesiod.

I intentionally draw my next citation from a Belgian. . . Catholic

magazine, which doubtlessly can be considered more competent in
matters of exultationr ecstasy, and paflos. +
Here are its comments on the effect of pathos achieved in the film:
. Epic lyricism propels The General line, singing arrd glorifying fields, milk,
bread, the fruits of the earth ("Exaltation des elments terrestres"), those
terresial gifts that derive their inspiration fom the machine (just as our eye
tinds its inspiration in a similar "machine," the camera). The powerful rhhm
of the changing seasons, the fertile harvest, the vital force of the atmosphere
itself, invoke their exultation and all is depicted with hitherto unprecedented
wealth. A drop of cream, a bundle of rye, or a spark of molten metal - all these
revelations of inner dynamism, hidden in the nature of these phenomena, in
appearance seemingly everyday phenomena and in themselves insignificant, all
these swell into Dionysian lyricism with Eisenstein.f Even these most modest
features of everyday life become imbued with pathos, are transformed and
exalted into the category of majestic phenomena of the elements, caught by the
sceen and spread before us. . .
A French magazine, Le Mois (Paris 1931), goes even further in its
evaluations. Here, the "modest" separator scene is thought of in terms of
an ecstatic orgy. We read:

. .Suddenly, right before our eyes, milk condenses and turns to cream!: Eyes
sparkle, teeth shine through breaking smiles. A joyfuIly smiling, peasant girl,
Martha, stretches out her hands to capture the flow of cream, vertically streaming
towad her; cream splatters all over her face; she busts into a fit oflaughter, her
joy being sensual, almost animal in natue. One almost expects her to cast off all
her clothes in a frenzy of passion to wallow naked in the flood of well-being
produced by the spouting torrents of cream. . .
* Here is meant the films of the "masses" Potemkin and len Days, characteristic of the
previous stage or the evolution of Soviet cinema. The "Cinema of the Militant Revolution,"
as distinguished from the ensuing stage or the "Cinema of Peaceful Constuction" as
designated by Bardeche.
r Hee is meant Eath by A. P. Dovzhenko, made immediately after The Old and tleNew. It
is panicularly pleasant for me to quote hete this note on his wok.
1 La Nouvelle Equipe, No. 1, 1930.
f "Lyrisme dyonisiaque d'Eisenstein"(!)

The

milk separator and the Holy Grail

47

Il.

Pathos

42

The

milk sepaatot and the Holy Grail

irEits APTE
m

Caption to Figure 3 (cont)

Caption ro Figule 3 (cont.)

II.

Patos

At this point, one is

'he milk separator and the Holy Grait

inadvertently reminded

of an

episode in

Dovzhenko's film Eart, which is mentioned, immediately following Ie

Old and the New, by Bardeche in 7e History of Motion Pictures.
If, in the present resolution of the separator scene by compositiona.
means it was possible to attain such a degree of ecstatic frenzy, that at
any moment one expected the heroine of the film to throw herself into an
orgiastic dance, then in Dovzhenko's film, in its rst edited form, we do,
in fact, find an analogous scene where a woman, casting off her clothes,
whirls about the cottage in a frenzy. This "nalced wench," as she was
named by critics, was naturally met '\rith bayonettes". This, of course,
was to be quite expected, because such an image in general, and such a
concept of her actions in particular, appeared completely out of place, a
"foreign bodf in the everyday setting of a Ulaainian village undergoing
collectivization. It would have been quite different had the film had for
its subject matter tlte joyous, religious celebrations of Dionysus or the

zealous festivities of the religious, Russian, sef-flagellating sect,

the "Khlysty." As it was, the "naked wench" was censored from the
film.*
We will have further cause to allude to the above episode when we
begin anaing the easons for expression of pathos through compositjon rather than troug the exultation o the participants through
"acting."
It is obvious from the "evidence" brought forth that the end result of
using purely compositional means does not yield to "histrionic" means
and it even invokes that very image of ecstacy in the "feelings" of the
spectator, seemingly natural in the given situation but which is in no way
relevant in sirn-ila circumstances !

On the whole, it appears to me that this "evidence" is more tha

sufficient to enable us to confirm the degree of "ecstatic" effect anained
in certain scenes tlroughout the film ad in the separator scene in

particul.ar!
Unless, perhaps, it is worth mentioning in addition sometling from a
review by Krasna Kraus in the magazine FilmTechnlk (1930). The latter

noticed the pictorial peculiarity of the fiIm, in presenting everything in

three-dimensional plasticity "eittrer very close, or else very distant (longshots)," i.e., the same basic chaacteristic sign of ecstasy, in this case
along the line of scale, everywhere seeming to qtend. itsdf beyond the
well-balanced norms, so that if there is a long-shot, it becomes a "superlong-shot", if it is a close-up, it becomes a "super-close-up."
However, as this was all so long ago, it might be beneficial to briefly
* About this ill-fated "naked wench" I have had occasion to write elsewhere at some length
in my essay on D. W. Grifth.

45

help the reader reconect what and how this took place in
the firm as a
*

whole.

..

The centrarf mofe successfur, a-nd., as arways, more

ilIustrative for the
method itserf was indeed te sepa-ratol scene. From the
fi.m,s very birth,

the separator justifiably became its ..catchwo.',t ,..ri-*hi"n

,""r"
"programmed', its specific cinematographic qualities.

I have already written much on the subect matter of the

_
fi.m,7 but here
I must

write, for the first time, of the puie research significance

of rhis

cen-tral episode, which depicts around the separator

a tense play of hope
and doubt -'\rin trre milk thicken or nor ricien', culminating

finary, in
bulst of joy, coupred wirh that first spurt of cream and
a whirlwind
buil_dun of mass registration for membership nto the
milk coperative.
Here we find a perfect example of tematic pathos,
t"t irrg
external erements of. pathos in the ;etting of the scne
"rry
itsem, strucrured
-certain
instead aound the manipuration of a
apparatusf capable of
separating milk from cream and cream from mik, ccoraing
to raws of
centrifugal and centipetal force.
Here is where instining pathos+ in tre subject matter
demanded
stictly that, by expressiveness and composition uiorr", the apparance
of
the first drop
st as thrilting and exciting a
3

scene as re
squadron. To

potemkinwittr tte ad.miral,s

f this first drop of thickened milk to
a'' intensity simirar to the suspense of waiting wil there
or will there
not be a shot from the muzzles of the squad.ron -_ and
in the end to find.
the plastically compositional means forxpressing tre
idea of joy, when
that trying moment of "testing tre separatoi' i.
with triumphant

technological. success.
"rorr"d
For here there was no scene of masses scur4ring down
the Odessa
steps during the shootjng,
squadrons, with gaping muzzles, deployed in an advancing
front on
- nosolitary
the
battleship,
no
!9at of the engines during re moments of highesr intensity,
no flight of hundrerrs of sailors, caps, tossed int the
air-wnen ttre
admirals squadron sai_led by without single shot.
We find here insread, an amost empty lg cabin,
used by the Milk

Cooperative.

A handful of doubting peasant men and women.

..activisf,
Matha Lapkina, a fair-haired

A tio of entlusiasts: irn

d
t
r

of the content of The Old aad te New, but

HM.l

d invented by SME _ HM.l

fI.

Patos

46

lbe nilk separator andthe Holy Grail

member of the Young Communist League, a regional agriculturalist.

Finally, a faintly glimmering "milk machine."

And yet at the same time the theme has somehow a mighty sense of
"community" with all parts of the film about the rebellious battleship.
The community of spirit in the emerging consciousness of class
solidarity and collectivism, which in the historical moment of Potemki.n's
fate unites into one the battleship and the squadron and just as
significantly, in the everyday setting of one village, amidst millions like
it in our motherland, is created a simila miracle in the merging of
sepante proprietors into a single, collectivized economy.*
Both scenes are not onlv saturated with equal patos.
But in spite of the difference in eras, circumstances, and tlte obvious
scale of events, they are united by a common theme - the theme of
collective unity.
Such a kindred community of theme could not help but demand
common methods for its fulfillment.
Therefore - the wake of. Potemkin - the theme could not but determine
for itself the basic compositional strucfttre and scenes with the
separator, which, according to the same formula of explosion, following
an uncurbed buildup of intensity, bursts into a system of successive
explosions, emerging one from the other, just as in a rocket missile or in
the uranium chain reaction of an atom bomb.
This fact consequently determined the choice of circumstances
(anticipation of that frst drop of thickened milk) resembling the
climactic scene (anticipation of that fit salvo) in Potemktn.
And all this because the scheme "of a chain reaction" - buildup of
intensity - explosion - leaps from explosion to explosion - gives a clearer
structural picture ofthe leaps from one state to another, characteristic for
the ecstasy of particulars accumulating into the patos of the whole.
And yet, at the same time, here we had material quite different in
subject, in situation, in setting, in details, and elements of the scenes.
A solution just as direct, as "spontaneous" and as extemporneous. . .
this scene, subsequently juxtaposed with tlre scenes from Potemkin,
could not help but reveal the essence of this very formula as the basis of
the method upon which the pathos of both these scenes was structured.
Precision in formulation, as previously stated, came later from a
comparison of the completed fiIms.
However, it is of interest to note to what degree this feeling of
continuity of both sequences was clear to the directors tlemselves even
at the scenario stage of the OId and the New.
If, by itself, the editing resolution of pathos in the separator sequence
* The true tragedy of foced collectivization was inevirably ignored by SME as by most

Soviet intellectuals during Stalin's reign of tenor

- HM.l

47

was basically determined on the editing table, followed, as a result,

by
subsequent necessary additional shots (fountains, subtitres
of
the
numbers increasing in size), tlen the lik between the inner dynamics
of
the structure of this sequence with corresponding structures in potemkin
can be detected, if only tlrough the fact that in the script itself of rhe
old
and the .lvew, precisery at this point, a direct refrence was made

to...Poremkin!
In this scene of anticipation for that drop of thickened milk from the
separator, a word-for-word insertion reads: .,.. .Thus waited the
BarJe_
ship Potemkin, its encounter with the squadron...,,
Such, for s.amFl, in this particular sequence, unlike the cut:in
and
cut-out fragments of the "Battreship," are tlre delivery pipes of the
spararor in shots photographed in such a way that trrey.itatcaily
echo
the empty, menacing gun m rzzles so terrifyingty proiruding from the
screen into the audience in potemkm,*
(such a method of filming was completery in keeping wirh
rhe overall
style of this f,lm. Let us not forget it was preciseiy here that this
particular method was used intentiona[y, openry, and. ironicaly.
such
was also the case in the satiric exposure of another '.machine,,
- a
"Bueaucatic Machine" - the carriage of a typewriter, filmed in gigantic
proportion, filling the entire screen, which came hurling
toward. the
c'''.'era and, before it was "exposed," appeared to be a
o. some sort
of grandiose, industria_l structure.)
"aurr"l
This uick of artistic "p.astici!y'' in its turn lies wholly within the
system of plastic means of expression, so abundantry used.
in the ritm as
a whole.

It was in the particurar film that, for the first time, the expressive
possibilities of plastic distortion of the 2g" ens were sysiematically
used
and thoroughly researched.
_ The peculiarity of this les - its ability to show with equal depth of
focus the most prominent object in the foreground, as well
as the whore
depth of background - is wel known and is often used for simple
demonstation.
However, this chaacteristic of the rens is accompanied by
stilr
another, which previousry had carefulry been skirted, or ;t
least carefuily
avoided during the late l92}s.
It is - the ability of this rens to produce perspective d.istortion.
'

It is interesting to note that the effect of such a gun muzzre directed

at the audience, after
ter productions of the recent season _ one in
crion of a ptay by Bemard r*_j,:i:j:
length. [The

e Meyerhold

II.

Patos

48

It consists of the fact that by the use of this lens the perspective
reduction of objects in depth sharply speeds up, contrary to the natural
norms our eye is accustomed to.
This phenomenon is especially siking to the eye when objects in the
foreground are pushed forward exceptionally close to the lens; or better
still, in those cases when one and the same object is positioned so that
one of its ends is in close proximity to the camera, whereas the otler
stands far away from it. Examp.es ae soles of feet absurdly out of
proportion, jutting out into the audience; or a figure, placed directly
facing the camera so that from it protrudes a bow-shaped stomach, while
the head and legs remain lost in the "background," etc.
It is quite natual that with greater or lesser degree of marked

"outspokenness" such possibilities of the lens can't help but be

interwoven into our metlod of fihning, in which "being beside oneself'from one state into anothe - stood at the basis of the theme about
peasants becoming collective farmers, ard this determined also tle
whole mechanics of expressive means, following the ecstatic formula of
being beside oneself.
Here the application of the distortive quality of te 28,, Iens was used.
in all possible variations.
In some instances, it was an almost imperceptible change in actual
forms of nature by the enlargement of thei mass. Such, for example, were
the cruppers of kulak horses, which Matha attempted'in vain to acquire
from a kulak for ploughing, before she is forced to harness her own cow
to her antiquated plough. Beside these horses the poor frail Martha
appears particul.arly sma_Il and helpless.
In other instances the distortive qualities of te lens were used more
openly: either in the manner of "Gogolesque" hyrerbolization (as in the
"style of Mantegna,"E the sleeping carcass of a kulak was filmed from
foot to head) or by a sort of monumentalization - as in filmng separate
parts of a bull or, in depth, the bull itself from his hind .egs to his horns,
in the scene of the "Bull's Wedding," creating the impression that the
bull was some sort of semimythological, massive creature, reminiscent
of Jupiter, once kidnapping Europa in ttrat guise.e
And finally, in a pointedly ironic exposure of the method, after the successful, intial "mystification" by the previously mentioned typewriter.
One way or another, in all these cases - in vaious doses and various
degrees of malifestation - the 28" lens invariably was helpful in
propelling objects...'\o go beyond themselves," beyond their natural
bounds of volume and form.
In this the theme of man resounded anew, with its own '.plasticity,"
where aided by industy - under a new socialist regime - by means
of his own creative effort, the age-old established norrns and forms
"of the idiotism of village life" CMarx) were forced to go "beyond tlem-

The

milk separator andthe Holy Grail

49

forms and qualities of socialist agriculture.

whole in the light of these facts, we see that
r scene carried a completely distinct ideologi_
Furthermore, I think the choice of the milk cream conversion scene
as a central episode was not entirely by chance. Be that as it may, that

drop of milk, undergoing a quaLitative transformation into a drop of

cream' as in a drop of . . .water, as it were, concretely mirrors the fate of a
cluster of disunited individual peasant-owners. These peasants, im-

And, at the same time, the very problem posed as to the ,atos of a
separator," following the problem of pathos of the mutinous battleship,
could not help but reveal a certain paradox in its purely exterior features
and chaacteristics.
such a paradox in the posing of the probtem itself could. not hetp but
demand a certain paradoxicality also in the sphere of the expressive
means of similar intentions.
As already stated, the

and.

than in the essence,

embodiment a similar p
external elements of compostion.

"t.:tlr:lJ:i
color the more
S,

ere

be

separator" was raised with the sole purpose of conducting a scientific

o(periment whose objective, it would seem, was to discover the nature of
pathos in composition!
In fact, such was not the case.

During the period of my work with the fiIm,

was least of all

preoccupied with formal problems or methods, instead. the entire. . .

pathos of creation was directed towad one end by all possible and
impossible means to raise to tle level of pathos what appeared to be a
gray and banal theme about agriculture, but which in its very essence,

lI.

Pathos

bore an idea of highest pathos

structure.

50

the creation of the collective farm

Kindled by an internar flame, the separator

courd be said to have been
a central artistic image, condensing in itsetf
both the theme as a whole,

and its treatnent.

in the realization of ou goal by alt

.ion,s shae expressive means fell

failure.

and paradoxical.
from the very environment itself ad
setting, ,.to raise,, this scene to the
rse, impossible and turned out to be
ond the sphere of expressive means
lar envionment.
same thing occurs in the ..Odessa
e e:rpressive means connected

caregory

At this

with
ciple of ese meas ,,leaps,, into
of a situation drama to t1e
"gory

ecstatic ra

First of
idea and not on a Dionysian Bacch
people witnessing a miracle.

This consideration, more than any other, determined

the basic

necessity of resorving this scene not thrugh

ordinary externar means of
behavior, but by means of a plan other than that
of common, everyday
action.

thi
of
here too
To

range

r facto the everyday

acceptable

behavior itself, would have been

ciently dynarric aiapason.wild dance around the s

The Night on BaId
Mountain* would be as eq
inappropriate in a
setting of a dairy co-op as it
rational, restrained
character of our peasant, if he were not inflamed
by elemental forces and.
passions of quite another militant chaacter
than the range of his
feelings at a first encounter with the separator.
If, for example, we had before ,r, u
depicting Moses, who with
one blow of his staff brought forth spurts
".irr"
of wter tm a toety criff in
the desert, ad thousands of peoptey.ng of thirst
trrew themselves at
these spurting streams,ro
or a frenzied dance of apostates aound a biblicat ,.golden
calf,,,tr or
A

* From Moussourgscy's
opera: ,.Sarochins Fair.,,

the milk separator adthe Holy Grait

5r

shakhsi-vakhsi, a procession of h'ndreds

of rer.igious fanatics in
delirium beating themselves with sabres,r2 -- ----'Ysv c
or even the self-inflicting tornrre of the ..F.agellants,,,r3 _
then we
would have something from which to deverop
a piture oi-".r"r, seized
by_patos through the ecstasy of their
own behavior!
But that's not all!
At the moment when the sepa-rator scene is
reached, the possib'ities
of means for achievement of ecstatic behavior
;il;;;-"*t
within the lm itself.
"."
",-,ra"a
The separator scene is
by one depicting an Easter religious
-preceded
procession and a prayer for
rain in sun-scorched fierd.
o the frenzied, fanatical, religious ecstasy
of
, who crawling on their knees, with fruitlss

weisht of the icons into *"Hff:?:,:ii'"ffil..r"u beneath the

we had to crash and juxapose these'nrro diffeent
worrds of. pathos
and ecstasy - te worrd "oi the ord.'i and. the
,.of the
worrd
new,,,
succeeding it - th: world of herpress
serv'e
submission
ro
the
mysterous forces of nature, compared.
with the worrd oi organizea
technology, equiped to withstan Utin
forces.*
And this interna-r jr,lftapositioning of two contrasting
erements of
ecstasy and patos arso demande variea
methods for their embodi_
ment' And the expressive means for the
embodiment of these adjoining
scenes natuauy "statified" into various
areas, according to different
dimensions of rnctional means.
The.Easter rerigious crusade and the
"prayer for rain,, absorbed
prlmarilV the playacting - or, better said, ,theatrical,, _
means of
influence through huyran behavior (not
ifnoring, ofcourse, at the orher
possibilities wit'in the asenar or inem
methods
The separator scene, after at, basica'y reried and tchniques).
;;;-;;remarographic means' impossible on such
scale and form in tn oirrer arts (not
ignoring, of course, the otrer ,r""a""ury
elements ro, trris-s""ne, as
orluro"- and acting, presented in a p'articurarly
parsimonious and.
restrained manner).
such "derimitation" of means of expression
had meaningfuI imporhos in composition (as we know it
em of expressive means tlere was a
one dimension to another _ from
atrical" cinematography) to the
of independent, unique, and
* The large-scale
size of

*iTr"ril"J"*reeing

dl_T:$ canle farmrng, apan from other values, is yet another

econmic s"r-"rerrs-i'p".""rr, economy
against narure,s

II.

Patos

52

The entire system of expressive means "somewhere near the middle of

the reel" 0ust as n Potemkin) would "Ieap" completely into another, new

counterdimension.

What, in fact, was the course of the stucturing, to which we have

added here such a thorough and detailed analysis?
Up to the moment when the first drop of "tlickened" milk" appears,
hitting the empty pail, the play of tension is built upon the means
provided by the entire, available arsenal of montage methods.
This is a play of doubts and aspirations, suspicion and confidence,
plain curiosity and unconcealed anxiety, passing through a whole series
of ever-enl.arging close-ups - from group shots, '.three-shots,', or ..twoshots," to the single person.
This series of faces is intercut with shots of the heroine - Martha
Lapkina, the agronomist and tle young Communist Leaguer, Vasia, who
turn the handle of the separator at an ever-increasing tempo.
Their movement is caught up by shots of spinning disks and the feed
pipes of the separator, appearing all the more frequently at various

he milk separator andthe Hoty Grail

Ad the tiniest spray' starike scatters, hitting tre bottom

pail.

spinning sphere).
At the appropriate moment, this entire edited sequence is intercut by
the muzzle of a separator pipe. For just the right instant it remains empty.
For just the necessary length of time at its lower edge, a drop begins to
swelL,

(Changing faces flash in close-up.)

For the necessary length of time the swollen drop trembles.
(The disks of the separator mechanism revolve at a frantic speed.)
At any moment the drop will fall.
(The close-ups flash, intercut with the revolviag disks.)
The drop breaks off.

Ir falls!
* Incidentally, we mus'r forger to point out here that the purely
objective aspect of the
within itself a subject of pathos in the fact that "ordinary''mitk leaps into a
highet qualitative milkiness, into. . .cream!

scene also bears

of the empry

And now unchecked, at furious pressure bursting from

the body
separator' a jet steam of thickened white ceam
thuds into the pail.
By now, through.editing, the spurts and spray pierce
through the
stream of enthusiasric close-ups with a cascade
f snow-white ,", i
milk, a silvery fountain of unchecked spurts, a fireworks
display of
unceasiag splashes.
omparisons emerging on
first spurts of rnilk, the
by what appears to be
quatic pillars of shooting fountains.
e

'ountain s " or m'k

g*1 rrom

*"

1
the folklore images of
"rivers of

honet''

i,\i:

",,1J
mi" "ni::i3I'.lT::H,
"
ki and ,'a land. flowing wiit mik
ano

symbols of material welt-being.

increase in

angles.

Hardly perceptible and as if by accident '.the play of doubts" is echoed

by the tonality of the shot.ra
As if by accident and hardly perceptible, shots of intensifying hope
gradually brighten, whereas shots of aggravated suspicion darken.
with the increase in tempo pieces are cut shorter - fragmentation of
the change from bright to dark frames occurs more often. The disks spin
faster and faster, and as if caught up by them, light fragrrentation of
edited cuts slide into acnrally revolving '.sunbeams", in close-up (done
with the help of a technical device - splinters of a mirror pasted on a

53

(fountains
streams of

fom dimension to d.imension: from an exposition

v ,rJ;Tl,ui"t":i
exposition by metaphor (.Tountains of milk,,j.
. But montage does not stop tlere, it makes a new leap, into a new
image - the image of ,.blazing fireworks.,,
seizing upon the shim'er of the water fountain,
the sprendid shimmer
-

of the milk searns, montage elevates

heightened class of intensity _ to a

sparks not only kindled by lighr, but
with a new quality - color.
The technical method of realizing
grandnephew of the method of had cotoring
the red flag in the same
Potemkin.
nging
about
uts of
uts of
shooting fountains rept into another dimension
to a coror coruscation
exactly as it occus at duskwhen fountain squares
braze into many colors
from the bea-urs of multicolored. pr riectors.*
* within the
compass of tlis film simila short cuts
inro
tbe ecstatic moment of the parorysm of the ,'Bul's of coror expositions were edited
wedding,,, *";h" u;" ;"u".ya"y,,
scene at the coupling stable took place.

IL

Pathos

The milkseparator and the Holy

Grail

55

But even this did not o(haust the montage ,urf,

of the scene.
Flashing dizzyingry on the sceen for
a time, these coror cuts wourd
again swing over into cuts that ae. . .colorless.
Be
e leap into acoma'c ones is a new

he

of

leap,
Fo

.e.

a retum to the gray cuts of monotone

photography.
into a

color

otalty

i
carrying to a nonrepresenfragmentation of the gray

n the bounds of

the

squad.ron.

concrete

the black surface of night waters, in

counter between tle battleship and

ij"i-:i'Jii":J,,,T'i"i
ated.

murtiversityorcororo"..,T;irHi;ilri:"_1":t"[n::ofr:"

And recreating thus,

rlrere actuauy ocurs

said above, it is quite natural _

ion of what would occur if we
'ous synthesis
between the outlined

But that's not all, the nonrepresentatioial

ever increasing in size, carriedinstead,
a new
expressed not by means of the number
of
through the ineaning of the sign.
Because they increased noi onry in
e*ernar
a, in
'*"ru
intemal meaning of that urrgrrr"rrtirrg quantity,size but first of
which ,t y
,o
express.

A "ratapla
shots was fo

shots
cuts.
statjc

flowing sequence of. dynamj

'pit_a_pat of peas,, sequence of
succeeding one another in edited
a

,ryi:
ndly and

back to gray monotoneness, but fomvardto t,e pure graphics of brack

and white.
simurtaneousry, the structural system itserf
skipped over from the
sphere of the representationa-Ito its pposite
sprrere tan"rrup."""rtafional: white zigzags over a blac b*grounA.

quantiry of people enlisting in the

th

-a

and

ina

e ,.shock,,,
ple of this, in another place
and
Such a similar
to tlre pen of suc
And indeed, in

need.

onIY
n we

This is the famous passage whee

Vrons, afte learning of Anna,s
pregnancy' stares senselessly
at the diar of his *.i.h;-l;"."pabre
of

II.

Pathos

The

milk separator and the Holy Grail

57

connecting the outlined position of the hands with any id.ea of what time
it is.
In moments of such a condition, a person, as they say, '.is not quite

himself".
And this state "of being not quite oneself," has a more sharply ironic
form in Russian, "ne v svoiye tarelke,,,* which is, as it were, thi passive
and detrimental - reverse - aspect of "exalting us," tle active pathos of
"being beside oneself."
The shock itself - is the same crooked mirror of qualitative jump
which, at some instant "becomes unhinged" and. overturns a certain
established "order of things" and circumstances, previously appearing
stable and indestructible.
It is quite natural to suppose that the reflection of such a situation, in
the principles of composition, would give the effect of whatwe may label
"antatos," imping by this term not just a ..mild. humo/' or .'a good_
natured grin," but rather a phenomenon that is comic in appearaace and
profoundly significant (perhaps even tragic) in essence.
we find ourselves here in an extremely advantageous position
because, in this case, we can suppry a very concrete exampre, a gnuinely
comic situation (i.e., comic in the above sense), built on just this kind of
split between a sign and its meaning.
This situation belongs to one of the more famous comic creations of

second, the very chain of representationar shots

leaps over into a
chain
of black and white numerica_l subtitles.

recent years.
It is one of the more pointed satirical scenes, in depth of meaning, in

Chaplin's Dictator.
This is the scene in which we find chaplin playing a small-town
barber who upon his return home is found painstakingly erasing some
kind of absurd white zigzags, smeared by some unknown hand. on the
windows of his small babershop.
Meanwhile, these absurd zigzags are really not so absurd as ominons,
because the essence of the letters "f ," .'E," ,,!V," wher put together spell
"Jew" and that very word written on the shop window is the image ad
symbol of fascist racial oppression.
And, at the same time, in essence, in depth of inner meaaing, this is
precisely that raving absurdity and filth .ater to become bloody filth
that the little barber took these inscriptions to be.
Therefore, "the external split'' between the inscriptons ad their
meaning is again joined in their deeper meaning and forces the
apparently external comedy of the situation to reverberate with pathos of
the true essence of this scene's social background..
However, getting back to the separator, we must ad.d. that the
culminating scene of the "calvacade" of ever-increasing numbers in
* [Literally, "not in one's own plate,,

- HM.]

* An example of such
a Eeau'eil wourd be something ril<9 the para[el editing
of moving
'ls9ams" of peopre and say, a surging ice-flow, as puIovun
o l, ,t i""t r i, rim
Mother.
"

I Futlermore
with patlros, b
imbuing of pa

ated above, was not only .,as such,, imbued

other no less ctearty aeaJJ'"orrr"io.,

II.

Patos

58

As a supplement to the chapter on pathoscomposition

in re ord and
the New, I wourd like to briefly fcus the reade/s
attention on the
moment of the leap, anaed ab
ordinary ..gray,,
photography to colored pieces and
_ once more _ to
uncolored, but now not ,,gray,
ecisively dema_
cated into black and white (in
[ ' ' . ]* The coror scheme "gray-coror-brack and white,,, developing
in
the separator scene, over a length of severa feet, .,reborn,,,
is
,-pfi",r,
and extended, by one ad. the same autb.or, to the tength
of whole
sequences in the coror conception of the firm rvan
the reriale.
Thus, two reels of t,'e scene of conspiracy against Ivan,s
life in
Starits's mansion were maintained in a marieary
gamma,
S.uy
followed by - coror "fireworks" again two reels depiciini
the feast in
n in two reels _ the scene depicting
in the cathedral, totally e>recuted in
teak of the brocade robes of the
of candle lights in the hands of the
This "intrusion" of color, as if a watershed between the gray
and brack
and white, was not of itserf to link the colored section
in iai one of the
history of Ivan the Terribre with its entirery colored third part

in two parts, this film was conceived., according to its inier lalthough
itr, u, u
trilogy - a triptych).
Highlights of art this taken together, however, is incorporated
in its
entirety in one and the same potemkm, where
sray simil';iy preaomi
nates, differenriated into black and white (of this
more in tt later),
and where in a moment of color fanfare, at the culminating
poi*, lrrr"aa
forth...the red flag!
It is interesting to note that potemkin in this case does not
stand arone
as an example of pathos.
Those same years offered anoth:r example of pathos in
the play of
-_
black and white exploding into red.
This same color forrrula was arso used by Mayakovs in another
aspect, but for exactly 1g semg im.
of his most pointed impressions on America (which he
visited in
- ^9-1"1925) he embodied in the poem "Brack and white,,,
about an ord Negro
who works as a shoeshine boy in Havana. It depicis trr" ra"iurlrejudice
in the United States that had so infuiated Miyakovs.
From the Negro's, willie, point of view the ntie wrld is
differen_
tiated into two colors: black and white:

'

[As per Russian original

HM.]

Twenty-fiqo supporting columns

59

The white
eats

re pineapple ripe,

tle black -

rotten and specked.

Clean white work
is done by the whites
dirty black work by the blacks.

only one factor, incomprehensible to the Negro,

- However,
Wilie,
throws
this sharp demacation off blace:
Why must sugal Ftsq

whiter tlan white,

be made by
a blacker than black?*

In answer to his question, he is given a srap

across the face by the pure
.\hiter-thuo
",
u t"ra ot
luSar king, who is
scaret brood floods the brack face an oozes "l;;;.,;""
onto the white crothes.
Thus, the confrontation between black
and white in a social conflict
explodes into a red color the coror of
blood, i"ftu-;J;;ll
or
social protest - the color of revolution.
"oro,

wt{te

Twenty-two supporting colunns

fhus
$e norrns by which I constructed my firms of patrros were selfdetermined.
principles were as binding as a
in other areas.
the principles of the structuring
immediately tried to test these

v-lidity

And rst I examined them in rit"r"*li.*'

And in literature I fist obsened them in the
novels of. Zola.
uch t}te Rougon,Macquart cycle.
st set each of the twenty
material of a precisely
(The Paisian market; the railroad;
coal mines; the undergrowth of an
abandoned pak; the stock excharrg"jth" -iry
of pais
;;;;;; a large
store; a house with bourgeois aparments,
",
with an imposing
red carpet

i [My Eanslation
- HM.]

II.

Patos

running up the broad main staircase; or a house with wretched inhabi_

Twenty-two supporting colunns

tlr9ush titanic generarizations into subrimating forms

of the ecstatic
dithyramb.
Intemrpting
story of Nana's adventures in the chapter of
the
"golden f$' or 'e
in the dizzy scenr of the steeprechase, he raises
the
materiar of the nover to an unresuained typhoon
or gilad prostitution,
nd in which the gilded
chokes and flounders,

For each time Zora compers the corresponding environment, which is

aLways new, to repeat "in unison" the culmination of these .'decisive,,

number instructive for any

o the expressiveness of his
and surroundings as well. It
himself with the emotional
expressiveness of his produaion's "material formulation,', and most of
all - for the film director who has this problem facing him in every shot of
his fiLm.

r"'",?ITitii;H"" .',i
rn Eart rike a sream _ no, a d"r,,: *:i::
:1fr"#:flou. ,,p_u,o,
readily
n or the

orvice,
virg

the

ijfi:i"':lififl:'":l:iH,,;

.es

not yet totally corrupted.

And in the increasingry inundating streams of
these *u", rushing

down looms the image of the urtimat demorarization

of French society

in the era of Napoleon III.

These are the whirrwinds of financiar catastrophes

and stock market
crashes raised to re rever of hurricanes in

Here on a high revel occurs what was accomplished by the most

typical impressionists, the contemporaries of ou novelist *ho *"r" so
close to him in spirit.

Mone1tt" rrr"ams of
Fatler Mauraut, intoxicared by the sensuar ut*orit
park of Amada and the wild, sunburnt girl jumpirrg "r" oiini ou".g.o*r,
tt.o,rh nis ushes

and grass; the symphony of cheese and-mountain

avarancles of nightry
gorging tumbling into the eternally hungry
belly of paris.
Ae these not e gigantic c"tro""" it pathos
to which the mateiar
environment and objects of the second Empire
were elevated. so that

i
ZoIa
an.
the

In tlose mavelous 1920s when I focused on a deta'ed

analysis of
it was easy to collect twenty enthusiasts.*
It was easy within the wans of the 'Tree workshop,, in the F'm

ZoIa,

I still

-Institute

love and
and the

into

the center of Baac,s attention are

and captivating objects, but in
at have captivated, swallowed,

to distribute an twenty novels of Emile zota airong

th"m.
And it was even easier, wh'e forcing quotations
t
om t"erry
novers to "beat the heads against ech other,,,
""puru,"
novers containing

an
I that lawn tennis, which
, having flown pasr in the
signifies both kingdoms,
kingdom of Darkness: the

II.

Patos

62

different material that sorved identicar

situations, to understand what
methods and what techniques were used
by the father of naturalism to
accomplish tis.
Besides the unusuar schorarly "comfort"
that came fom tre fact that
we were dear.ing with the work of a
noverist whose method courd be
compared in twenty paratlel aspects,
we also appreciated,r" ,.n.*"tism" by which the method itse was realized.
rrr, rr-"""r, is not the
place to anaryze or evaluate the
"naturar.istic method.,,
hardly
poetc

linked
'amor-

unintellgent documentation of
with no attempt to discover

surrounding ,
and represent
This is also
y great detail how the author
of this polemical srogan understood everything
that he included within

I*lqf

n"o supporting colunns

63

He can illuminate it by any source of tight.

An author of another schoor, for this pu{pose, rmits
himserf to
environment

most apptopriate to the everydayliving conditinr,

o.
environment most easily associated with particurar
a
situation.
For Zola this is not sufficient.

ly

of the environment, surroundings,

an
a.,

and

elects those and only those that, by their

are found in the same nuance of mood or
In Baac the chaacter itserf permeates the situation.
The narure of the
character. The house of the Id m.n Grandet
is
Grandel himserr
exrressed through the beams, boards, barrels,
and locks.
All this is even creaer and more obvious in Gogo.s hlperbores;
for
example, in Dead sours. Nozd.rey's yard., which
resounds with numerous
dogs barking, the pile of junk in pliushkin,s .,den,;;
_
al" ,tuna fo,
Pliushkin and Nozdrov, inasmuch as sobakevich,s
househord resembres

ir.

Sobakevich.

We were more interested in another topic

at this point.
what was rerevant was the rimited
of expression with which
-"t"
Zola basically operated in his works.
It would be useful here to conceive of t]:e terrr,.naturism,,mainly
as
related to that characteristic of his novers
by means of which he achieves
his expressive effects,
it
-whether be simpry emotinar effects or those
"going beyond themselves,,,
those of patios.

" 'when chichikov looked sideways at sobakevich, he struck him this time as
beiag very much like a med.ium-sieo ea.
To comprete trr" ,"r"Jrurce, the
fockcoat he was wearing was er<actly the coror
of a bea/s coat, his sleeves were
were lons, he wau<ed
io."oy, turchins i.o* .ia" to sde,

more important

is that, in orde to achieve trese emotionar

^^whatjs
effects,
Zola does not reary transform naturar phenomena,
the-nvironment, rhe situation, or objects, so that through
hs hterary s,y'.;; [terary
techniques he wourd comper them to resound.
in
thematic key which he requires.
"-otio.r.tty the
He does not so much arbitrar'y "arte/'them,
t.rough description and
exposition, as "select'' them, in tni
which they can actualy be
found in the given circumstances. ""p""tn

all
j
the given
Of

chooses

[T,*t:sers

nltnt*

fi

.fi:::ii

""*'J:1i'i;:'fu' ti#:*
the name Russian peasants
sive to .H:.".ii.":h1yf1
stood a paunchy

warnut bueau on four ridicurous r"s.

- ,"rrtl-earl rhe
table, the armchairs, ttre chairs, au of them
were of the "heaviest and most
uncomfortable shape; in short, every object,
every chair, seemed to be saying:
"I'm a Sobakevich, too!,' or ,.I, too, m very'Ute
Sobakevichl,,r

rn zora the situation reflects the nature of the character

in the same
way (let us ecar.r Nana's boudoir), and in addition
(and this seems to be

environment or phenomena, he

e objects in just that state that at

on,,

wirb tnat emotionaiiU

ofr"r,
even physiological) sensation that he wants
to evoke in the read.er.
The state in which the objects and erements of
the environment ae

represented (as well a

scene), in selected
conditions and circums
is substantiated in
everyday reality and is
novelist can place
any scene into any surround.ings.
He can order any weather outside the window
for it.
He can furnish it with any kind of furniture.

Balzac's chaacters a{ays appear (just as

Balzac himself) Iike the
portrait of the fat grandee
to
Velasqu.r.-iiuy,' too, are
"ttiUrrt"
imposingly round, and similar
stand out from the Uuctgr.rrrA of the

,"'fttT"i.31tk.?*'

sou/s' David Masarshac\ trans., Pensuin, Barrimore,

l91,

Il. Pathos

wall; the nature of their faces and bearing is also fully depicted
d.own to
the smallest detail; they, too, stand firm on their eei an
chsp in their
hands what has been put there by him.
Zola's approach is quite different.
These are reary "torsos," but only torsos in those cases
when they are
separated from the surroundings into which they have grown,
or, more
precisely, from the surroundings out of which, they
s'eeme ,o huu"
9rown.

Indeed, no one wourd ever think of caning Manet,s27 GirI

behind the
a "torso," although in the painting she hai
no legs. This is because it
would not occur to anyone to separate her from the reflection
in the
mirror that compretes the depiction of the expression of her face
or from
the counter that has repraced the rower part of her body: similarry,
no
one would call the waitress in another of his canva"er.
. .'.orr"-breasted,,
just because, n place of her left breast, the
round head of someone at the
table protrudes in the foreground!
In any case, in order to achieve these changing emotionar effects in a
situation taking prace in the same environment
- zora painstakingly
selects from "ail possibre ones" those particurar details
an those hours
or moments and those very conditions of temperature and light that
repeat emotionaly the same psychologicar nuance with which
Zota is
trying to overwhelm the reader at a given moment.
He extends the hot atmosphere of a lovers quarrel to a wann or
burning-hot environment and situation.
But he does nor depend mainly on literary style to .,heat up,, the
environment and situation - through a compricated. system of metaphoric constructions, rhhmic refinements, or the timbre
or the sound. of
cleverly arranged words.* Instead, Zora puts his heroes into a real
situation with objects from the surroundings that are in the physical
state he requires.
This is the tittre iron stove burning so hot it ind.uces stupor in the
small room in Te Human-Beast. This is arso true of the re (warm!)
tone required in the generar course of events. As it increases, this
tone
inundates the waI and radiates natura[y from the burning, red-hot
wans
Ba

of this stove.
This is the stupefying, once again animal, hot atmosphere of the
feathers and down of a sraughtered bird in the ceilar of he parisian
market.

or the monstrous sultriness at the moment of t}le intemrption of the

harvest amidst the immeasurable spread-out fields in tarth.
No one prevented the author from selecting, as a sign of everyday
* It was just with an emphasis
on this asp_ect of ocpressive techniques that the subsequent
leading literary trend - the symbolisrs "swept awaf, the schooi of naturaiir.
t"t", orr.

Twenty-two supporting columns

reality, a "cool rittre forest" instead of a sultry fierd,

and a pantry with
sausages instead of a cerlar with a sraughteied
bird for the
required.
To what

scene he

the emotionar intoxication of the atmosphere

wourd be
diminished ",fient
after having rost the elements of animar wannth
and. heat _ is
for the reade himself to judge!
In exactly the same way Zola bu
nuance ofexpression, ofany range
to their effect. He will achieve this,
stylistic devices, but mainly by st

(and mostly natualistic) aetak

everyday reality, increase pro

And from what has been di

"didactic" significance this method of literary styte has

for firmma_kers
in particular. However, this is true, of course, only for
those who achieve
a consistent symphonic unity of the whole through
all the elements of
their pictures.
Here we have a profoundly conc
whole school of
nt and behavior
this method to
He extends "cordness" and '\narmrh,, to the range of
,iii
correspondingly floods the material chosen by him,
in a shot thar
echoes (or is in contrast) to the person experiencing
it.
-of
He extends the convulsive zigzag of the shots
the hostile city
landscape to the montage "ragtime"2dof the corresponding
sequence2e of
he_

i,illi;r",

this filn.
To a point where he arso learns to comper the material,
which
itself neutal, "natural," and "rar,t'' before he camera, to i'rirrg,, is in
in the
tone he requires thro'9h camera angle, shooting, and
editing."
But by this time he has arready come down from re
schoor bench of
Emile Zola's "naturalistic method,' and has passed
to the next class of
cinematic techniques of expression.
To clarify how this is done, one may use examples from potemkin

where crescendo is often constructed according to tnis principre(besides

the rhythmic and editing devices that pray a extremely
impoftant rore in
the film). For exampre, the increasing menace of the
battresrrip pieparirrg
for combat has been ceated in this way.
The stages are arranged. consecut very ne after the other
in proportion
to the increasing intensity of danger.
The gangways ae raised
The shells are transported.

The cannons are aimed..

II.

Pathos

66

The muzzles are raised.

The machines begin to pound.
All these elements are not presented arbitrarily but in strict succession, and at the same time, as we have seen, being very carefur
that their
effective force continuaily increases: Each elerent i" torn plays
its
"role" and, having played it to the end, yields its prace to the
.r"o orr",
which produces a more intense effect.
The same thing occurs on the Odessa steps.
First the crowd, stumbling, runs down.
Then they ro[ down trre stairs, to be precise there ae rg4
of them.
And finally, rolling, downward, rushes _ the baby carriage.
This does not mean, however, that fo the sake oi ur, .,,otuctivistic,,
styli'stic method, Zora in any way ignores other t>es of
Iiterary effect.

Not at all!
And actuaily on tlte contra_ry.
Therefore, having described above the method of exproiting
..
the
"natural" state of objects as wer as the emotionar effect accompanying
it,
we then cautiously discussed this method as a sacramental
forrrula..in
its fundamentals."
As is commonly known, this formula usually ..frees your
hands,, for
any assertions that do not coincide "substartial.$, with the
substantial!
If we take rhhm, for example, whole passages in Zola,s novels
ae
written in almost rhythmic prose: somewhre in bookret I happened
to
see a page describing a procession of coal miners that
was writtn in the
genre ofnarrative verse as a sequence ofconsecutive
stanzas in one of
the heroic verse meters.
Hgwever, what is particurar interesting here is not the
actuar fact of
.. "rhhmic" prose, but those moments in which zora,sprose has taken
on
a rhythmic imprint.
Those moments, where "simple exposition'r is transformed
into
exposition with a rhythmic imprint, turn out to be moments
inevitably
linked with the exposition of events. . .of pathos (for exampre,'the
scene
mentioned above in Germinal).
Zola uses metaphor, simile, and tropes just as often and just
as
brilliantly.
This occurs again in moments when [the aid] of the technique of
simple and direct descriptive narration is insufficient for the
attainment
of - an effect of pathos.
And the method based on a documentary styre makes a qualitative
leap into another "dimension" of naration into narration based
on
similes, metaphors, and metonymies.
But the "Ieap' here is not limited only to the fact that one method gets
to a state of "being beside itself" and huls itself into another.
Faithful to his basic technique, Zola chooses as tre objects of

g=ty-tt"o supporting colunns

67

those in such a state that will make the materiar

capable of evoking pathos at the moment chosen
by him.
.A'nd the actuar "state" of the described objects
is a state...of being
beside itself.
The materiar of the figurative lever of comparison
is also a .'eing
beside oneself.,'*
H".9, for o<ample, is a passage from Ladies, DelightlAu
_
bonheur des
comparison onry

dames):

It was a gigantic sare rike a fai. It seemed like the

store trembred and u.red
out its surplus onto the sueet,
" 'Gold, silver and bronze, flowing ouf of bags, tearing purses, formed an
enormous pile of net receiprs, stiu wam and ut
of the life w-itir wtricir ii
out of the buyers' hands...
"-"rg"a
The goods ae hurled out.
The money flows out.
The bags are tom.
Cold metal takes on animal warmth.
. . 'on that day a special display of
corsets was a'.anged.

It

consisted

of an
entire atmy of headless aud legless mannequins,
which under silk disprayed onry
torsos and flat doll chests full of unhealthy lewdness.
..

In the riferess torsos of the mannequins, unhearthy

aroused.

lewd.ness is

But now the fabric enveroping them and the mannequins

themserves
begin to become alive ald move:
People o<amined them, women who were stopping
shoved each other in front
was acting rude because of its eager desire. And the
rthis passion of ttre steet: The lace slight\ uembled,
hid the womb of the store; even pieces of Ioth, thick

and square, breatled with temptation; coats drooped moie

and

-o."
mannequins, which had come alive, and a large velvt
mantle, .rrppt" rrO

swelled as
thighs. . .

if it were on h'man

o' tt.

*ur_,

shoulders, n a heaving chest-,^on trembling

And now endlessry repeating themselves in mirrors, the

mannequins
not only come alive but ae incarnated into women:
. . -The rounded breasts of tre marnequins
expanded the materiar, the broad
hips emphasized the slender waists . . . M-irrors on both
sides of the stre window,
according to a pleara-nged pran, endressly refrected
,orrttrptied the
mamequins, populating the sEeet with these pietty women "na
on sare, whose prce
was maked on thei heads.. .

* fEisenstein bases
this concept on the Greek ex stas's meaning ecstasy, a ,,going out,,
of
particular state, going beyond its rimits, ,,ueins
ueae on"."if,,- HII:i "--'--

lI'. Pathos

Twenty-two supporting columns

And a woman-mannequin now rushes from the show window display

into the evening streets of the city:

if

was

...4 large velvet mantle, made of silver for displayed its cuved profile of a
headless woman who rushed in the pouring rain to some festival, in the dark
Parisian twilight.

.All this muslin and cambric, dead, scattered over the counters, flung and
witl the life of a body, became fragrant and warm from the
aroma of love. The white cloud became sacred, having undergone its night

the holy vault of he

de

stomach?

il;;;;eric

destoyed...

Above her shone the woman in the symbolic

radiancy of the idol.
Masterpiece)*

and

..

. (The

The well-lsrown formula at every step!

Ad not only as a whole, Uut ii

. Apricots lying on moss were taking on the color of amber, with the
burning
tones of the setting sun that gilds the nape of a brunette where her small locks

..

every part.

claude's palette of pure corors becoes

a congromeration of semiprecious stones:

curl. cherries, set out berry by berry, were like the toenurow lips of smiling
Chinese women; those from Monmorency were like the fat lips of a ph:mp
woman; English cherries - more oblong and serious; heart cherries - with
ordinary skin, black, ruined by kisses.t

This is such an unusuar picnrre in which

it seemed that semiprecious stones
were sparkling for some kind of religious
worship.

Ad

compari
Even

en chosen here for

of colorful glitter.

achievins the stvle orparhosin riterarure

is not airer*iili,il".i:,iJ
formula we discovered in film.
However, this statem
where ZoIa is suddenly
Here als, due to his
it bec
or all the material for the correspond_

:?1ffi:H:.i:r.:;:: t

'.beins beside one-serf,,, i1

In addition, this materiar_states
is arranged sequentiary, according to the
degree

...Then Christina pushed the door open arrd rushed forwad. The invincible
fury, the anger of a wife insulted in her own home, deceived here while she was
sleeping in the next room, drove her.

sid
to eject

'1 ffranslated from Eisenstein's Russian -

HM.l

9,rt

rng

Oh, Claude. . .Oh, Claude, She took you

away, she killed you, murdered you,
the
cursed, despised cteature,
In the abundance of suffering at the blood
rushed back from her heart, and
breatIess, she lav on rhe earrr-as it "u,
iL" a white

And likewise women rurn into fnit in The BeIIy of pas lLe Ventre d.e
Parisl

- HM.]

y"ril;;;

And later (after Ctaude,s suicide):

baptism and, soon as it whirled away, the rosy gLearn of a knee, glittering on the
background of whiteness, drove people out of thei minds. . .
...The silk department represented a large room prcpaled just for love...
Here were all the milk-white nuances of the body of an adored woman, beginning
with the velvet hips and ending with the fine silk of the thighs with the gleaming
satin of the breast. . . *

[Translated from the French

her thighs, as
need ror the rear

of metal, marble, and semi precious

st
rose of her feminine nature between

..

"almost dead" and "lifeless," prostrate at the feet of the conqueress in the
fatal battle of the two women - the wife and tle creation - for tle soul of
the artist (The Masterpiece) lLe Oeuwe\

:'iiil".il:"u"n

. . .Who had painted"tnarv

this idol of an

piled up, began to live

real Christina "a-rose" and was incarnated into this figure. She was

huJ

liTii:iffi

And the enlivened fabric - is no longer fabric, but a living woman,s

then another sacred edifice - a cathedral, ternple, tabernacle3o - is at the

autho/s disposal.
In them blossoms, in them overflows, by them flickers and buns the
gigantic figure of the "supernatural" woman on Claude's canvas. The

her stomach,
_l:y_T n"]"ong

These thighs took on a gorden hue

tike trre olumns of a temple, her
sromach
that
with brisht,
red rones,
'pu'u"

body:

And the '\omb" of woman, her materna_l belly, lends its figurative
name to the gigantic belly of Paris in the titte of the novel, devoted to the
hub of its central market. When it becomes necessary to take the bely
beyond the limits of the commonplace, to raise it to the IevI of patos,

Yes, h

seized

row

flranslated from Russian _ HM.l

a waY that' Placed in a

l^:""t'
is intensity' the materials
seem

II.

Patos

70

It also does not matter what is the nature of the material from the
environment.
And it does not matter whether tlese ae details of an actual situation,
or a chain of phenomena and objects chosen for comparison, or the same
elements used for depiction taken totally out of the everyday setting,
or
out of the anosphere of delirium, dream, or hallucination.

Let us begin with the debauch of the miners woven entirely out of
definite, everyday details, on their payday in the tavern of the widow
Dsire f.om Gemtinal.
This scene "in itself' does not have anything heroic about it, nothing
that "by tadition" would require the emotionai frenzy of. pathos. But by
zora's will and the skill of his literary mastery, thii scne, filled and
oversatiated with everyday details, with the density of the ',Flemish',
style, is "sublimated" to a scale worthy of RabeLais3r and of the frenzied
pathos of the ancient bacchantes.
Again, as in the case of rhe old and. the New, it is in just such
(in itself not necessarily emotionally heightened bl patos) material
that the
method of his development of patos can be ,een ory cleariy.
The air thickens, through the haze of the fumes, into louds oitobacco
smoke and seems to congeal in an end.ress n'mber of paper garrands.
Breasts burst out of corsages.
Sweat pours out like steam.
Milk flows from motlers' breasts into the hungry lips of the infants
pressing to them.
Children uinate under the tables.
In the yard, adults vomit streams of beer that have been poured
uncontrollably into their throats.
The cornet blasts the ai with its roa.
And the rosy color of skin pours over into the gold sNmmering of the
gradually unclad bodies, and from here it glides over to the glittering
gilding of the golden shields hung on the walls with the names f saints:
St. Eloi, ptron of ironworks; st. crispin, paon of shoemakers; and
st.
Barbara, patroness of coalminers.
Let us not forget that, rike a diamond (a stone that has emerged. into a
shimmering effect), gold is also a color that hs spilt ou". *ith bright
rays of light.
But here is the description itself, permeated by the leitmotif of
overabundance, brimming to the top:
. . . On Fair nights the day's celebrations ended. up at the Bqn
loyeux d.ance. TNs
was run by widow Dsire, a stout Eauon of fifry, rornd as a barel but still
so
fresh that she had six rovers, one for each weekday, as she put it, and alr six

together on sundays. she caled a]l the miners her boys, ard grew quite
sentimental at the thought of all tle rivers of beer she had pourea out for them
these thirty years. It was also her boast that not a single haulage girl became

Twenty-two supporting cohmns

7t

pregnant without fist having tost her vimre at her establishment.

There were two
rooms at the Bon Joyeru<: the bar, containing the counter and tables,
and, read,ing
out of it on the same level through a wide archway, te dance-hall,
a huge room
with a wooden floor in the center only and a brick srround. 11 was adorned
with

two chains of paper flowers, crossing the ceiling from corner

to corner, and,
caught up at the intersection by a wreath of the same flowers,
. . 'on this panicular sunday dancing was in full
swing by five o,clock, witrr
broad daylight coming through the wi
was about seven before

tle
stormy
ide, raising clouds of black
dust which blinded peop
of frying_fat. . .
. . .As darlqress fell, ttre musicians played like
mad, an nothing could be
seen
d bosoms in a confusi
shou
of the fou tamps, and
uP dowu and stcking to
place lled up. A

wafting a strong smell of sweating cou:les. Maheu called Etienne's

anention to
Mouquette: Round and fat like a bladd.er of lard she was gyrating
aizzuy in ttre
arms of a tall, thin ua'mer. Evidentry she had consoled niseu
uy picking up a

man...

They could have supper later on; nobody was hungry, for their
stomachs were
- swimming
all
with coffee and blown out with beer...
..

.A quadrille was euding in a cloud

a cotnet was giving vent to

dac

ats us., splitting,

disess, ana *ren-oe

. . .They stayed until ten. women kept coming in to find
their men fork and
take the' home; droves of childen tagged on behiid, and motherr,
si"i"g up any
pretence of delicacy, took out breast that hung down rike rong, y"osacks of
nd
oats,
smeaed their chubby offspring with mlk; wtitst itre children
who
could already walk, blown out with beer, crawled about on all fours under
the
tables and shamelessly relieved themselves. A ound ere was a rising
tide of
beer, widow Dsire's barels had all been broached, beer had rounded
al_l
paunches and was overf,owing in all diections, from noses, eyes
and elsewhere. People were so brown out and higgledy-piggredy, that everybody,s
elbows
or knees were sticking into his neighbour and everybody thughr ir great
ftn to feel his neighbou/s elbows. All mouths were griuning from ear to
ear in
continuous laughter. Tbe heat was like n oven and everyboy was roasting,
so
they made themselves comfortable by taying bae thei fleshl which
appeared
golden in the thick clouds of pipe smoke. The only nuisace
was when you had to
go outside; now and again a glwourd get up, go to
tre other end, lift hlr snrt by
the punp and come back. undemeatr the paper chains tle d.ancers
courd no
longer see each other for sweat, and this encouraged. pit-boys to catch
hold of
backsides at random ad thow haurage girls on thei backs. But when girr
a
felr
down with a man on top of her, the comet dowued thei falr witl
its frenzied
tootlings and feet ampled all over them as though the dance itself had
buied
them alive.
. . . so they all went back together, passing for the rast time
the fair, tre pans of
congealing fish and chips, the pubs from which the last glasses
f b""r r""r"
flowing out into the middle of the road in streams. The storm was
stiil
threatening. . .the raughter became louder and loud.er. From the ripe
corn there

;i#j:11"

II.

Pathos

was arising a beatl of passion; a good many children must have been made

night.

72

tlat

We can see that all the material has been taken in a state of

overabundance, flowing out of its state, flowing out of one environment

into another - "beside itsel.f."
The beer runs out of their noses and eyes. Children urinate under the
tables. There are wenches at te pumps. Milk pours from mothers'
breasts. The remnants of beer run in streams onto the passing road.

Everybody's elbows or knees were sticking into his neighbor. Walls

tremble, fall down, bodies swell, and, having become naked, bust from
their coats. Bellies expand forming the contour of a circle...
There are objects that in themselves are incapable of ououring, but
even those are chosen by physical signs of descriptive details, arranged
in a sequence, as if passing over consecutively from stage to stage.
The air. At first it becomes filled with sweat. With reddish dust. With
the tobacco smoke of the pipes and tlte dacers smoking like horses.
Finally it is so full of perspiration that tlre dancers can no longer see each
other. The air seems to turn into a solid mass. Paper flowers, garlands,
hang in this haze as if the limit of rhe potential solidification of the air.
The treatment of sound is also intentional. here: the cornet roaring like

a locomotive.
Its roar is presented at that Level of sound at which it is no .onger
perceived as producing sound, and begins to act like motion, like a pure
motor. Like movement that no longer produces sound, but shifts,
overturns.

We know this kind of rumbling of Turkish drums "that do not

resound" but only shake the environment, the air, windows, and walls;
pipe tubas rending the air and tearing the drum membranes; the whistle
of sirens, of locomotive pipes cutting the ear and the material environment. In the same way the roaring "piston" cuts the atmosphere of the
Bon Joyeux. And that is why it makes sense that no violin or flute is
employed in tlis passage.
And over all this solemnly reigns the hostess of the Bon Joyeux, this
tavern Circe, who bursts out of the embraces of her six lovers into
generalization. Her name embodies the satisfaction toward which the
frantic reveLry of the participants in her tavern are rushing:
Desire - Dsire - longing.
Here the "eruption" is presented in its simplest "natural" form and
inseparable fom those phenomena for which it is typical to "erupt" in
such a way when in a certain state.
The actual selection of these phenomena may, of courser seem
* Germinal, Pt. III, chap. 2 [Emile Zola, Germina.l, Leonard Tancock, trans., Penguin, New
York, 1954, pp. lI-2 - HM.l

Twenty-two supporting columns

73

peculiar, but it would be rJifcurt t )

separate it from the trury captivating
as^ a whole, whose ecstatic carnivorousness
would be
worthy of Breughel,32 Rubens, or Rabelais.
However, * "ra depart
from this kind of 'rnatualistic fresco" and
move into the rearm of the
poetically inspired naation of "erevated,,
materiar. yet
vrvvLr
even here we will
immediatery encounter _ the exa
I rre
difference wilt lie only in the fact
will
be separate rrom tei natur'is
effect of this scene

lbe

at is, in terms of their purely

not "realistically" connected
ccumstances.
troduce_ the ecstatic,,outpouring,,

Baconss

in his

Defence

Lord

was a poet. His languag

_Bacon
satisfies the sens, no less than

philosophy satisfies

of

t roelry..

which

of

his
busts

the

the circurnference of e
the universar element w

it into

As we can see, even-here, arthough on

a different l.ever, there is the very
same "selection" of phenomena
stat"s,

"rrd
"superhuman', wisdom,
"bursts" the circumference of tlre human
mind,
"pours itself forth,,. . . into the univesal element.
.
But of course pathos is even mo
tory in tose cases where
the scenes are thematically
pathos of social protest,
even if it be in those limited
means of which Zola was
able to draw the images of
teristic in that
.,naturalistic,,
.

isons occur in

Caeer

of Rougon there is

the

suddenly silvre raised his head. He threw

back the folds of his cloak and

Iistened carefuIly. . .

".AJready severar moments from behind the hilrs, in the midst

of which the
* lThe Prose Work pera
of

Sheley, Harry

^ysshe
Tumer, London, 1880, p. ioi
- uu.i---

B'don

Forman, ed., vol. 3, Reeves and

II.

Patos

Twenty-nino

74

supporting columns

75

There is the rumbre rike "the

distant jorting of carts,,, the Viorne
covering the heavenly sound.s .Vittr -trer
Matse,raise- "the deafening opror"'of grumbling,l, the threatening
the Maseur n'" the s
s playing on monsttous trumpets
that
ess of brass, to all ends of
thl vailey.
, repeating with its echoes the ardent
the basic leinotif was the increasing
effusion of
fitling up of the anosphere, then
he tlre basic
i"
1"y by fiUing the air witfr souns t om the
of sound going beyond rhe limits
irrr"riU"a by the
hoizon.
But the horizon _ is the limit.
And no one and n_oing may be
hurred
But here zora's splendi t""*""r.rrness beyond its contours.
finds a rilrianiay out.
Having stuck the limits .t-trt"-"""ironment
and incapabre of
penetraring it the sound eremenrs
ot
limits, but a_re bounced back from zitaare not hurle trrius these
ar"_l
Zola introduces. . .an echo!
" 'The v'lage. - .trembled rike a dum beaten
by drumsticks;

resounded in its
wit its echoes the adent no,",it oi-.
national
orizon - from the rtistant trUls,
frm stips of
, ftom clusters of Eees urr tn" smallest
re shaking air and ground
,o""_Jl"ig_"".r., urra

freedom...
tt ttr press're trre sound wishes to exprode the horizon

,,.

Here the springboard of action

halls of the widow Dsire.

is somewhat broade than the sturdy

of the horizon.
method.
fom a more intense register

an

The basic object of plenitude expands here to the fulr:ress of the

space
of the heavens.
And for its prenitude' dust, sweat, and the wamth of the d.ancers,
and
the cornets, do not suffice.
*

lLa Fortule de Rougon he carger of

Rougon) from the French edition, oeuwes

compltes, cercle du Livre_Prcierx, paris, l97, pp. 3g-zl0; available

E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus, London, tgg HM.l

in rnish, eans.

But it is not allowed to do this.

Ad its ecstatic press
trees not beyondtr rim

te

encapsurating

hills and the wall of

inside, in the form

(rwotorhreethousan*^r*"_"t.;::"Hirl":#ffi%l|n"H:f

perishing) and the "zuperhuman;''

significance Zora
lends this fact throug r,ir
"l-:o"t cosmic
eanent
of paros.
A''d among these device","-oottuuilsrt"ned
tt -rt i-lortant appears to
be
the smalr
detachment of two t,
"
tiopJ:.
tran
srorms,
trro us h
the element of sound.,T::
-he
into T"^:t
a crowd oi
"at
by
numerous
-illio.r,
intenuea_
ving, colliding echoes stiking
other!
Thousands grow into mittons.
"g"rrri"r,
And this reveals what is basic
to zora'sconception. He presents
this
event' not on the scaref.excitement
projortionar to the quatity
of
the
actual number of participants,
but i" '"o"rpond.ence to the
social

;l

IL

Patos

76

significance he himself sees in lhis event, in the social conception of the

action of the army (even though a small one) to which he wishes to

submit his reader.

This reminds me of my own quarrel (also in the realm of sound and,
music) witl the composers who selected t]:e music for The old and the

New.

They would not agree to add music of the magnitud.e of Die

Gotterdammerungf6 to a ecstatic religious procession.
"But this is only a village religious procession. why such pretentions
for its music?"
I required music that was not based on the number of chimes in the
village bell tower or the actual number of sngers, but based. on the
degree of religious frenzy of this group of people, however small, Iost
among the immeasurable fields that were languishing from the drought.
There is, of course, no end to tle number of stange anecdotes on the
theme of musical compilations during tJ:e silent film epoch.
I recall how the late L. SabaneyevsT shouted because of the music that
had to be written for Potemkin:* "This is impossible! How can you write
music to worms on a carcass of meat!"
He could not be convinced that the musical image here had to
symbolize the tide of the growing indignation of the mass of sai.ors,
boiling with the revolutionary rise of the whole nation's indignation at
the heroic time of 1905.
There are also examples of the opposite extreme.
In the film October when, during the July days, the Palace Bridge was
lifted to cut off the workers' districts from the center, on the order of
Kerens's Provisional Government, the corpse of a white horse harnessed to a cab was helpless.y hanging from the bridge where it had been
wounded.
The music was to be selected by Fayer.s
"A horse in the sky?...A'h! It's the 'Ride of the Vallories'!..."
However, - back to Emile Zola.
The following example is from The Rout.
Here it is no longer a question of the beginning of an uprising of a
small army accompanied by the sound of the Masei.lla'se marching to a
battle with tyranny.
* How remakable! Among my old papers fom the period of the production of. potemkin I
found a document, yellowed with age, from the Comminee for the Commemoation of 1905
at the central Institure of culrure, ussR (headed by M. I. Ihlinin), where the decision was
taken to commission S. S. Prokoev to write the music for the anniversary Im. Going
abroad at that time, one of our comrades was asked to contact Prokofiev and invite him to
join the project. Because of the eemely short notice, Sergey Sergeevich was not able to
undertake this work. Nevertheless, in my mind I date the beginning of ou collaboration
from the memorable year 1925.

Twenty-two supporting colunns

77

Here we can see the culminating moment of the battle of the people
rising against thefu enslavers.
we see the unfurled canvas of the Apocalypse3e of the destruction of
the second Empire, perishing symbolicalty like sodom and Gomorrahao
in tongues of flame devouring the Tuileries palace.
And again on the "natural" revel there are the twisted iron, the
bursting fireplace, exploding barels of powder.
Ad on this lever tre dance of framing tongues is hurled into the
metaphor of a ery ball:
Ad once again a leap into the rank of imagery.

left
ig
Masan. The fiie
.. .On the

e. With the advent of night the

des, by the pavilion of Flora and

Communards

of the clock towad the center of the

de of banels of powder piled up

had
in the Hall of lhe Ma
intewening buildings
palace where they

of tle smasheJwindows of the

oke, in which there sometimes
appeared long blue streams of flames. The roofs begaa to bum from the fiery

tongues and gaped,

conflagration.

..

lile

volcanic earth, under the pressure of the inner

.Maurice laughed madly in delirirm.

Council and the Tuileries...the facade is

ng, the women dancing. . . yes, dance in your

chignons.

Bravo!*

The broad implications of tlre dection we re pursuing ae achieved

by Zola when the material at his disposal is totally free of the bonds of
everyday verisimilitude.
* The Rout, palt UI

lIa

Debacle, Ga:nier-Flammarion, paris, 1g92, pp. S24_ _ HMl.

lI.

Pathos

78

At this point the objects of the narration finalry behave in a state

of

frenzy.

They finally go beyond themselves.

But under the conditions of the naturalistic limitations that the
father
of naturalism set for himserf, this is of course possibre where their
nonverisimilitude is strictly motivated by everyday tife.
Here, of courser it cannot be merery a questin t
ust any rear event,
even if it be splashed by a cascade of frenzying meiaptrors.
Here only the realm of deririum md haruintion rmains, similarry
documented in a naturaristicany figurative way and a.rso ceated
figuratively in strict correspondence with what thes images may be
and
are.

An example is the shattering and voluptuous picture of Father

Mouret's hallucinations, in which the conflict between tlre ascetic
ecstasy of the young priest and the strong, sensual pathos of the
call of
the flesh breaking into his soul culminates in the giandiose colapse
of
the church, plunged into the dust under the unrstrained pressure
of
victorious nature:
. . .The priest was standing, beset by hallucinations.
He believed that at this new
blasphemy the church had coilapsed. The ray of the s'n, which
inundated the
high altar, slowly spread, illuminating the walls with its red fie.
Red

flames rose

higher, licked the ceiling and were extinguished in the btoodred glow.
The
church suddenly became dak. It seemed as if the fie of the sunset burt
through
the roof, shattered the walls, opened gaping holes on ar.l sides for
the attack from
outside. The dak skeleton of the church rocked waiting for some terrible
assaulr. Night quickly approached.
Then fom fa away lhe priest heard a mumer rising ftom the valey
of Artaud.
_
Earlier he had not understood the ardent language of this burning ioil,
where
knotted grapevines twisted, stunted lrnond. tees, old olive bees stetched
their
mutilated limbs. He passed amids this passion with the setenity of his
ignorance. Buq today, instructed in the flesh, he caught every breath of tl,e
leaves
gasping under the sun.
And now at rst on the distant horizon the hiIs, still warn from tle setting
sun, trembled with re deafening tramping of an army on trre mach, Then
the
scattered rocks, the stones ofthe road, all tlre pebbles ofthe valley
also rose up,
rolling, growling, as if some fateful force pushd tlem forwad. errina them
the

expanse of red earth, the rae fierds conquered by brows of the spade,
frowed and
began to rage like escaping rivers carrying in their waves seedsj
sprouts of roots,
the copulations of plants. And soon everhing began to stir: Grapevines
cawled
like huge insects: The sparse wheat, dry grass, lined up like btarions armed

with tall lances: Trees began to run, straightening their rimbs, rike warriors

preparing for combat: Falling Ieaves marched, the dust of the road
marched. The
hordes recruited new forces at every step, peopre in heat whose breathing was
approaching like a tempest of life, with a fiery flame, carrying everhing before
it in the whirlwind of an enormous childbirth. sud.denly tir" ttu"t o.crrred. At
the edge of the horizon the countryside hurled itself onto the church, the
hills, the

Twenty-two supporting cohmns

79

stones' the earth, re tees. The chuch

crashe_d at this fist shock. The
walrs split,
the tiles flew apart. But rhe grand
Chd;;nging, did not fatl.
Outside voices alose more furious
than before. Now
an voices. It was ,he village,
Artaud, this handful of
obstinacy of weeds, whih send
; swarming

lI.

Pathos

80

multiply...Now the giant tree touched tlre sta-rs. Its forest of branches was a
forest of human limbs, legs, arrns, torsos, stomachs; hanging women's hair,
men's heads burst the core with the laughter of new buds. High above pairs of
lovers swooning at the edge of their nests filled the ai with the music of tlei
pleasure and the odor of their fecundity. A last burst of the hurricane, which
had

flown to the church, washed the pulpit, the confessional, which had scattered
into powder . . . The tree of life bust through the sky. And it projeaed beyond the
stars.

TweDtY-two supportng columns

81

At the same time the very narure of this new quality into which Zola,s
creative method is transported in these last novels seems to have exactly
those same featues that occurred in the novels of the preceding period,
where objective naturalistic narration of events would suddenly leap into
the style of an ecstatic hymn.
In this new series of novels the naturalistic objective story gives way to
a generalized inspired prophecy, so tlat the last novel becomes trans-

to characterize the creative figure of another master of pathos, waJ.t

whitman,ar the English historia John Addington symons, unabre to
find adequate words, turns to the last possible device, to metaphor.

forrned into a social-utopian hymn.

Extremely precise nanrralistic picnrres and images of the most recent
past "history of sngle family during the time of tlre Second Empire,,
become tlre imagined pictures of a utopian future, ad at the same time,
of. all of France.
But it is not a question of France alone.
It is a question of unaity as a who.e, for whom France must be only
the prototype - the 'bressiah, atoner, savior."
It is interesting to note that for the realization of this great mission
Zola thought France had to become truly democratic. And it seems that

te

ZoIa when he writes:

Fath

chur
both
at hi

earth with its shadow!.

..*

It is interesting that in his fruitless search for expressions with which

And among them he turns to the same ttee growing into the earth and
skl4

is an immense tree, a kind of yggdrasit,42 stetching its roots deep down

into the bowels of the world, and unfolding its magic boughs through all
. ' . He

the space of the heavens...l

But this same image is probably also chaacteristic of the creative

figure of. Zola as well. And this is because, like his own unembraceable
tree penetrating the "limits of the firmament" and "projecting beyond the
stars," Zola is hurled in exactly the same way beyond the limits of his
own method during the last stage of his literary activity.
This explosion into a new quality, into a new method., is exactly what
Zola's work is like after tlre Rougon-Macquart cycle.
If within every novel from the Rougon cycle we discover at a certain
moment a leap into ecstatic frenzy, then Zola s works following the
Rougons show the sarne ecstatically freruied leap in respect to the whole
set of preceding novels, and this is equally tue of tlre theme and material
as well as of the style.
I have in mind two cycles: Three Cities (Lourdes, lB94; Rome, lg96;
Paris, 7897) and The Four Evange.Usts (of which three were written:
Fruitft/ness, 7899; Work, 79OO; and Truth, 7903; Zola did without
having written the fourth novel - Justice).+
chap. 9 ffrom the French, La Faute De L'Abb Mouet,

ifi":,t:;il;rl;n"Routredse&Sons,London,
t I do not feel at this point like evaluating the objective merit ofthese novels,
which, both
intellectually as well as anistically, cannot be compared in many ways with the Rougon-

the spirit of prophecy of the "age of democracy"

necessary that she

- \Mhitrnan - soars above

"In order that France becomes the future, it is
now reptesent democracy, tuth, justice against the

old world of Catholicism and monalchy.. ."

In his notes to tlre unwritten Fourth Evangelist - Justice - Zol.a writes:
. . .'I will inoduce Humaniry, the nations being united, teturning to one
family; the question of race, having been studied and solved, a universal
world at the end. . . "
It is sufficient to open any serious work on Zola's creation of this
period to read that in this last phase of his work ZoIa decisively rejects
his "original poetics of artistic objectivity."
The time had passed when Zola "demanded from the artist impartial,
scientific-objective depiction of the contemporary period," toward which
he had aimed in his own work of the earlier period.
And Zola now considers himself a prophet, a social reformer. After the
positive "experimental-naturalistic" novel, the Rougon -Macquarts, ZoIa
will write t}te antireligious novel Thee Cities and the social-utopian
nove Ie Four Evangests.
And even both cycles of his last novels are connected by a "leap" not
Macquarts.I am now mainly interested in the petipeteia of the actual method of Zola, the
novelist, threason being that beginning witl the classics of Mancism, enough has been
written in great detail on questions of the social value, the significance and insignificance
of his creative conEibution to world literature.
In Zola's work I am most interested in the methodological precepts of separate parts of
his wok. Ad in a general evaluation of his work, this does not prevent my reader from
agreeing with Henri Barbusse's other evaluaton of Zola, to rr'hom he devoted an entire
book.as

But in Zola's wok and technique I am particularly concerned with pursuing rhe
afrmation of those principles of the style of patos that were discussed above!

lI.

Pathos
82

only with rhe Rougon-Macquartsbut

arso with each other. Trree ciries is
a transitional stage from the ,,his

within each of tlese novels in tu

. . .'lqJl these novels begin in the
di

and arrive at bourgeois_utopian

from a situation in whic- the
imagined reabn where they are overcome.,,*
AIr the internar features of Em'e Zora's
riterary style arso .ndergo a
pronounced transformadon.
The hidden solemnity-of the rhythm of
separate passages in Zola,s
earlier works (we noted above trre page
trom
Genninarwnih can easily
be rearranged into the. stanzas or'a "pmr
here begins to enverop the
novel as a whole and is overtly .pp"""rrt.
The strucnre of Fujtlnesi m.Ty serve
as an example.
The theme of the novel is, in Zora;s words,
"Fruitlness in trre course
of an entire century, the multiplicatir
great oak.. .', The growth of tlte note
seems to have been compressed into
of the dynamic quality of this
broadens my limits, provides

famig').

The cinem
time-rapse
the growth

ph

,i:

sh

f
I days
,"j
as living movement and life before oru
eyes a rose blorso_s,
sprout' young shoots acruauy stetch toward
""es
the su *,iit snakes,
wind their roots in seach of nourishing soil.
Thus on the pages of one novet Matieu and
Maianne ,'are fruitfur
and murtiprt'' with such success that on the
day of their diamond
wedding_ anniversary, the s-eventieth year
of tfreii'maria'e, t", u'.
surrounded by 159 heads of ch'dr rn, grandch'dren,
ana [ieat-granachildren, and the family as a whole,
tirrg the wives of children ard
grandchildren, compose a total of 300!
"ot
And reiterating this emergence out of each other
of one generation
- another that is constantly
from
being repeated. ..

Twenty-two supporting columns

i;;
ru
per

83

through rhe ente novel several almost

unchang-

eturning the reader to one fund.amental ide,

thesis of the novel into his head. These refrains

follow each chapter, each scene of the nover.

The main refrains are three _ the

first beginning witt rhe words:

' ' ' During those fouryears at chanteble the Froments had been
ever founding,
creating, inceasing, and mr:ltiping, again
and again proving victorious in the
etemal battle which life wages againl
deatn...*
etc.;

the second refrain:

And
ever te great wor the good work, the
v fruitfurness

-'v work
"vr\ of
'.'as
sPreading..,
and finally the third:

:i'Ten two more years roued on. And during those two years Marhieu and
Marianne had yet anoter child. ..,,
refra
another
images and si
These

s of times, and sometimes come one

after

ides these basic refrains, separate

the autlrols basic iaea irough the

boo are repeated constantly...

" 'caried to trei uhost rimits in Fruiulness, these repetitions produced
numbing, and sometimes

simpry comic impression. probably as

a result of rhis
Zola significantry limited trrei pplicatioin-tne
rouowing novels.
. .,,1

But another interesting point is that in trrese

rast novers Zora carries
the technique of producing effects beyond
the boundaries of those limits
noted above -'Tn essence" trrough th"
serection of factuar material
e author.
devices described: He begins to
of the fabic of literary style.
The '-timiditf' of the initial ltempts of such
,,musir-poetic,,
passages passes over here into
"o(cess.,,
Zora himself writes about the 'h rsicaritf'
of this device and the leap
from 'timiditf, to ,.excess" in his use of it:

well. , . (I-etrer of 24 october

lg94)

books. This is really a

eveloped excessively. I
uaity. It is somewhat
for an explanation of its role
of it in my lterary device as

Fruitutness, tans', Emest vizetelly, Doubreday, pate

& co., New yok 1900,
Reizov, op. cit. - HM,l

;.iil"riili
1fV.

I.

Pathos

Twepty-firo supporting columns

An allusion to the superheightened pathos of Wagner and to one of his

most distinctive devices in his technique of ecstatic writing would be
particularly relevant at this point.
It would probably be even more valid for Zola to refer to the Bach
fugue. In any event, this brings us again directly to the problem of pathos

85

activity of the prophet, the next

ctive deed) is a "departure,,that,
sarily resulted in projecting him

in Potemkin.

es
ex

As far as the problem of. pathos is concerned, then Wagner, and even
more so Bach, reveal to us another new aspect of the'Tormula of patod'
that also develops into a new quality, growing out of the first formula.
similarly the prototype conesponding to it, from feanlres characterizing
processes of the dialectic, is contained as a whole and grows out of the
principle of the unity of opposites.
This principle of unity in variety - is that form of the embodiment of
the principles of the dia-lectic on which the pnciple of the Bach fugue is
basically constructed. and., as we see below, the principle of so-caLled
montage cinematography, which was above all the cinematography of

to new generalizations and new materia.,

concern ourselves later with a particular

e fact rhat, through detailed analysis,

ZoIa's ten pairs of novels became the

also found in literature, albeit within
Page after page it was justified in all the convolutions
of the riterary
Himalayas of Zola.

pathos.
I will write later about the principle of the fugue in my own work, when
I compare the structure of. Potemkin, Alexander Nevs, and the first part
oL

lvan the Tenible.

I will also discuss the "organic nature,' of the form of the fugue.

At this point it is sufficient to mention that because of its smilarity to

the principle of unity in variety, this principle is especially close in its
application to works of patos.
Let us not digress from Zo.a, about whom we still have a few word.s to
say, They refer to the nature of Zola's utopia, which, of course, suffers
from the narrowmindedness of the inevitable fetters of pey bourgeois,
albeit rebellious, images, which imposed the same imprint on the onesidedness of what appeared to him as tota_l .,objectivitf, in the
composition of a picture of real life in his "naturalistic" description.
Nowhere in his work does ZoIa rise above Fourie/s teachings, which
were not perceived very profoundly, and for whom Zola,s last novels
cou.d serve as very extensive illustrated commentary.
But we are interested here not so much in the actual elements of his
preaching as in the picture of how the "narrator" is projected into the
preacher.

Gogol accomplishes that same leap in tragic form.

Especially since we know from Zola's biography tat in The Dreyfus
Tiai this "armchaif' novelist accomplishes this same ,Jump', into the
realm of public political battle, from '\ords" to immediate .,activity,,'to
intervention in life.
This same path of going beyond the limirs of literary activiry into the
sphere of one's own biography was accomplished more profoundly arrd
more significantly by our own Lev Tolstoy. In him also the third link

It concerns the American singer of tre "the coming democracy',wart

V/hitrnan.

This
principl
observe
very fab

for us because it clearly demonstrates the

terested. After this it wi be much easier ro
ons where it is moe deeply embedded in the
out the "Song of the Broad Axe.',
d here in an almost naively apparent manner.
the sound of the work is shattering and

This is a hymn to tlre American to the pioneer, conveyed through

a
hymn to the toor basic to him the axe, with which he subdued-the
continent of the New World in the name of culture.

Il.

Patos

86

And the principre of heightening the pathoseffect

of this primevar toor
is unusually simple.
For page after page Whinan enumerates everything
.and.
made
constructed by the axe.
The gallery of the vast ocean of the activiry of
man, the builder of rife,
passes before us.
. And this variety fuses that basic toor with which everhing is created
into a grand image of unity...
the primitive axe of the pioneer _ the broad axe.

This re seems to have been sm

and fragments of
the particura cases of i
And step by step the
into a new unity.
The static unity of the
.into
as been smashed
myriads of fragments, is r
instrument but into
The image of the
The hand grew into
primogenitor of the
Whitman).
in mhorogy the earthry Bacchus used to be torn aparr
- similarly
so
that
the parts might be reunited int tne divine Bacchus.*
Other mythological figures such
nix,4a etc., etc.,
went through tle same process
by a transition
from one level to another, from
er.
At the beginning of this work we briefly noted that the
ecstatic srructure
is like a copy of the behavior of somene seized by ecstasy.
This statement is much more concrete and precise th,'
simpry a
"faon de parler,,,than a ,,bon mo( or .turn of phrase.,,
Actually, the constructions of patos similar to Whitman,s ,,Song
of
the Broad Axe" reproduce one of the songest phases
of
ecstatic
experience in ther structure.
This is the moment in which on l experiences the feering
of unity in
variety: the feeling of a single generarizing law that extendJ
through a]l
the variety of single (apparent) accidentar phenomena
of nature, of
reality, of history, of science.
A work of patos with an analogous stuctule tries in every way
possible to recreate a similar "state of things";
[it] behaves as though it
were a copy, and as in a piece of writing, for orample, as
the read.er
follows it he passes through the same stages of graduar acc'mu.ation
of
* we shourd compare
what we wrote above with the one Iarge sail in potemki disintegrating into fragments of sePaate_sails of separate skiffs,
and again reassembling not into
a sail, bur inro...the bright red flag over the battleship.

Twenty-trivo spporting

colunns

data, suddenry at a certain moment of narration

he is inflamed with the
feeling of its unity.
This is experienced as we by the schorar, who has
come across a
single law penetrating and seizing all the plenitude
of individual and
vaied data of experience.
This is also felt by
those cases when not only
his individual work
all rhe parts that flowed
together in it, unitin
orsanicallv wore work or arr, but even more
crptor (of very high cariber) experiences trre whore
or rri" prrus a gear
unity.

ff tii::"":itnJi.i:

a.fter the largest catheda_l

in pais.
Let us recar this moment, even if

description:*

it be in the form of Emil Ludwig,s

He was already

well into his thities and had just come to rearize

the full
measule of his s.ength when, on rooking back
over a number of single, unelated
novels, he got the idea of bringing into
,.

or
perio
of this moment, wherein he ceasedio be
history'
writing re moral history of his

ure wor of

imponance
writer of
He inmediately ran with this idea to his sisrer, swinging
rriJ spanistr
cane' playing q'-ail, and crying:.,I am breaking
tr*ouirru ustactest
Sal.ute! I am now on the road to gniust',
ea

In this way Baac entered on the path of the creation of

what turned
out to be e Thousand and One Nrhts of the West.
repeat that the mntoaf experience of this moment
of the
- And I must
forrration
of unity in variety, through
g a work or an,ls cnieve
by establishing an exact copy as the basis
"r*tit
for it, an exact reflection of the
structure of the process of ,'descending', to
to see the law of unity in this chaos of chan
by oneself this law of unity from all the v
and ocists.
The most riterar embodiment of this scheme is the
constuction we
see in Whitnan's "Hytrns."
Another ecstatic uses this device, the autlor of the
numerous pages of

ffitu"

and Chatacter, Kenneth Burke, ans,,

f'larcourt, Brace & Co., New yok lg2? _

lI. Pathos

88

pathos in Amos and Jeremia, less originally with less surprise, but
moving in the same direction - Stefan Zweig.ae
Here we will only al.lude to an example taken from his early works and
that directly echoes the example fom rvvhiuna describe bove.
It has been taken at randm from his "cycle of lyric statues,' of 1913,
which under the general title Ru.le of Life (Die Herren des Lebens)
combines eleven poetically outlined images.
Some of them are connected with the images of d.efinite individuals:
There is "The S
(an image of
Dostoyevs, to
onductol' (in
memory of Gust
f l).st
One can only
These are "The Singer,', ,,The pilot,,, ..The Fakir,,' ..The Confessor,,,
"The Seducer," and',The Dreamer.,,
For Zweig this is a gallery of a
ly shattered into
fragments, the image of an active
rows into a truly
gigantic figure when separate ,.s
into a common
whole!*
If the device unifying the entire cycle is of this type, then zweig
confines this device within the separate lyric poems oui of which it is
created.

For example, the image of his ,,Emperor,,, of a ruler of the fates of

Zweig out of

?::i;
"And every flourish - creates destiies..'
This one will become a Captain.
That one a Judge.
Another a count with a seven-pointed crown.
out of the earth a cathedral will arise, and into it wilt rush streams of
the devout.
The door of a prison opens, and into bits bursts the scaffold that had
been prepared for executing those who had been pardoned.
war is declared. And like lightning the news is carried throughout the
land. Rifles gleam. Cannons roar. Trains d.ash.
A new flourish - and the earth rearing up becomes calm.

Twenty-two supporting colunns

89

Again tle prosperity of the world. Etc., etc.

"The seduce/'is constructed in the same way (probably ir is one of the
first sketches for the future "Casanova,').
Here through tousands of sacrifices he is constantly searching for the
eyes of that first unique and inimitable woman whom he first .oved..
For him the sky is now sown witl stars, but the horizon is embraced by
the luminaries of feminine images. And in one loving embrace he wouLd
like to smother the earth, fusing with it, etc.
The image of the inexorable rise of the pilot is constructed by the same
technique. The pilot comes into contact with the bosom of the music of
the spheres as newer and newer images of ascent and height accurnulate
in relation to his rise into the heavens.
It is interesting to note that this scheme was already the basis for the
construction of an image of. pathos in the eighteenth century by such a
remarkable ecstatic as the ukainian philosopher Gregory skovoroda:
around you. At
esses hundreds

are concealed.
monkev, rhrough humanrike acivity this creanie images tt e
"o.plTeluJ.,ittioT
an unseen and etemal power and divinity of tht man where all
our forms are like
mirrorlike shadows.

The archaic phraseology of this very exalted utterance adds, of course,

to its inevitable comic flight. "Corporeal form,, in the sense of a

membrarie, an "envelope," a "cover", in Skovoroda necessarily evokes
associations connected with the word "bolvan"* from an entirely different semantic field - "fool," "ignoramus,,' ..know-nothing,,, ,'stupid,"
etc.

The strong "ambiguity" of the feeling of this text arising from such an
"unforeseen" course of associations could not escape the attention of
that great lover of wit, our Leskov.s2
we all know the given passage from skovoroda not in its original, of
course, but in the epigraph to e Rabbit's Forteft, whose satirical
essence is expressed magificently in the ambiguous sound this old
quotation has for the contemporary ear.
In general the ironic reinterpretation of canonized forms of patos is a
device frequently found in Leskov.
In a similar way his amazing skill raises the naively trivial and the
apparently anecdotal to levels of true pathos.
Both this as well as Leskov's other skilt testifies to his very precise
* lBolvan means "idol, graven image" in old Russian, but ,,fool,,in
contemporary Russian _
HM.].

II.

Pathos

90

Twenty-h,vo supporting

colunns

9l

And now you come up against an unexpected and curious pheno_

menon.

...we must d.iscuss one more autho.

When we read Zweg we automatically recall
the autlor who
sometimes wrote ,,in this manner,,,but
somewhat ealier.
This is Pushkin.
Artd especially
r.
While reading
the pen,,in Zweig, I
However,

recalled the

seque

I
B

of the owner of gold.

palace

le

will arise . . .

obediently, slavishly

In reading the "song of the Broad Axe,,'you wilr

reca how in pushkin
the pile of gotd "accumurates" fiom ,ro"roo,
acts of numerous peopre,
. . . of how many human cares
Deceptions, teats, prayers, and curses
It is the pondetous representative!

this mountain is a concrete fragment of the

which the riches and power oi tt e greedy
Here is an ancient doubloon . . . here it is.
fust now
A widow gave it back to me; bur ffust

It turns out not to be "anotlel steam,, or ',catalog of enumerations.,,

And a-fter each pair of the above excerpts it is not pplicabre
to put as
we have above, . .'.etc.,,
There is no ',etc.,, there at all.

And now we cn discover the great mastery of pushkin, who

so
brilliantly was able to clotle a smali fraction of an enumeration
into an
enemely refined formal variety.

co

"l.:l,lrifil';:,'#",'j',i:

l;l;",iff:

'o
uo". not rorce the
ilr"*"11i:'f"liili" .n"
"" a pile of gold is_ ,""way
fo_rmed out of separate pieces of money or
a
mountain is composed of separate handfuIs of eath.
This process, which had been deveroped by whitman within
the
actuar struchr-re of the poem, is '\ightened" in pushkin
into a poetic
image of the description of such a process, which
he ocpresses as a
simile within the poem itself:
. . .I read somewhere,
That a tsa once ordered his warriors
To take handfuls of earth and throw them into a pile
And a proud hill aose - and te tsar
Was able to gaze with joy ftom the heights
At the valey covered with white tenis
And at te sea where ships sped.
So I, bringing handful afte handful

remywindow
me.

againOr
ght to me_

etc.

Afte such an inoduction, only two to three, more precisely _

four
ach:al enumerations ae sufficient, so that they may
in
trrieaaer,s
mind with rhe enormous quantity of handfuls t earttr-"rg"
tn warriors bring:
The fantasy of the reader witl nish drawing for him
ttr"t
whiran would have '\witten out'' in an anarogous situation.
"u"rn1.rg
But Pushkin is capable of much more.
A uiform enrmeration of even four episodes of exactry the
same type
frightened him by their possible monotny.
e devices

r o,**,1l,TlJ:r'r,ff:;
god" or by Tynyanovr,:rin

flhis and subsequent

passages from pushkin are my own anslation _

HM.l

depaning peter reaches

deeds insignificant, as

if

II.

Patos

92

Twenty-two supporting colu.mns

93

*ent,' of the enumeration according to two

," inextricably connected with each other.
precisely, two) wilt compose the image of the

d
b

Their unity (as shown above) is achieved by the uniformity of the

image in which first the formation of a hill from hardfuls of
earth is
presented and the second time a flood arising out

of the merging

streams,

A feslival ofvirtue and sleepless labor and

"bloody villainy."

The helplessness of the weak widow

and the criminal activiry of the rogue Thibault.

At this point the "enumeration" stops. And once more, as in the

beginning, it "is gathered" again into a simile where it is as if
some
gigantic whole is being described, forming out of minute,
varied.,partiar,,
units:
if all the blood, sweat, and tears
Poured out for everhing kept here

It is interesting that this principre of contast has also been observed

in the "behaviof' of a flood.
A flood arises out of a mov
associate with its representarion:
:::ltl
comrng
down from the s, but it rises out
owels of

the earth"!

and among

is images, similes, and

. . . Yes !

Suddenly issued forth fom the earth,s bowels,

That would be the Frood once again and I wourd drown In my faithfur
celas.
-

mage of t
material.

"soliditt''

Pu
we
of

ion proves his great resourcefulness,

e poems of our great poet

if

with the styte

The lack of diversity and variety in the poetic meter make his work
almost unreadable today.

The monotony of the poetic composition

The movement within the action of the flood is similar: It rises

out of

hypnotizing.

And what is particularly interesting at this point is that pushkin

Untermeyer, correctly writes:

the bowels (upward) and floods...the cellar.

them-with

in Pushkin and help

of

Hiawatha

is

armost

of course' one of the most recent pubrishers of his poetic regacy, Louis

selects extreme opposites.

The "mountain" and '\ater"

opposites.

- this is a classical pair of contrasting

In chinese painting, for example, the term "landscape" Iiterally means

"a picture of mountains and water.,,
Moreover, in the chinese concept this rarery means te description of
the most frequent landscape',subjects."
According to Chinese teaching, .\tatef' and '.mountain', express two
constant opposing elements: the static unchanging and the eternally
moving.
The mutual penetration of these contrasting .'principles" create aII
aspects of phenomena and engender the process of their formation.
The interaction of different bearers of tlese principles in harmonious
interaction also defines the basis of composition in the aesthetic of
Chinese painting, and of landscape paintings in particular.

[. . . ]1 There is good.reason that in the generar chorus of ecstasy, when

the first collection of his poems were published (voices of the Night,
* See "The Poems of Hen1j.^longfellow,,,
Heritage Press, New york, 1943.
I [As per Russian original
- HM.]

in

fn\american
t

poets,L. Untermeyer, ed.,

II.

Patos

94

the lion in old age

1839), one strongly negative e:<clamation was heard,

and this <clamation belonged to the young and still uaknown journarist by
the name of Edgar Allan poelss This rack of passion, tat of poetic
ecstasy in the

culminated a whore stage of Russian culture and

evealed the paths for a
new movement and for the rise of the next stage
of riteratur.
N",ft is Zweig, who more or less repeated the feeling
of sunset of the
-broken
prewar curtue of western Erope on
te very eve of the war,
which brought urith it the collapse of its system
of governments and

themes and aims of the author make his apprication of

an emphatic
repetitious structure even more destined to faiiure for the
contemporary

(not to him, but to us) reader.

The repetition of accumuration trrough the diversity and varety
of a
single thesis, single image, singre poetic meter is an integral
sign of the
style of pathos.
But its application to lmateria-r] of a nonpatos orientation, ret
arone
having no diversity and variety, prod.uces an
monotonous
effect - an impression that is difficurt to destoy ",(uemery
*rt er, ,"irrf tne citea
Song of Hiawatha in our time.
\ivhat has been said here about Longfeilow makes even more
apparent
what is unique about pushkin's skill, which so crearry shows
us how
through the great variety of the ways in which it devrops, the
naked
strucrure still retains its total original dynamic effect. idoreover,
the
structure also avoids monotony nd is prevented from being totauy
obvious, which wourd give the possibility of *examining the dce"
and.
in this way would undermine its immediate effect.*
However. . .is this ,.all,,?
And this doubt reads us to trre observation for which we disturbed
the
covetous knight in his underground cellar.
If we compare all three exampres - the baron's monorogue, zweig,s
"emperor," and "song of the Broadrtxq" trren in the end esult
they turn
out to be compretely different in their general stucturar basis.
on the one hand we see the most rearistic crassicar proportions of the
pathos style delineation of the baon in pushkin;
on the other - the armost hystericalry broken, convursive ecstasy of

95

concepts.

And fina[y Wa]r Whihan _ rhe

nation just at the time of the Civil
after it had finalty got on its own
the one hand, and with utopian

It is natumr that every historicar

stage dictates to the master of its

a given nrm.
^ ^*,r^ ::i;ili"i-.":fuy tr," pionee/s axe in the

ePoch
The

rhe

other.*
A convulsive, spasmatic constuction in the third.
Each sings with the.voice of his stage of cultural
development.
But something else is more interestiirg for us at ttris poi.-

!fgtgq

q{ ql9_er_g_!b.e same

atent of it determines a d.ifferent

e effect.
ce of

all tree _ is very different.

The lion in old age

Zweig.

And finally, third, we see the cosmic, all_embracing patos of Whit_

man, who is not wirhout a certain flight of "barbarit/'in his primitive

power.

It would not be complicated to briefly characterize the premises

which the very different forms are based.

In the firsr place there is pushkin, who in
* The same thing
was accomplished on the O

editing rhey cut

repetition provid
that is always at
the knight
distinguish

new feeling
same lime ir thematically retains the unity o

tue

on

crassical perfection

what scope for 'tegaining the city,"s how tempting for the
eye, ear,
taste, smell, and touch that is too cuious!
we wee bold enough to suggest that the method we discovered
was
Etre everywhere.

ual
sh

act

iarities of

our next
an formalsrs of the 1920s where a
ead the perceiver was supposed to

a work of an, and one means of

of a particular an form - HM.l

II.

Pathos

be lion in old age

I intentionally do not want to linger on exampLes of tragedy

drama.

and

Here the eld is too broad ad clea.

97

by the poison of "simplicity," so characteristic of the stage technique of

ou_r century.
Whee would we look for such example?
Of course, in the romantic theater!

is theater, of

course,

in

the

i,i,l,i;il,l'Ji:"Tl#:
\rhat could be more magnificent for its time than the patos
of this
king of melodrama, this flamboyant lion and total master f th" puriri"n
stage, whose lavalike temperament at its crest bore the romanti madness
-of the violent plays of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas,r Flx
Pyat,2 and Guilbert de pixercourt?3

operation.
The excerpt from claudius's speech was particularly striking because
of its extreme pomposity.
And how well this speech can be compared. here with lines',descend.ing" from king to worrn, repeated later by Ambrose Bierceo in Te
Devil's Dictionary, in the idle
and therefore doomed, only ch

terminal circle - so much so

it should not be swallowed bit by bit, in the form of a ,'reverse,' formula,
according to which progressive links of a single chain of development
hurled out of each other:
a

. , . EDtaLr, ad-,

Good to eal, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad

to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and. a man to a worm.t

For the sake of clarity let us look into the aea of tlre acto/s perform-

ance for an example of a somewhat "elevated" marer, not yet joisoned

Therefore it is not in
years of his career, not

domestic salon, not in

the descriptions of the t

past - that it is better to seek significant signs of the actor's technique of

this master of stage pathos.

There is a little book of memois of the actor and very productive
damatist Pierre Berton,* whose narne is much less populai than the
nmes of his plays - especially of one.
Be4on (as well as chales simon) is the author of the very touching
zaza68 (1898), so charrringly played quite recently in the movies by

Claudette Colbert ard Herbert Mashall.

Forty years before the miting of this play, in lg5g, pierre Benon _ a
sixteen-year-old youth who had just begun to deam about a theatrical
career, the grandson of the famous actor and teacher of generations of

actors -- Samson,e the godson of the disciple of his lrandfather

Rachel,To and subsequently a friend of sard.ou, Dumas-fils,-71 and Bizet

met the great Frdrick for the fust time in his life.

L
* Souyenrs de la uie de Thatre, Pais, Lafitte
et Cie.

,ji

Il.

Pathos

98

reveared before him

lbe lion in old age

99

in the setting of the ,terribre,, bourgeois salon,

glittering with the.l."un lylry of te gold

and purple upholstery, where
the great "comdien" received nim ir, regar
crimson and gold dressing
gown:*

s spread into the richness of the whole

This parlor, grotesquely bourgeois

The gilt of the furniture, which was
framed the crimson upholstery triDme

with the same rype of portieres. In all

scne of the fourth act of a melodam

banke,s - the parlor of Robert Macaire

verses of Victor Hugo.

I left him

already in my first impression,

natule and manner of the great acto/

is really not necessary at rhis point.

typical, which even now, half a centu.ry

minutest details. . .

omqeltarV
It
could not be said better:

with hai freey flowing on his wide

salon faded

of gait spoke
ilk dressingolsteryof the

"

' "He moved towad me with a noble ad measued gait

and a-rone seemed
like. a whole cortege, lacking only its solemn
music.

His feet moved into filst

position, toes to the side, hiding the refinement
of his feet in ruxurious, gord._

embroideed slippers. . .
dressing gown, streaming in its splendor ftom
his shoulders,
- ' ' 'The

after him like the

tain of

.orl,tiy

cap(

ta'ed

" which coul

confined by a thick plaired bett,
but, instead, hung on one end and, w
like the tail end of a procession, still
the artist was already standing in the center
of the parlor.
The great Frdrick came up to me with that
same gait with which Don sauust
in
fuy 8tas72 approached the Spanish qo""., io order to touch herigar hand

with his lips.

d not with a dagger, but only with my

few insignicaDt wotds. His speech

g spoken to me of how greatly he was
he offered me two tickets for te ne>rt

But these few words on his rips ,o"k o:J: most .nusuar
significance, totary
incommeasurable with the subject trrey were touchiDg.
It
seemed as if he
commanded not just two barconies, but the fate of
the ntie empire.

a syllable gtows into a word,

a word - into a phrase,
a phrase - into a monologue.
The aging Frdrick here, in the
crimson salon,
tradition of pa

In another p
for which this
attributes it to a totally unexpected
atistic talent of the great actot.
Nature had given him everything and had
reft out only one thing. As it
turns out, Frdrick had a weak voice and
hd
difficurty in
pronouncing words.

"...This organic shortcoming" writes

"rar"*"
'this defect of vocar

Berton,
apparatus' forcing him to a s.ow and emphasir"
pro""""iuiion of the
text' to the exaggeration oT gesture and glanc",
*u"
oinim-itrat iaear
performer of the great works of romantic-tr"ut",
tt at aotrr., curd onry
deam about...,'
These observationl d-o not essentially change
anhing.
And
the physicar-defect, which p*tiuuy determined
_
the manner of
Lemate's declamation, accord.ing o tne testimony
of Berto'himselt
made him the most idear inscumnt for pronouncing
tirades of patrros

by Hugo and others.

*.This.weakness
for gilt and crimson as welr as orientar ruxury and ,,Damask
silk,was arso
shared bv anorher "rion" Balzac, who his wtrote tir
,,abodes,,
riea to ni-irn

with a similar luxury.

li.

"Jii

its imprint on his basic decramatory manner, which

in tum to a certain

II.

Patos

100

The lion in old age

101

extent could not but affect "in reverse" a modification

of the rhythmic
treatment of this verse.
This situation undoubtedry intensified even more the pracard garish-

ness

and lapidary-pounding quality of the stamp of tris verse sryle,

consciously chosen by the poet for other motives.
Likewise the individual acting defects and difficurties of
Stanislavs_
the-actor - in the process of his rvercoming them _ produced
many
vaLuable things in the deveropment of the "syltem', of
sianisravs-theteacher.

It is sufficient to compare his crassic work on the acto/s technique

with the memoir data from his book My Life in Atto become
convinced
that whole sections of 'the system" dweloped, formed, and
achieved a
theoretical basis for their necessity as a result of similar particular
individual features of its creator. In those cases when these difficulties
coincided with those of "acting in generar," the methodorogicar ..sorutions" found in them were briliant. In tlose cases when theyseem
to be
narrowly individual, they engender within the "system" paragraphs
that
are not very convincing, but because of reverence for the
whole work, the
"systems" are just as ditigently taught by popularizers
in spite of their
very relative need for those in whom tre specific natural
deficiencies of
Constantine Sergeyevich are lacking.
In this little book from which we took the scene just d.escribed
several pages later - that same pierre Berton introduces
a weu-known
anecdote about Lamate.
At a certain point Frdrick became too incrined to the use of strong
drink. It happened quite frequentty that he performed in an unsober
condition. usually the great actor, whom the doring public invariabry
saw as their idol, got away with this.
But sometimes the idor went too far, and then he was attacked. by
the
uncontrollable anger - not common in our generally restrained
viewers of the effusive French theater auditorium.
So it was on that evening.
...The public demanded an apology from him. Frdrick refused. The storm
of
dissatisfaction grows. The director; under the theat of having to return
money to
public,
lhe
rushes to the stage from where he unsuccessfully tries to calm
down
his spectators and then behind the wings, from where rrric shaking
with
rage, hurls his curses at the auditorium. The case was serious. The
a.rtist dared to
hurl to his viewers' faces the exuemery frank exclamation: ,,A herd of fools!,,
obviously rhis was too much. And this obvious situation finarly convinces the
guilty person himself.
"Alright, o.k. - I'tl apologize to them! you'll see!,'
The director runs onto the stage and proclaims that re great actor admits
his
guilt and apologizes the auditorium,
The door at the back of the stage opens wide, and Frdrick Lematre, always
grand even in an unsober state, moves to the footlights.

and even

(my best
y has his
'T/Vhat

was ir Frdrick insisted. on?

ironic composition here.

below. But the conflict of

- we will save for

of both

into the problem of our

II.

Pathos

to2

But here is the actual text of t{e letter:

Dear Friend,

The lion in old age

103

evidence," to be used as a justification of the

basic norms of the creative
forms of pathos examined by us.

It is interesting how much this

conception has

in

of, pathos _ the Greeks.

common with the

s testimonzs the gigantic wall fresco of

HeracreatoAthens,n424Jiil,if ,'.i"T,.i"ff

My best feelings, in spite of everything (amiris quand mme). Fiix pyat.

. .,

In the underlined words we can crearry see the trreme of the argument.
And by reading it attentivery, we will immediately catch the basic
mainspring by which Frdrick reveared "the treasures of his great
talent."
We have before us three antitheses.

opposing each other into an

o/s gift, also apparently lies at
which the great Frdrick's

1"",:
"ruthlessness as wet as its
its haughtiness as well as its
-"r"y,
humility, its aggressiveness and r'rrvLr", its pettiness
and magnanimitY"l a',d through this he reveated for the first
time to trre eoenisrre
-comple"xity and contrad.ictory narur, of their
own character.
But; recalling the giants of Greek ,.us"dv,- *-rr"-""oied
this
contradictory nature of the Greek nationar
cnraie., i i, i*p..ibre not
to recall another gatery of superhuman passions
tnat s.rrpu"es them in
contradictory images and
ber epoch.*
stoyevs.
ng from the greatest ruin and grief
rr'rs,thesepetersburskindred^sisterr.:1:"i:#J,1,''r"::f
or the mother of the Horatii,ze abre at a singre
moment
humiliate the strongest of this world of _ ,,millionuir"r,; io i.rrromarrty
urrl' another
to grovel in

the dust of serf-humiliation at the feet or a nonentity,

wtro is
not worthy of their spittle,
through tlte ascetic and saint who is capable of ,,stinking,,,8o
to Ivan Karamazov, whose "second" nature is so inten-e,
that is
nd enters with him into the most

;:'".1i'i,:
conflict between his own tast

naTe...Lev (lion),
I am contradicting myself?
am so great that I can contain conrad.ictions within myself.
Let these strokes as we as the mountains and mountains of what
\Mhitman has witten besides them enter the circle of ..testimonial
Perhaps

well

-I

* The leRer, as far as I know, has

apparently been published here fo the rst time.

which

name

(titrte mous") *ith;itlfill:

his heo.
not only in the vigor of a

Not only thanks to the

certain theatricarity of th
buskins,t
r-ir-'*i"u"o o, the unnaturSr"iiiP;;"t:ff
:
Maikofr said of them), the ancient ril;t"t reminds one
of Dostoyevs,
arid Dostoyevs - of the ancient theater.
In one as weu as the other, one is often struck, not
onry by the duarity

"'

]_Tlt1, i", before l9l7 Russian Revolurion, _ HM.l

,.l"lrll[ili;,iliij"rfi-,'wom

by acrors in incient Greek and Roman Fasedy,

arso

IL

Patos

104

but especially by the - at times - unmotivated collapse of a character into

another extreme, incompatible and unreconcilable with it, into another
antithesis.
Among the Greeks this is sudden, lapidary,
the first wooden step from the initial dramaturgical taboo, as if it were
being dictated to the persona - the actor - by the unchanging constraint
of the form of the person\-mask in whch, without changing form and
character, he originally performed the tragedy from beginning to end. . .
Then arose the possibility of change. They surmised that it was
possible to change the mask. But the jott from this change of mask to
mask remained as a rigid jump that, without nuance, without tansition,
was forced to create a character that was suddenly transformed into
another antithetical depiction of his passions.
Through Senecas2 the imprint of this "handicap',* was transformed
into pre-Shakespearean Elizabethan drama, where the lack of flexibility
and multifacetedness of transition within a chaacter was no longer

determined by the persona-mask disappearing from the stage but

continued the tradition inside the dramatic torture itself, which was
doomed to "blanc et noi/'lack and whitel characters, lacking nuances,
as vestiges of the limitations of the stage technique of the Greek theate/s
two-mask characters.
And only by the arrival of Shakespeare in the sixteenth century and,
even more, of Dostoyevs - in the nineteenth - was tragedy able to be
raised from the stage of opposite halves to complete unity in the antitheses composing the natures of their characters, by which the unsupassed dynamics of their inner tension is achieved, and the psychological
outbursts of transport from adoration to denigration of the adored, from
hate to love, from meekness to beastliness and that ..divine frenzy" in
which all the depths of their pathos is revealed.
One could multiply page after page on this theme.
But what is more important, perhaps, is to note its invariable, inherent
attractiveness.
The combination of a similar duality in the unity of one ad the same
nature of an extraordinary person fascinated me personaily. This was in
the character of the man I chose afte my first experience making a mass
film without hero or p.ot, when for the first time I tried to make a film

about a man I imagined to be superhuman.

I have in mind the image of Tsar Ivan tle Terrible, contact with whom
brought me so much joy and so much sorrow, as if the work on him was
fated to carry the imprint of his unique disposition.
I was fascinated by the image in which Belins so "furiously"
*

[As per Russian original ("handicap'a")

HM.]

The lion in old age

sketched

r05

him in his critical response to the third part of Nicholas

for First Reading:*

Polevoy's Russr'an History

was a riddle for Karanzin; others present him not only as evil, but also as a
limited man; several see a genius in him, polevoy can be found somewhere in the
middle: In him Ivan is not a genius, but simply a remakabe man. we cannot
agree with him at all . . . we understand this madness, this bestial bloodthirsti_
ness, tlese unhead-of crines, this pride, and along wit all this, these scalding
tears, this tormentiDg despair, and this humiliation in which.all of lvan's life
manifested itself;
turn from spirits of
light into the spi
adness; lhis was a
fallen angel who,
iron character, and
te strength of a

Belins here correctly stands up against the adopted tradition of the

division of Ivan into two: into the "blessed" Iva of the period preceding
the creation of the opricnina (in 1s4) and Iva "the trrant,, after this
event - both sewn '\rith white thread.,,
Belins sees an organic unity in the transition of the image from the
"meek" to the 'terrible," although he also interprets this transition too
subjectively and does not emphasize the inevitability of this transition
aimed at realizing a single, unchanging, persistant historical task facing
Ivan - the unification of Russia - whose unity the self-interested feudal
nobility so violently resisted [...]
Probably the very attractiveness of the dynamics that such a characrer
reading furnishes the figure of lvan, not only attracted. me, but to a
certain extent, because of the magnificence of the inner conflicts,
prevented arl adequate exosition in my film of those objective potitical
results in which was expressed the overcoming of these inner contradictions within Ivan himself.
In the actual modeling of this "chaactet,,' new to my experience, was
expressed my sympathy not so much for shakespeare as for Eiizabethans
of a more achaic type: Ma_rlowe, Ben Jonson,Ba and especially
Webstefs[...]

Not only a certain graphic dual color of a basic nature ',single into
two," but equally tlre nature of lva's environment is really contained
more in the "canon" of Ben Jonson's teaching about humors,e which, on
the other haaci, is also chaacteristic for the construction of. pathos
* Moscow, 1835.

II.

Patos

10

effects by the direct charging of erements ecstaticalry

exproding into each

other with constantly increasing intensity . .

[. ]
However, leaving Greek and Erizabethan materiars,
Iet us return again
to the Russian, and ret us do so in reration to a o"ry
ir"po.tnt point,
which is touched on here very appropriatery, in connection
with the
construction of a character of patrros the type of
Lematre,
at
as a
unity-in-contradiction

Ibe lion in old age

to7

The first time I visired Chartres

was on a gloomy day, and
understand anything.

I did not

only perceived that part of the stained-glass

windows
the
*"** and the other pan _ of
to the

cathedrar rerated to the thirteenth

sixteenth century.

image.
' ' ' Somewhere above, in the preceding chapter, we showed briefly that
the form of pathos is essentiany no mre than a stage
in the state of
expressive means in reration to the degree of the
autnrs peiception ot

his theme's pathos, the stage in which this form, or

acquires
marks of a new quarity, but at the same time, crearry "o.rir",
retains ieatures of
continuity from the previous (lower) stages of intensity,
which can be fert
and revealed through the features of this new qua_lity.
In the exampre just anaed of Frix
afs r"nr, trris is easy to reveal,
if- the antithesis synthesized in it is compared
with trre too-we[-known
formula, "seek in the vilain where he is
iood," so inseparauty tintea to
the teachings of another great master oith"ut",
- c. s. stanisravs.
The theater of Stanislavs, the treater of semitones,
of chekhovian
nuances and race patterns of refine emotion of
course is in no way the
theater of great naked passions, which was the
French theater of the
nineteenth c$tury.
Moreover, it was conceived and was essentialry
an active protest
against that very theatrical styre in which grittered
Frdrick Lemaitre
and the leading pleiade of romantic actors of the French
treater.
And I think that here, in the fusion of stanisravs's rearistic
theater
and Pyat-Lematre's theatre of path< si one senses with
utmost precision
the progression of their-method.s, dividing them
by the degree of-intensity
with which the principre of the inner contradictoiiness oi
i-"g", occurs

scenes,

scovered this.

of the superntural effect of

I set out for
on a sunny day.
so much about,

the scenes on the

omewhat brighter.
miracle occurred.

stil
was not weakness at a', o". liJ"''iff""
calculation.
mastes,

be the technicar

The windows of the sixteenth

in them.

At one extreme here the character is cut into opposites, in

a flight of
patlos uniring its opposites in the uniry of ur, *urrr,
vivid image.
At the other extreme - a no ress vivid, nd perhaps even
more eal and
undoubtedly more common, image that sets off the reading
'-iifsign] of the
permeating feature -by division into ..good" or
',evil,,
auu, ot
complementary tones from opposite parettes, and thereby
it attains the
iving reality of the results.
The multifaceted pray of vivid colors here, a,,d the merging
of a
contrasts of the palette into a single golden-white ray of
th-e inspired
image of. pathos,.is united in its opposites.
At this point I must recar.r as an anarogy the mystery of the unique
effect
of the ancient stained-glass windows of chartres Cathedal. Tir"r"
*u,
that very same picture.

gold and white.

e ecstatic vision of Katerina

in

Te

which a host of cherubim and

n to heaven.Bz

unng out above the heads of the

adorned in all separate nuances

ite, super_colored ray _ is at the

and each nuance of the
lementary color,,), which
in variety as elevated as

IL

Patos

108

possible, into whose grandeur all the unities of opposites and contradictions merge,
Above, while touching on rvllhitman's method, I also introduced
several examples of this type of pathos construction, taking for its basis
this prototype, which apparently represents the next elevated stage
within the method in relation to those cases we have analyzed.

Thus the multicolored spectrum of stained-glass windows merges n a

gold unity.
But there is more.
The spectrum of the stained-glass windows in turn appears to be a
synthesis of the whole colored diversity of what surrounds a Gothic
cathedraL,

the whole colored diversity of coLored richness of eternally changing

nature surrounding it, added to the group of pure, glittering tones.
And in the miracle of the sun's rays, not only the colors of the rainbow
of stained glass merge into a whole but through them also the whole
colored variety of all France [...]
Many centuries later these mines of precious colored riches surround-

ing France reveal to the world another generation of artists -

the

impressionists - and again force the walls of exhibit halls to blaze for a
time (let us recall Claude Monet or van Gogh!) similarly to the stainedglass windows of medieval churches.
These same churches, atching up in turn the tendency of "flaming"
("the flamboyant") of lateothic, with tongues of flame of the lancet arcs
soaring up together with screens of stained-glass windows, flaming with
color, are transported into the art of painting like real fire - let us recall
the art of painting in fire by decorative fireworks displays, so strongly
developed in the era of its particularly rich heyday.
Thus, even more persistently the element of active dynamics bursts

into the realm of color.

At one end of it stands the slow, progressive overflow of the colored
symphony through the body of the cathedral, to the extent that the
sunlight penetrating around the church forces window after window to
blaze in succession.
Here at sunrise the apse begins to burn.
Here in the middle of the day streams the colored light of the window
of the nave.
Here at the end of the day blindingly burns the fiery wheel of the
central round window over the main portal.
Light alternates with shadow.
The colored radiation - with artfully rhythmic and musically calcul,ated interruption of darkness and with a melodic calculation of the
change of one tonality for another, as the rays pass the artfully composed
shift of these transparent screens of gLass.

The lion

i old age

109

The riracle of the colored cascade, which, as with a time exposure,

reflects the lively phases of the movement of the sun, extended for an
entire day, fom sunrise to sunset.
And at the other end - that same miracle of change, sparkle, and
overflow of color pushed to the other extreme.

In those few moments of colored, fiery illumination in which glittering and blinding - magnificent fireworks burn on the background
of the night s.
Here out of the dakness arose dragons and cascades merged into a
general picture of furiously spinning, fiery.wheels.
Blue. Green. Red. Orange.
Here for the last time they exploded with the blinding rain of Bengal
fire.
And before dying out in the miracle of pyrotechnic wonder, in a few
moments our imagination was drowned by the magic of the superdynamic images of the fiery color painting. . .
And, of course, only the miracle of our century - color film, which
occurs between the momentainess of fireworks and the slow movement
of the sunlit day around the cathedrat - will be able with equal
fascination to bring to the viewer all the pathos of a color symphony, by
whose rhhms, like the gallop of wild horses, subduing them to his will,
the color painter of the new cinematography will be able to operate.
In merging the colored element with the audial element - in removing
the opposition between the areas of hearing and vision - both he and his
viewer will find the most inspired images of audiovisual exaltation as the
best means capable of instilling into the viewer's consciousness and
feeling that magnificent system of ideas that alone is able to engender a
similar, truly effective symphony.
I experienced a premonition of the rapture possible here in the
fragment of the audiovisual experiment with which I ended my prod.uction of wagnefs The vallcyries at the Bolshoi Academic Theater of the
USSR

in 1940.

And it is difficult to forget that enjoyment of pathos with which rhe

blue flame grew to sound of the "Magic Fire" music in the last act,
sometimes repeating it, then conflicting with it, then isolating it, then
absorbing it; the blue flame gtows, devouring the red, red subduing the
blue, and both - rising out of the crimson ocean of fire to which the whole
bronze wall of the backdrop returned, which became like this after first
having tumed its original silver into heavenl.y azure - at the moment of
the culminating scene of Wotan and Brunhilde's farewell.
And how incomparably broader, richer, and overwhelming are the
possibilities of this method for color film!
And now let us continue our investigation in another area, a new one.
The field of the visual arts.

II.

Patos

110

And the golden-white ray of chatres cathedral is the most perfect

way of approaching the deliberate ecstasy of El-Greco, who, in my
opinion, so unexpectedly corresponds to the titanic actor Frdrick.
Actually, the huge collection of serf-portraits

clea and unclear, right

up to the projection of states of his own soul

into tangible forms of
threatening landscapes,* and, finally, the constant picturesque repeti_
tions, not ony of the same motifs but of whole picruies perrect in their
composition, in the course of the most varied rtuge" of his life
somehow unintentionally force you to recall El Greco along with those
who in act and deed every evening, from the trreater rt"g", tlirough
these

masks or others, or through endless variations of the performance

of the
very same role, reveal the ocean of their experiences and the patos
of
their soul before the electrified crowd of spectators.
But here we won't ret one's own body, sour, a,,d voice, trembling
through the movement of time and space of stage action, serve
as
material for the embodiment of these feelings.
Here we wilt let it be the figurative embodiment of one,s own sour
through subjects and corors that, after a hurricane of painterry
acts, has
been kept for centuries on the unmoving surface of
fainted urruur.
And yet nevertheress they trembre with no less vividness of holy
emotion than if the bloodstained painter himself had hung alive
on these
closses; in these prayerfur ecstasies, the one who guided his brush
arong
the canvas would trrist and writhe, or, like an arrow, there would
rise uf
into the s before us th/one before whom the miracle-working visions
of The Seventh SeaI of the Apocalyp.se soared.
we stand electrified, in exactry the same way, before the creative
miracles of the indefatigable brush of this indefigable creator, as we
would stand before the fact of the acnal culmintion of these same
events in the performance of a great tragic actor.
The problem of the technical and painterly means of embodying the
ecstasies of El Greco on his canvases

- is, of course,

an independent,

vast, and fascinating theme.

I studied it in no less detail than in my analysis of the composition of
Zola's novels. However, here I do not want to deal with this work in
fragmented details.

But in a somewhat different, perhaps somewhat unusual,

and,

certainly, a quite uncanonical way, I would tike to demonstrate here the

method of a frenzied "being beside oneself,', in material from two painted.
works of the great master, juxtaposed side by side. It is El Greco himself
who leads to a similar method.
Doesn't the astonishing Bural of count orgaz (Toledo, Santo Tom,
* I have in mind Storm over Toledo,
which is discussed in detail later in a section of the last
chapter, called Nonindifferent Nature.

the lion in old age

111

158) belong to his brush - this remarkable diptych, which seems to be

cut in two by the horizontal line of the heads of the spanish grandees in
white collas?
Into two worlds.
Into above and below.

Into heaven and earth.

so that it bea-rs the double portrait of rhe dying count

earthly and

mortal in the lower regon, and the one in the world beyond, coming alive
near tlre throne of the most high, in the semicircle framing the top of the
picture.
Here, on earth, in a setting of luxurious posthumous honors, his body
in luxurious black armor, in tlte arms of high dignitaries of the church in
shining gold vestrnents, whose roles the aged, holy Augustine and the
young martyr St. Stephen do not disdain to take on.
And he is there - high above in the s - naked and genuflecting
before the throne of the high judge, naked, but alive again, having been
transported out of his comrptive and mortal vestmqnt, out of his black
and shining armor, out of the hxurious environment of prelates and
grandees - "being beside himself" and revived for a new life in an

otherworld existence.
And how fascinating it is to recall here that this strikingly profound
creation was made for a most.. .vulgar reason.
If one can believe Morris Barres,se then, in its initial conception, it
was conceived as a kind of intimidating placard to frighten the peasants
who did not want to pay quiuent to the monks of the monastery to which
their villages had been bequeathed.
In its original theme this canvas was to have asserted threateningly
and reproachfully to the disobedient peasanrs that even such rich
cavaliers as Count Orgaz himself, in the world beyond the grave, will
stand revealed and defenseless in all his nakedness before the terrible,
punishing judge of the disobedient.
And it is even more fascinating to see how, in the sweep of creative
elevation, the theme of the picture bursts the limits set for it and also,
"going beside itself," through the images of luxury and self-destruction,
gives us one of the most profoundly conceived creations of spanish
religious thought and painting.
So we should not go further along this same path and just as the
artist himself here juxtaposes along a vertical the two halves of one
picture, as if the wandering of the huma soul why not jr:xtapose two
whole, independent pichrres, taken from different stages of the life of the
same master on the way to that final transport.'beside oneself,,,which
brought years of ecstasy to the last years of the life of the great Toledoan,
enveloped in a legend of madness?
And just as tlre two opposing worlds here are unified by the ascent into

Il.

Pathos

t72

heaven of a single soul, so let the life path of El Greco himself establish
in them that same orgaic unity in the process '.of ecstasy as it were',
from one canvas to another.

It is quite possible to find such a real instance of this kind.

[El Greco]
Speaking for myself, out of all of El Greco's works, there is only one I
dislike.
This is - The Expulsion of the Moneylenders from the Temphe.
Moreover, I am always irritated by the fact that, even in tt"
slender and pitiful monographs devoted to the artist, it is namely-o"t
this
picture that almost invariably figures among tle reprod.uctions of his
most popular pictures.
\;Vhy does this picture irritate me so much?
This picture exists in four variants.eo
The earliest variant is now in the collection of sir Francis cook;
another variant very close to it is in Minneapolis. The most famous and
most often reproduced is in the National. Gallery in London. And a
variant almost identical to it is in the Frick Collection.
And, finally, a very late vaiant is in the church of san Gnes in
Madrid.
But this picture irritates me because, even in its most popular third
variant, it on the whole ontinues to retain all the features hracteristic

of the pre-ecstatic period of EI Greco's painting.

In the very last variant, the work is somewhat mollified by what has
become more usual for the "rernakable" EI Greco, the stetching of the
figure of Christ upward.
But this is not all.
Because, even in the general composition, tle picture is distinguished
here from the other variants only because in the d.istance are painted
quite "independent" columns stretching upward, a niche with a sepulchre and an antique, and - for some reason naked figure witl calf
muscles so exuberantly presented that tley seem to be slipping off the
figure like pantaloons!
This group of characters seemed to have been automatically transported from another variant and, Iike a bas-relief, put in front of this
background.*
And, insofar as this group is concerned, in the structure of the whole,
* This method of "transponing"
an endre compositional group into a new combination
with other elements is encounteed quite often in EI Greco. Jusi ecall te two vaiants of
Prayer over a chalice, where the second horizontal is ',mae,, from the filst the venical
-

by transpofting, without any changes, the entire group of sleeping apostles from the lower

part of the fist variant into the lateral part of tle second.

[El Greco]

113

in the inner composition, in the arangement of the tiny groups and

characters composing it, in the color (and for some rason they
especially love to reproduce it in color!), in the general rhythm and
dynamics (especially lacking !), this picture is totally conventional,
traditional, quite in the manne of Er Greco's contemporaries, out of
whose milieu in other of his works he bust with such an inimitabLe
explosion into the century ahead (The Laocoo, or The Taking of
the
Fifth seal, or in pure painting - The concert of Angers in the cluds.ei
of course, even comparing the firstvariant orihe Expu.rsr'on with the
last, it is possible within the composition in the treatment of
the
movement of the figures and even more in the painting technique
itserf

to trace the principle of ',ecstasf, quite clearly.

Let us just compare trre figure of the boy covering himserf
with his left
hand, to the left of the figure of Christ.
Enriqueta Haris* consid.ers one of the figures of Michelagelo,s
rast
ludgment as its prototype. And in the comparison of this- figure of
Michelangelo, of its interpretation in the first variant of rhe
Expursion
(from cooHs collecrion) and its last variant in the
church of san Gnes,
it is quite clear how the expression of a separate figure changes, from
Renaissance "cosmicness" trrough everydy drama'to ,,ecsta!y,,,
on a
canvas belonging to tre "extravagaat' style of the late El
Greco.
But this is by no mears a caprice of ttre artist, but uury precise
reflection on the techniques and. forms of his painting of "ttraiprorouna
inner process of reconceiving tre essence of the ,u- ,a"n",
,t i"h t
paints at different periods of his life.
"
on the early canvas, this scene is nothing more for Er Greco than a
painted embodiment of an everyday episode from the life
of christ.
In the last variant of the theme, EI Greco completely departs from the
everyday, narrative principles.
Here tf'e scene becomes wholly symboric, pushing into the foreground
its inner significaace of aIegory and parable.
The Nationar Gauery variant seems to serve as a connecting tink
between the two.
Here Enriqueta Haris very convincingly remaks:
' . . Before te Reformation, Te purification of the Tempte was normally treated

as one of a series of scenes from the Life, or from the paision,

of christ. After the

Reformation, however,

the story acquiled a new importance.

protestants

compared ir with thei own reforming activities; and to the catholics

of the
counter-Reformation it
_symbolized the purging of the church of heresy. El
Greco's interest in the sub;ct, and. his intapration of it, are certainry
connected
with these ecclesiastical contuoversies. In his earlist version he is
i.rtarrt
-i.rty
on telling the story as set oui in the Gosper. In the National Gauery picture,
* See El Greco, The Puication of the
Temple. Gallery Book n. 2, London.

[El Greco]

115

of The
te how
Greco.

Figure 4. Two versions of. The purica

150-5 ([c. 1570] tgSZ.t4.4 Christ
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Sam
@eproduced by courtesy of the Trustees

In the same way the setting of the boring material

surroundings of the
confined room wourd scaner into the imirateriar
il;;;ry';;
ctouay
space of the orterior.
The figure of christ aagrily (not too angri
threatening cerrainry
could not remain on the same lever as the other
iraaa"r, i*ii,
scene.

Il,

Pathos

11

The figure would have to hang over them, like an arrow winding into
the darkening clouds of the parting background.
The figure to the teft of Christ, hardly expressing amazement through
foreshortening - with his right elbow lifted up in defense from a blow
taken from the back, would undoubtedly become a figure turned over
completely on his back, his legs up, resting on the ground with his
shoulders, neck, and shoulder bLade, and under the best conditions
having bent one of his Legs in the burst of amazement that overturned
him.
The old man on the right, not very expressive, phlegmatic, having
propped up his cheek, looking at what is occurring amost right next to
him, would, of course, begin to expand to the height of the powerfuI
figure of the youth. Forced to look, not at what is occurring on the same
Ievel with him and on the same plane, this figure would be hurled
daringy forward into the strongly emphasized foreground that almost
bursts out of the picture.
And that youth would begin to look at what is happening above and
behind him, of course - by bending baclcrrvards!
Finally - "the masses" from the group of regularly placed mannequins
would inevitably have to burst into a chaos of torsos, knees, elbows,
forearms, and thighs, spread along the canvas of the picture and
interwoven with each other.
And, as if expressing the idea of an ecstatic explosion to the extreme, a
rapture of the "bond of time" upward and downward, two figures would
burst from the center of the picture: one - the hero - head upward toward
the s, and the other - the figure of the opponent - also vertical, but
"'mirror image" toward the earth, downard.
In addition, the figures would undoubtedly burst out of their clothes.
And the very theme, of course, would burst beyond the limits of the
narrow everyday subject of. The Expulsion of the Moneylenders from the
Temp),e - despite the whole mysterious figurative and symbolic significance of this biblical tale - into something from the cycle of clearly
wonder-working events from the pages of the biblical biography of the
central character of the scene.
Something, well, let us say, like. . . The Resurrection from the Grave. . .
Stop

Indeed, just what we sketched in this "desirable" picture is actually

reflected in the immortal Resurrection from the Grave painted between
1597 and 104 in the most complete ecstatic manner of El Greco!
At the feet of the naked Christ,
in a cloak being torn

and flying
into the s's abstracL, swirling, cloudy expanse

Figure 5. The Resunection by El Greco, c. 1595-8 (Reprinted by permission,

Museo del Prado, Madrid). [Alternatively dated c. 100-5.]

II.

Pathos

r18

- a human jumble of human bodies _ shins, shoulders, chests, heads

thrown back, and anns uplifted.
out of this group two figures burst into the center of attention, into the

foreground.

Into the foreground

extremely stretched out, with grance thrown

baclouard, the young man,s figure on the right.
And into the center of attention amazed, compretery turned upsid.e
down on his shoulders, feet up the second as ir turned over .,miior
image" in his stunned falr, in contrast to the amazing flight to heaven
of
the figure of Christ.
christ, not with a pitifur rash, but with the unfurred triumphant
banner in his hands!
Isn't it so?!
How was such a ,.trick' possible of juxtaposing nvo apparently
randomly chosen pictures fom the gallery orworks of ihe great
spanshGreek master of the past?
Two pictures, of which the second act'aly seemed like an explosion,
into which the first burst along the line of all its basic featues?
It turned out to be possible because each of these pictures each in
its
own way - is truly a precise imprint of two different phases of -the
creative
condition and development that relate to each othei as an explosion and
the static state preceding it.
These two phases, in the fate of the true artist, stand on either
side of
that moment when the dungeon of pitifuI being is suddenly illuminated
by the holy flame of a mission.
vvhen yesterday's simple
mortal burns with the creative flame of the
preacher, seer, and prophet.
when on the path of every artist there\ ccurs the same thing that
happened to Pushkin's "prophet," growing to the fulrness of creative
inspiration at his encounter with the "six-winged seraphim" who
illuminated his consciousness with his unique creative mision:
And with a sword he clove my breast,
Plucked out my palpitating hea:t
And deep into my gaping chest
A coal of fire did he implant.
I, corpselike, in the desert lay
And then the voice of God heard say:
"Rise up, Prophet, hear and see,
This my will fulll and fend
And crossing over land and sea
Burn with words the hearts of men.*
..

'

[My own translation

HM.]

[El Greco]

119

Such is this leap within the same creative personality from a state like
that of a corpse "rising up" in order to "burn with words the hearts of
mgn,"

Ad such is the expression of this state through all the means and
chaacteristics of the palette, of the course of the brush, of the
composition, of t-he manner of painting, and above all, of conceptions
transported from the sphere of balalced and trivial structures done in
the manner of numerous contemporaries, into the inimitable area of
unique, individual, unrepeatable estatic painting, in the transition of El
Greco from the epoch of youth to the epoch of creative perfection.
And therefore the'briracle" of a simila dyna-uric juxtaposition of two
different works of his, from different stages of his creativity, turns out to
be quite possible.
Actually, the souce of both is the same creative individuality
represented in two phases of his creative being - "on either side" of the
watershed of ecstatic explosion, "enrapturingl the author, carrying his
unique spirit up in ecstasy, Iike the path from one world to the other
made by the soul through tlre two halves of the memorial picture on
Count Orgaz's fate beyond the grave!
Is a simila orperinent possible on the creation and works of any other
artists?
If they turn out to be artists cemmunicating patJros, then certainly.
And not only are such enamples possible, but there is one more we
simply must bring in here.
As a necessary third link, it supplements the complete triad of
examples from an aea of creativity that we began with Frdrick
Lemaue and El Greco.
And these three examples are ananged as models from various
spheres of art, beginning with the most subjective variant of it to the most
objective.

Actually, in terms of the expression of one's self, the most subjective

art is the acto/s craft, where creativity flows "in ad of itself," where the
creator is simultaneously the subject and object of creation, where he
himself is the material and the architect.
We observed this sihration in Frdrick Lematre.
The second step in this direction is the semiobjective art of the painter.
Here, also reincarnated in various images, the individuatity of rhe
artist plays through them; now a self-portrait moves into the foreground
- as invariably happens in literature; for example, Lord Byron - then
almost hiding behind images of his wor which exist i4dependently and
objectively, as if reflecting only objectively existing realiry. With them are
connected the almost invisible threads of the individual features of the
vivid characters exrressed in their fullness - so it is in the literature of

II.

Patos

120

127

IEI Greco]

Gogol, where, from hints of certain features within the character, he

engenders an immortal gallery of generalized types, so that in certain

cases they seem to dissolve as a whole into objective pictures of the
landscape. These landscapes seem to be totally free from the 'visible,"
"concrete" subjectivity of the author, although in his best examples they
are entirely woven from rebellious or appeasing rhythms of the state of
the sou and character of the author,
Such was the second case analyzed - El Greco: The subjective, ecstatic
dissolution of him in the apparently "objective" landscape - this is what
makes his Stom over Toledo so striking and captivating.e2

No less striking in this relation is Leonardo da Vinci.

The presence of his vivid self-portrait in his own works, which wee
apparently already quite abstract, is even more astonishing.
EmiI Ludwig noted this very well:*

.Leonardo drew a stone-cutter, a crow-bar, a dredging machine and though

s, or people, their wood and iron, their stone,
wire and plaster seem nothing less than living muscles, pulsing veins, and
glowing flesh. The shadows play so musically along the cold and murderous
edges of a cannon that no one who knows the madonnas of this maste could fail
these were without landscape,

to recognize the same hand here.

And if at this point we note that the Leonardo madonna is a type that
permeates all his work, embracing both Tl;re Mona ljsa and John the
Baptist, then we would not be surprised that here what reigns over the
apparently totally abstract projects of practical objects is that same basic
image standing before Leonardo's eyes, an image that through hundreds
of variations, as though through hundreds of mirrors, looks at Leonardo
looking at us in them, and through their generalt$ recognized ',mystery,'
he wlshes to express certain inner depths of him'self.
Andrea del Sartoe3 proceeded in a crud.er and simpler way: Almost all
his works - both John the Baptist and Ie Madonna - simply resemble
him in face (compare them with his self-portrait).
And if Leonardo proceeds here in a more refined and elegant manner,
carrying over into his work not his simple, "crude" appearance but the
most complex flutter of inner conflicts of his own inner spiritual nature,
passing with a strange smile through the images created by him, then we
have no reason to speak of his works as being less of a self-portrait or
self-expression.

This self-portrait quality does not impede the objectivity of his painted
it does not remove the documentary aspect from his sketches of
the turbulence of air waves and sea waves, it does not destroy the
strictness of the technical. invention of wa machines, fortification

works,

* Genjus and Character, K. Burker; trans,

Jonathan Cape, London, 7927, p. 176.

100 [also known as View

.
feaof.
rs29.Th

Figure

st of Mrs' H' O'

of

HavemeYer'

constuctions, the passion of his sculptured horses, oI the projects of a

system of sluice dams.
Afid the lyric rnetody of this subjective subtext is hardly less

temperamental,IessecstatictlantheboilingpassionofElGreco
thundering tlrrough Storm over Toledo.

Andafterwhathasbeensaid,itwillbeeasytoapplyheredirectlya
third example taken from a third aea.

fI.

Paros

722

From an area where subjective experience has arready

been compretely

devoured by objective concreteness, through whose

"t".io, depiction
the artist's temperament and fantasy are quite unexpectedry
and no less
intensely aroused.
Architecture.

Piranesi orthe flrx of form

123

one will say where Piranesi the achaeologr'st ends and where the artjst begins,
where the poet passes over into the sco]a and the visionary into the stricr
investigator). . .
. . .Myopic minds reproached Piranesi for the fact that in proceeding from his
archaeologicar studies, he was not able to restrain his fantasies. However, one
called knowledge,
ol that new fairy-

ult of his ecstasy

Even in this short, descriptive discussion, even in these trad.itional
turns of speech, which are always at the senice of art critics and
historians of art (". . .where the archaeologist ends and. where the artist

asses over into the scholar and the visionary

even in them we can perceive what we already
characteristic quality of ecstasy, of the ecstatic

A. Benois's History o painting has discussed this exhaustively+:e7

personality!
Here what is taken, not as a series of rhetorical phrases but as a
biographical fact, gives us another broad example of a leap within the
biography itself.
we already saw Zola passing from a "novelist'' into a 'teacher of life";
we know that same evolution from the satirist to the utopianist in the
biography of Gogol; we know Leonardo da Vinci, transported from a
latter from Goethe,s biography,
ere of pure philosophy (even if it
ore striking. . .
However, in his biography Piranesi gives us transitions of a reverse
leap instead: from archeologist to artist, from scholar to poet, from
investigator to visionary.
Thus at least inner discovery moves through the sequence of a series of
etchings, through the etchings themselves, and, finally, through visibly
changing editions of the same series in intervals through a period of
fifteen to twenty years.
Let us recall something analogous in the regeneration of the pictorial
treatment of one and the sane theme in El Greco.
And let us turn to this aea in discussing the problems of the work of

Giovanni Battista Pianesi..

. ' ' History

knows few artists in whom the excitement of creativity would appear

with such strength, in whom there would be such ardor. ..
. . . A remarkabre abitity to be at the same time both
a scholat and a poet (no
* llancer

arc
t Aftcr Bram
continued by

ith the Gothic style _ HM.l

Raphael dies in fSZl. fn project is

longer. Sangalto dies in l54 and the

ncxt year the
lssuc 1, p. 48. ln the quote I allowed myself to categorically choose those passages
.r
that
htvc particularly direct relaton to what i; relevant to us.

Pianesi or the flux of fom%

I am sitting in a bright yellow oom flooded by sunlight. It is the corner

room of my apafinent on Potylikha and through one of its windows it

looks out at the village of rroitskoe-Golenishchevo. From here, beating

French "in tle real," partisans at one time drove out the army of
Napoleon's invaders ftom Moscow.
(This gave the name to tle whole region.)

tle

II.

Patlos

724

The other window looks out at a bare field.

Once this field was an apple orchard.
The apple trees of the orchard - I dug up, in 1938.
I liberated this area of its orchad under a studio lot for "The Battle on
the lce."
Here in the summer, after transforming the lot into the ice-covered
surface of Lake Chad, and after re-creating other hordes of invaders of
the Russan land, I pursued for a month - the cur-knights of Alexander
iVevs.
Recently beyond my windows the limits of the city of Moscow
terminated.

And the house where I lived was the last house within Moscow city
Iimits.
Inadvertently dropping a cucumber out of the kitchen window, it
would now drop into Moscow. - . Province.
But now the limits of the city have been extended, and the line of the
watershed of both province and city go far out beyond my windows.
In 1941 the invader-Germans were not allowed up to this line and were
held back somewhere, above the village of rroitskoe and the field of "The
Battle of the lce," not reaching my yellow room, which looked out through
its windows in the direction of Mozhaisk and Minsk.
Between the windows - in the corne a windowsill.
On the windowsill - it.
It - the object of many years of longing and searching.
I first saw it as a reproduction in a smalL - but actually quite thick
little book on the history of theater decoration: Guilio Ferrari, rascenografia (Milano, 1902), from the library of the former theater of S. L
Zimin.
It is a sheet of a Piranesi etching.
It belongs to the series operie varie di Architettura lvarious works of
Architecturel.
And it is called Carcere oscuta lDark Dungeon or Dak prisonl.
It is assumed to have been created under the influence of the work
Pison d'Amadis of Daniel Marot.ee It far surpasses the prototype. And it
is dated 1743.
Quite recently - just now - I was finauy able to get it.
As always - by means both strange and inscrutabLe.
In the form of an exchange.
An exchange with one of the peripheral museums.
The museum was based on an extravagant and unsystematized
collection of rarities of a certain merchant, who often traveled abroad.
In his private residence a stuffed bear got along quite peacefully with a
dish, a terrible carved "bLackamoo/' with candlesticks, and beautiful
items truly upper class: for example, several sheets of Piranesi.

Figure 7. Dark Dungeon lor Dark Prisonf by G.B. Piranesi, 7743' Frcrrr Prima
Parte di Achitemtree Prospeltive inventate ed incise da Gio, Batta. Pinnesi
achrteno veneziano.. ., Plate 2, drawing , Photograph @ Ashmolean Museum,
Odord.

II.

Patos

t26

In exchange wen:-- one Edelincrm one

Hogarth,rol one Nanteuil,ro2
and the charming Claude Mellanlo...
Perhaps that was a lot.
I finally got this one and one other
piranesi
sheet

,.rTi;iturn

of

my

My very own, accurately framed, is distinguished

from the canary_
yelrow wats by its expressive
coffee-stained color of burnt sienna
and
white passe-partout.
I have been a long-time admirer of te achilecturar
viorence of
Piranesi's Dungeons.
But more an enthusiast than a connoisseu.
much to the series
variants _ 1745 and

Piranesi or the f,rx of form

t27

A dozen explosions will be sufficient to ecstatically .'transform" the

diagram that is dawn before us.
However, it would be wrong to deny completely any quality of pathos

in this initial sheet.

Otherwise - what would be this print's atttaction for me, tlre sheet I
knew before my encounter with the raging lDungeonl of the basic series?
But here, in this sheet, if there is a degree of ,.being beside itself," then
it is realized, not as an explosion, but as . . . dissolution.
And - not as form, but only as a system of means of expression.
And, therefore, instead of violence and strongly impressive uproar _ a
lyricism of "mood."
Giesecke, in his work on Piranesi,* writes about this print in exactly

lTutnring

this spirit:

wall right now.

mplete perfection _ the degree of its
Probably, because of the freshness
of the rst impression made by
originars of the ratest carceri,t it sees
unexpectedry harmress, without
much patos.
Not ecstatic. . .
mentally examining the means used
e material, I involuntarily begin to

with this etching if ir had

beside itself.

been

s featues...
si preceded what has been

from above into this airy chamber ad loses itself n the gloomy distance; forms
are softened, are quite indistinct, as if they were in te process of dissolution
(Auflsung) and the drawing itself tenderly scattes like seams of separate

Iines...
To this I would add that the vaults rise and stretch upward so that the
dark mass at the bottom, gradually growing light, overflows into the
vaulted top flooded with ight...
However, let us turrt to the technique of the explosion.
In order to analyze this, let us enumerate the basic data of depiction in
the etching.

- the general ach confining the entire etching as a whole.

a and a2 - its side walls.

,4

c- the aches carrying the basic support of the achitecnral composition

of the whole.
D- the system of passing fa into the depths of the lower corner arches, and in its
depths resting aginst the wall wittr tre grated window.
E - the ascending staircase, caried off into the d.epths, behind the columns.
F F2 - the ropes, outlining the center of tlre composition (F), and underlining its
movement into tbe depths (Fr)
G - the little round window over the ..zava_linka.,,r
B and

a reproduction of the etching

enumerate the basic elements i

Now - step by step, elemen

by one.
lVe already did this once with El Greco,s picture.
Therefore now it is already,i-Jf*,"bitual,
demanding less me
and space.
eons.
mistake was made (with

hed bv the a.aa"ov

a, ao incruesis-s

,I

nelvdilletante)
(1939), which,

- the fim base of the stone slabs of the floor.

- the heariy masonry of the stone blocks of tle serere vertical columns.

m1m2

the little balcony to the right and left nea the columns of the foreground,
of
andly. Giovanni Battista

* We will refer later to this work

PianesivonAlertGieseclce,
t A small mound of earth

Klin
along

1911.

house _ HM.l

1. Pathos

728

Piranesi or the flrx of form

\4trhat

129

would the qualitative jump inside the form of the arch in the

given circumstances be like?

The jump from the semicircular ach

into a lancet arch:

Moreover - this car be anotler leap

arch of the double-flying vertical type.

Figure B. Eisenstein's schematic outline of

Pianesi's Dark Dungeon lDark prson).

Now let us try to give freedom to the ecstatic fury

of the whore and let
us observe what must occur and would occur
with
all trese concrete
elements of composition to achieve tlis.
First of all, arch A, which confines the etching,
would explode.
The upper stone semicircle flies out beyond the
rimits of the sheet.

If you like

- from being semicircular it will become. .

From stone - wood.en.
"rrgrrlu..
The intersection of wooden ra-fters instead
of
a
stone
arch
- wourd
allow it to 'Jump out"
.

simurtaneousry from both the materiar and the

form.
The columns a1 and_a2 wourd appear to ..burst',
inside the
ut of
its borders, and the sheet, broadrrirrg orrt beyond their sheet .,leaps
limits,
over" from a verticar forrnat to a horiiontar
one we *.y ."""ii such a
leap of the format into its opposite but frorn
horizontar to vertical _ in
the example of El Greco!).

Such a form would be particularly appropriate, since its very outline

bears the image of an upper lancet arch iV exploding as if it were in flight

out of the flat overhang M and with the two-cornered outline p-g
transported into the tiangle x-y-z, tus keeping in this drawing a trace
of that process that occurred with the whole ach A.
Rushing ahead and moving into the depths by column a1 downward,
tlre staicase in its growing orplosion pushes down column a1 standing
in its path, dashes ahead, and not only by one flight of stairs t but like a
triple break in a flash of lighhing - E, Et, E2- it dashes in zigzag fashion
ultimately forwad. And this ultimate movement seems like a dash
beyondthe limits of re contous of tlte sheet. In e"Tactly the same way the
system of arches D, increasing their tendency into the depths, during
which they change the angularity of the contou into a semicircle knocks out by its pressure this confining wall wit the grated window
and dashes off somewhere in the direction of the general point of descent
that, in turn, in conEast to the initial forur, seems to already exist not
between the upper and lower edge of the sheet, but somewhere beyond its
limit; not only to the right, but a-l.so below, and with a rumble, repeating
it, the rm base of tlre floor disappears, which is so distinaly visible in
the f,rst sheet and which in the second disappears somewhere in the
framed depths of its new ecstatic appearance.
The little broken balconies m1 nd rr2 orr tle columns of the

II.

Paros
130

Piranesi or the flux of form

foreground a and a2 dash toward

each oth^er, become a single bridge,
and ths bridge remains nor as
barconies in front or tne a.cn itiirri.rg
D,
dashes u"yorJ-it---i"i the

depths and, perhaps,

:ilJ:""ttedty

The strict proportion of the stone

breaks apart in the masonry.

The little round window c turns

rnto a square and escapes into
plane perpenai.uiai'io it.
the

+
9. Dungeon by G.B. Piranesi, c. 1743, Erom carceri, plate XIV,
figure
2nd srare.
Photograph
@

And finally,
so distinctly),
etching that, in

Ashmolean Museum, Odord.

m the centerline (which is outlined

exRlode. into those parts of
the
e not even in the initial variant
of the

sheet!

their sisnal, all the ortre detaits

seem to be causht

"oti1ii;r,tLt
and "everhing is swept

by a powerful tornado,,- as if they

would roar
out from the sheet, which rras tost
iar "iai"r reticence and. ,,osiness,,
in
the name of raging violence. ,
.
ace of 'he modest, lyrically
aimng like a tornado at ati
g arches, stone blocks torn

I cannot catch it.

I think it - prunged into that second sheet of the incomparabre
Giovanni
Battista.
And so it is!

form of the etching emerges in our

g the yellow wall.

imits of the edges of the fist sheet.

el of violence hanging between the
tion of St. Anthony by Callot.q

That both of them, mounted, shourd hang on the yerow wall

of that

szune room of mine.

ll,

r32

Pathos

And that, having taken my eyes off one, they should stop with the
imagined scheme before us; namely, on that sheet that cast, like invisible
nets, this invisible scheme of transforming the first etching into the
second!
Nevertheless, the second etching of Piranesi

ecstatic flight.
Here it is.

is the first exploding in

Try to argue!
Let us quickly peruse its main features.
Down to the pettiest detail tey are identical to what we approximately

outl,ined above.

After this we have little need of general phrases of Benois on the

ecstasy of Piranesi.

(By the way, we found these words many years after the direct
"illumination" coming from the fusion of both etchings).
We are interested in the dates of the sheets.
The way they are linked in biographical succession.
The place of. Dungeons in the general biography of Piranesi's work.
The stages of their creation.
The chorus of enthusiasm accompanying them.
The personalities of the enthusiasts.
The nature of the actual architectural fantasies, in which one sYstem
of visions grows into others; where certain planes, endlessly opening up
behind others, push the eyes into unknown depths; and the staircases,
ledge by ledge, grow into the heavens or, like a reverse cascade of these
ledges, precipitate downward.

Indeed, the ecstatic image of the staircase, hurled from one word to
another, from s to earth, we already know from the biblical legend of
Joseph's dream,ros but the pathos image of the elemental down surge of
human masses on the Odessa steps, reaching up to the heavens, we know

from our own opus lPotefitkinl.

Carcere oscua as a restrained precursor ofthe most ngtorious CarCeri
just as famous [. . .]
Carcere oscuta - stilt a distant peal ofthunder from the depths ofthe
seiies of 1743 is of quite a different ring.
Within Rvo years this distat peal bursts out like a real blow' During
these years in Piranesi's consciousness and feelings there occurred one
of those explosions, one of those inner "cataclysms" shaking his
spiritual constitution, worldview, and relation to reality that transform a
man. One of those psychic leaps that "suddenly," "abruptly," unexpectedly, and unforeseen raise man from the class of those just like himself to the height of a true creator, capable of wresting from his soul
images of unprecedented might, with unabated strength burning the
hearts of men.

Piranesi

ortle flux of fom

r33

Some interpret the Carceri as the visions of an archeologist's delirium,

who absorbed too deeply the terrible romanticism of the gigantic ruins of
Rome's former greatness.
Others try to see in them the embodiment of the image of persecution
mania from which at this moment the artist is beginning to suffer.
They also enrmerate real causes for it, but give preference to imagined
ones.

But I think that in the interval of these several years there occurs in
Piransi that same moment of illumination "of genius" that we noted
above'in Balzac, and that P. I. Tchaikovs wrote so clearly about in
discussing another musician of genius - Glinka.
J:u'ne 27, 1888, Tchaikovs notes down in his diary:
. . . An unprecedented amazing phenomenon in the sphere of art. A dlettante who
played now the violin, now the piano; who composed rather colorless quadrilles,
fantasies on fashionable Italian themes, who tried out serious forms as well (the
quartet, sextet) and romances, but, except for banality reflecting the taste of the
'30's, he had not written anything, when suddenly in his thirty-fourth year he

composes an opera, which

in

genius, scale, nove, and unapproachable

technique stands on a level with the greatest and most profound works that exist
in art?. . .At times I am alarmed to the point of matlness by the question of how

such a colossal atistic strength could be combined with such insignificance,

and how, after having been a colorless dilettante for so long, Glinka in one step
suddenly rose to the level (yes ! to the level !) of Mozart, Beelhoven, and whomever

you please...

And actually there were no models at all; there were no antecedents* for
Mozat, for Glinka, or for any of the masters. It is sniking, amazing ! . . .
t
Yes ! Gnka is a real creative genius. . .

It is necessary to assume that in this, "suddenly," abruptly, and in-

stantaneously "there burst" everything that, as grainlike bits and pieces,

accumulated and added up through the "banal," the insignificant and
the "di.ettantish," so that it could explode in Rus.lan as a whole, organic

unity of individual genius.

But what is particularly striking here is the complete -'correspondence" to what happens to Piranesi between the series Vedute yaiet and
Carceri.

Actually, Carceri stands almost at the beginning of the creative path of

Piranesi.

Everhing done before has almost no real, independent value (if you
don't take into account n/vo or three Capricci.f
* That is, precedent a case occurring earlier and sewing as justification for subsequent
cases of a similar type,
' The Diary of P. I. Tchaikovslq, GlZ, Moscow - Petrograd, Musical Sector, 1923, pp. 21415.

t Various

Views.

'Fantasies.

II.

Patos

And even those different groups of etchings

that piranesi created
.
before Dungeons do
not .otititou indepenaent series, but rater the
majority of them became part of a suite
of achitecnrral views of 1750.
As we can see, "the divine wot ,, of ecstasy
concerns piranesi at a
rather early stage of his work.
Ad the blinding flash of Dungeons seems to retain
its bright
Iing with its inspired poeticization not
which appear in
the more prosaic

orary to him.

is also appa-rent

and the same theme

in

several

Even here there is an echo in El Greco!

But there is even more i common with
El Greco.
After the first hint of 1743,17a5 brings the
series caceriin its initial
vaiant.

Goethe's.,Ur-

se

con

oTll,

. 1pl"*,
retouched,- and redrawn in
terms
depictive, ecstatic ,,revelation,,

lffi,tr"i

of-"J{rn':l*
the etchings, then in terrrs of

it is
After this
foliows .",rrii,g" or tre inner
geons'
It is true - no ronger within the
Beyond the limits of his biography.
Even beyond the limits of his cuntry
and epoch.
But a hundred-odd years ahead
And not on the soil of ltaly, but Spain.
But on one and the same line with it.
Andwith a
to where tle volume and space
of his concept
y the furious spirit of Piranesi'
Continuing
sity of
three phases seem to repeat the stimutating
Goethe's Faust, from a sketchy Ueginninjio
episode.

Cacere oscwa plays a ole h

Middle ases ptays-(which atso
a purely thematic herald of the

::{tl:dU

oo/',

ons of

Goethe.-

They repeat ,'Iiteral$, that path made by El

Temple, from the stage of a aeiction of an ,.ev

level that is stiu maintaind by Carcere

dramatization of te middle variants of the

- to the ecsratic last variant Carceri (1760_66).
... it possible to g even futher?
And is it possible - after the comparativery
short first stage with its
already exploding the objects
ngthening the breaking up of
th into the depths as well as
the foregroud) _ to foresee and find
one more ')umpr" one
e ,,tltrust,, beyond the
limits and dimensions
and completely to the
limit of trre
;u"
of
Dungeons?
Is such a "*pioa
subs
And where, in
chnrrr ir L^ ^^-._L-
tn cacere
:li:1il::""::ijr*eans of
(7745)

osc

1i*lfJ,li,:,",",;_T:3
of Fausr (1723_t}g2)

ars the

135

rst variant of
of the series

re
ye

Pianesi orthe flux ofform

More precisety - objects as physical elements

of the depiction itself
- apart.
flew
But the representationar concreteness of
the erements in this case was
not altered.
Stone "moved awaf, from stone, but kept
its representational ,,stone,,

concreteness.
The stone vauft was hurred into the angurar
wooden rafters, but the
representational .'concreteness,, of both was
kept untouched.
These were "in themselves" rear stone
arches, ,,in trremserves,,realistic
wooden beams.
The piling up of perspective recessions
coincides with the madness

of
narcotic visions (see berow), but each rink
of
trt"r"
ry
dizzy
s""iur
perspectives ',in itself, is even natualistic.
The concrete reality of perspective, the real
depictive quality of the
objects rhemselves, are noi deJtroyed' anywhere.
* Although they
do not undergo that furious tuburence that governs
the disintegating
(exploding) sokes, for exampe, in rawings;
ti; p"" of van
Gosh.

II.

Patos

13

Madness - is only in the piling up, in the juxtapositions, exploding the

very basis of their everyday "possibility," the grouping of them ito a
system of arches consecutively being "beside themselves," erupting from
the bowels of their new arches; staircases exploding into flights of new
stair passages; vaults continuing the leaps out of each otler into

infinity.
Now it is already clear what will be (or should be) the next step.
\Vhat is left to explode - is the concreteness.
Stone no longer stone, but a system of intercrossing angles and
planes, in whose play the geometrical basis of its forms explode.
Semicircles of thefu structu-ral coDtour burst out of the semicircular
outlines of vaults ad aches.
Complex columns disintegrate into prirnary cubes and cylnders, from
whose interdependence the concrete appearance of tle eLements of
architecture ad narure is constncted.
The play of chiaroscuro - the conflict of illuminated projeoions with
areas of gaping darkness among them - becomes independent spots, no
longer of light and dark, but concretely drawn dak ad light colors
(namely, colors, and not a range of 'tones").
Can it be that this is everhing tlat occurs in Piranesi's etchings?
No, not within the limits of the etchings.
But beyond them.
Not in the work of Piranesi.
But beyond their limits.
A leap beyond the limits of this opus.
And as a cannonade of directions ard schools arploding out of each
other.

And in the first place, beyond the limits of the canon of realism in the
sense it is interpreted by popular understanding.
The first leap is beyond the limits of a precise outline of objects in the
play of geometrical forms composing them - and we have before us
Czanne.

The connection with the object is still imperceptible.

Next - the young Picasso, Gleizes, Metzinger.r
A step further - and the blossoming of Picasso.
The object - the "cause" - is already disappearing.
It has already dissolved and disappeared.
It has exploded in general outlines and elements, as fragments and
"stage wings" (the continuity of Piranes), which build a world of new
spaces, volumes, and their interrelationships.
Leftists of the arts and. ..ecstasy?
Picasso and ecstasy?
Picasso and...pathos?

Whoever has seen Guernica

possibility of such an assertion.

will

be even less surprised by the

Piranesi or tbe flrx of

foIn

t37

The Germans, looking at Guemica, asked the author:

"Did you do tlis?"

And proudly the painter answered:

"No - You!"toz
And probably it is difficult to nd - although one should include the
Destios of Goya (The Disasters of Wat) - a fuller and more agonizing
expression of the inner tragic dynamics of human annihilation.
But it is interesting that even on the paths leading here to the militant
Spaniard's explosion of the pathos of social indignation could be seen
the tig,of Picasso with ecstasy, in relation to his actual method in earlier
stage's of his work.
There the ecstatic explosion did not coincide with the revolutionary
essence of the theme.
And the explosion was not born from the tleme.
There - like a unique elephant in a china shop - Picasso trampled and
smashed any kind of merely "cosmically established order hateful to
him" as such.
Not knowing where to lash out at those who were guilty in the social
disorder of this "order of things," he lashed out at "things" and "order,"
before he suddenly "began to see clearlt'' n Guernica - where and in
what lay discord and "initial causes."
Thus, curiously enough, Burger (Czanne and Hodler), for example,
includes Picasso before Guemica into the category of mystics,
And this is because of signs of - ecstasy.*
But in Guemica Picasso experiences a leap from an abstract ecstatic
"protesf into the pathos of a revolutionary challenge to fascism
trampling Spain.
And Picasso himself - into the ranks of the Communist Paty.1
The fate of the majority of others - is different.
Internally they are not aware of ecstatic explosions.
For internally they do not burn with pathos.
They are not scorched by the flame of an enduring idea.
And with the most lofty of all possible ones - the idea of social protest.
With the fie of battle.
With the flame of the re-creation of the world.
They are not shaken by an inner peal of indignation.
In their souls the coiling lightning of wrath does not flash.
They do not blaze with white fire, in which service to an idea flares up
with action.
And few are those who know ecstasy within their works.
The ideological impulse is lacking.
* This quote was cited by me on another occasion in the chapter Nonindifferent Nature.
t We will rerum to the problem of ecstasy in Picasso again in the chapter Nonindifferent
Narue.

II.

Paros

138

Piranesi or the flux ofform

139

And there is no patos of creation.

social concepts; and the completr

embodies the spiritual content of-the
nation-builder at a certain stage of
its socia_l and historical development.
Even

[The mistake of the so-ca''d teftist architecture

- especialry the
- is in the rejection lf the imagistic conrent-o
u.ritaing,
reduced to ut'itai .''
and the properties r u.r'ai's

if they do not burn with that hint of flame.

consrructivist

Even if the fires of treir burning did not achieve the

degree of the flame
of social protest.
Nevertheless, they still are all devoured by ideas
that are more
valuable to them than life itself.
And only with such ideas.
Only with the obsession of such ideas.

i:i:lrJ"rarv

Ngless abominable in irs ach

the magistic content of the buil
parts" of elements of obsolete arc
forrrs ideologies of other nations
alien to us.l*

"i-,

tions of achitectural forms into each

and of the rhythmic couse of the

fi
dukes, who built a fortess in the
c
the two independent communes of
The image of absorutism frozen in the invincibitity
of its principres _
is the stucture of buildings of the icholas
epoch.
The terrestrial
emperor - the concrete "Tsa-r and
God," reaaing on the bureaucrat and
policeman.

And on trre other hand, the exarted "upward"

flight of the Middle
ad the absact, idealistic god of
priest _ the pope _ had not yet

The "abstract'' and

"nonrepresentational" quarity in the given case in

no way removes a very definitery expressed "imagistic"
quatity fom such

tion of architectural images in

an ensemble.

And in this sense the achitecture in different epochs

is expressed in
different ways, and, besides, it expresses a denite
thought or iea in the
most concrete sense of the word.

And it is on this second. feature wilr

And this is why the "image" is always socia'y and historicaty

conditioned and expresses a definite ideological content of
a certain

epoch.

-li,i

litl; *: Jl'*il1:

y resounding in different ways in

tff:5

w't

now focus our attention.

Eisenstein is clearly criticizing the so-called

slinisr styte of ectectic archite*ue

II.

Patos

140

on the roads and crossroads of my path to cinematography I once had.

ro study architecrure as well (in the Institute of civil Engineering).
I had just begun to work on a projecr when the whirlwind of the civil
war snatched me away and returned me not to the drawing board.s of
architectural projects, but transferred me to the stage of the theater, first
as a set designer, then as a theater director, and. then as a film director.
The experience of an architect-designer and set designer for the
theater did not last long.
But long enough to capture one - most fundamental - feature of the
acrual process of the "creation" of volume space constructions.
Architecture is not called "frozen music" in vain ("Gefrorene Musik'-

Pianesi orth.e flux of form

147

It is difficult to find buildings capable by their structure alone to

sequentially'\urn on" to ecstatic harmony those entering beneath their

vaults.
And to tl'e degree that the structure and image of such a cathedral in

Goethe).

At the basis of the composition of its ensemble, at the basis of the

harmony of its conglomerating masses, in the establishment of the
melody of the future overflow of its forms, and in the execution of its
rhythmic partsr giving harmony to the relief of its ensemble, .ies that
same "dance" that is a.so at the basis of the creation of music, painting,
and cinematic montage.ros
and

out
eral

ofa
rough draft, striving on paper to consolidate that flight of sparial
visions, which is condemned to settle as stones or bricks, iron ad
concrete, glass and the prefabricated walls of a prepared stmcture.

At the basis of the architectural design is that same emotion that, from
the level of inspired obsession, now overflows in a flame of ecstasy and
the dithyrambs of its visions consolidate the cathed.al chorale frozen in

We are interested in the frst case.

The case of maximum restraint.
A case when architecture is no longer an analogue to salon conversation by the fireplace but a unique stone "slmrbol of faith,'- a passionate
expression in stone of its ideological credo, whose ador forces t.e
stones to pile upon stone, and in their straining toward heaven, to forget
their own gravity, to soar up in the Lancet form of arches, hanging in the
air and, piers unfolding between them, to return in them on the surfaces
of stained-glass windows, burning like multicolored. flames.
It is difficult to find structures more clearly representing the embodiment of ecstasy frozen in stone than Gothic churches.

And we have every right to suspect such a psychic basis for it.

(The shortest path of diect tansmission of the originat state of rhe

author - to the listener.)
Thus, tle walE tempo is a copy of that state in which Johann Strauss,s
-'soul
danced," repeating by its movements the structure of this tempo in
the completed wa-ltz. Those dancing join tl:at same state in which its
author was at tlle moment of the creation of the d.ance.
A rudimentary oxample of that phenomenon we know in the culture of
ancient Mexico.

ornamenta_l monsters of ancient Mexico.

And here - the monstrosity and frightening unexpected.ness d.erive not

so much from the combination of various frightening details, actually

belonging to vaious animals (the way in which Leonardo da vinci
created ea-listic models of unreal beings, and Barnumllr d.emonstrated
in t}Ie puppets at the beginning of his career), as much as in. . . the
ornamenta-l decomposition of visible objects of nature.
Your head literally whiIs when you see the treatnent of the corner of

II.

Patos

142

Pianesi orttre flrr of form

143

':'1.';

r'$l t

(a)

(b)

Figure 10. (a,-b) sculptural decorations on the Mayan pyrarnid, yucatan. From
Eisensrein's 1931 film eue viva Mexicot. (c) Detail fbm the fieze of th faade of
the Governois Palace, uxmal, showing some of the two thousand scutured
stone elements comprising its decoration.

"Las Monjas Palace" in u:snalrl2 in the forrn of a decomposed. human

profile or in the serpent heads disintegrating into incredible disjointedness in the galleries behind the Teotihuacan pyramid.
How simply and clearly the stetched-out details compose '.backwards" into "a beal': its face, eyes, claws, back on the light blue carpets
of the tribes of the North American Indians.
How easily the whole is gathered together again "montagelike" from
this ornamental distribution. Ad what real dizziness seizes you when
the stone hoo protuding along a diagonal from the corner of the
building, begins to be interpreted as a nose; you must look for deforned
stone eyes through the system of carved stones going around both sides
of the corner; and the teeth of the lower part of the trea. ent of the
building suddenly appear as a system of monstously transformed jaws.
Dizziness is the result of a constant slipping from the prototye face
into this system of stetched-out details losing thei human features,
and again back to the face.in a torrrenting attempt to create tlre process
through which one becomes the other, the original a monstrous result
-

again - "backnad" - to the original (without which it would be

impossible '\o interpret," to organize, to perceive, to include it into a
system of representations comprehensible to us).
And. . . dizziness - is not simply a rhetoricaL phrase it is what
actually occurs.
For in tlte attempt to "ente/' into the process of birth of these ecstatic
-

(c)

Caption to Figure

l0 (cont)

acnrally "having become ecstatic" from the appearance given

to them _
images of the oma-urentar decomposing of tas an
nes, v
u
system of the norms of that process, which gave birth
".r,". of
to these images
decomposed forms inaccessible to the normal state
of consciousness [...]

. . -The visions of similar architect'rar images

in states of exartation
and ecstasy connected.. .with opium are desribed by
De euincy.rrs
(He calls his own devotion to opium a disease.)
' ' ' In the earry stages of he malady, the splendours of my dreams were indeed
chiefly architecturar; and I beherd such pomp of cities an palaces
,r"u", yu,
was beheld by waking eye, unless in L clouds. . .
".

Later he quotes from

Words*odrrra,',..a

passage which d.escribes,

II.

IM

Patos

as an appearance achrally beheld in the clouds, what in many of its

circumstances I saw frequent\ in s.eep."*
In the same passage of poety he clearly stops at the moment of the
continuous fluctuation of achitectural ensembles that piled up with
tlreatening clouds:
"The sublime circumstances -'that on thei restless fronts bore stals,'
have been copied from my own architectural dreams, so often did
might
it occur.. ."
These quotations would be enough to compare Piranesi's amazing
architectural visions flowing into each other, not only in the uniqueness
of their system, but also in their figurative system, with the reflection in
concrete forms of the fantastic achitecnrre of these autors' ecstatic

Pianesi orthe flux of form

But the fact that the flights of stairs reflected the inner flight of the
author himself - is obvious.
And it is not accidental that the combined memories of two poets one
about tlle etchings and the other of a story about them embodied- this
thought into a real image of the author of the etchings running along the
staircase passages.
There is also no evidence of visions of allegedly feverish delirium
engraved on these sheets. And the reflection in them of states of real

states.

However, this is also confirmed by the fact that De Quincy uses,

namely, Piraresi's Dungeons as the most precise correspondence to
those architectural visions that seize him in states of o<altation under the
influence of opium:
Many years ago, when

was looking over Panesi's Antiquities of

145

or method is particular\ apparent

in pure form, but also in parody.

yo

when

Rome,

Coleridge,rrs then standing by, described to me a set of plates from that afiist,
called his Fantasies, ad which record the scenery of his own visions during the
delirium of a fever. Some of these (I describe only from memory of Coleridge's

account) represented vast Gothic halls, on tle floor of which stood mighty
engines and machinery, wheels, cables, catapults, etc., expressive of enormous
power put forth, or resistace overcome. Creeping along the sides of tle walls,
you perceived a staircase; and upon this, groping lis way upward was Piraesi
himselJ. Follow tlte stais a little fartber, and you perceive them reaching an
abrupt termination, without any balusrade, and allowing no step onwads to
him who should reach te (Eemity, except into the depths below. Whatever is to
become of poor Piranesi, at least you suppose that his labors must now in some
way terminate. But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still
higher, on which again Piranesi is perceived, by this time standing on the very
brink of the abyss, Once again elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of
stairs is described; and there, again, is the deliious Pianesi, busy on his
aspiring labors: and so on, until the unnished stais and the hopeless Piranesi
both are lost in the upper gloom of the ball With the same power of tlre endless
growth and self-reproduction did my acbitectue proceed in dreams. (pp.

'insignificant" of the means of treating what is

in tlte incongruity of the story,s content and
a mocking, comic result.
(Thus, for example, the comic "catalog" of Rabelais sounds
as if it

'-

249-50.

We must not be disturbed by the facnral imprecision of his details.

This Dungeons is called Fantasies.
The movement of Piranesi down the stairs of his own fantasies is inventions.
There is no sheet in the series Dungeons like the one described.
* [Thomas De Quincy, Cofessions of an English Opium-Eater, Routledge, London, 1905,
p. 250 - HM.l

but in the length of four or five retakes in

uring the shooting of what was a simple
it was conceived as being extremely. ..

fI.

Patos

746

ironic in behavior- after his ascent up the staircase, Kerens..democratically" shakes hands with the former tsa-/s janitor, standinf on the top

landing of the staircase.

Already in the course of editing emerged the concept o1. a pathosparody solution with the repeated shot of ascending th stairs.
Thus the exact same ascent piece is repeated for or five times.

Piranesi orthe flux ofform

and the same technical compositional device

everywhere.

147

is in them

absolutely

e, in Giesecke the
the page with the
s, and flags at its
These new foregrounds are hurred one more step into the depths by
planes of the deepening conglomemtion of forms.
Even without this, the very composition of the architectural ensembles

From beow Kerens went up in one shot.

From below - up that same staircase _ i tlte second.
From below up - in the third.
In the fourth.
In the fifth.

vaults. Ad so on - ad infinitum. As fa as the eye will allow you to

follow.

And the r
d of depiction, in its turn,
"invalidated"
rever or
mander-in-chief, fettered by Engrish-type leggings, ta:nped out on rre
marble stairs.
As we can see, by an essentially insignicant
the patos-filled ascent of piranesi merges from
and Coleidge into the ironic marking time o
Kerens.
"From the sublime to the ridiculous is one step.',
In the essence of the phenomenon as well as in the principles of its
compositional embodiment !
Thus, this example tlrows tight on ou basic principre from yet one
more angle of scrutiny.
From the position of ironic parody construction.

that

ffi;ti::it"ii*:

Plane bursts out of plane and like a system of explosions, plunges into
the depths.
Or, through a system of continuously arising new foregrounds
replacing them, it thrusts forwad from the sheet of the etching
advancing on to the viewer.
Forwad or into the depths? - Isn't it a-lt the same here? Ad in this

It is necessary to stop here for a moment and say

signicance of perspective reduction.
Its role in Piranesi is trrofold.

a few

words about the

perspective, that is
which is represented
receding distances in

what Giesecke calls the Ur-Cacei.

The merging of these two variants

is

extremely remarkabre. one

But there is something else - ..second..',

In Piraesi perspectives are constructed in a very ulique way.

II.

Patos

148

Piranesi or the flrx of form

149

continuation of the achitecnual theme in front of the arch, reduced in a

norma-l way trough perspective.

Instead of this, another architecnrral motif looks through the arch at it,

but moreover - this motif, i telrrs of perspective reduction, is approximately tvvice as large as the eye would suppose.
And as a result rere is the feeling that the suggested arched structure
seems to "explode" out of the naturally suggested scale into a qualitatively different scale - into a scale of heightened intensity (in the given
case - exploding "out of itself' from the nolrrally presumed spatial
recession).

F\m this arises

the unexpected qualitative leap in scale and space.

And the series of spatial depths, cut off from each other by columns
and aches, are constntcted as disconnected links of independent
spaces, strung togetler not according to the quality of uninterrupted
perspective, but as a sequential collision of spaces with different

Figure 11. Four sketches by Eisenstein analyzing Pianesi's Dungeon.

And their basic uniqueness lies in their inherent interruptions and

leaps.
Nowhere in Dungeons do we find an unintemrpted perspective view
into the depths.
But everywhere an initia movement of plunging into the depths
through perspective is intem:pted by a bridge, column, alch, or passage.

Each time the perspective movement is caught up again behind a

simiLar column or semicircula arch.
But it is not in this perspective key, but in a new one - usually in a
considerably reduced scale of representation tha you would expect or

wish to suggest.
This gives a double effect.
A direct one, which is manifested in the fact tlat such a reduced
representation through a break in an arch, or from under a bridge, or
between tvvo columns, gives the illusion of the extremely great remoteness of what is represented in the distance.
But even songer is the second effect.
We have already said that the scale of these new pieces of architectural space seem to be different from what the eye '\nould expect" to see.
In other words: The size and movement of the achitectura-l elements
striving, let us say, to meet an arch, finish by drawing their scale behind
the arch in a natural way, that is, the eye o(pects to see behind the arch a

qualitative intensities of depths.

CIhis effect is built on the ability of our eye to continue by inertia a
motion that has once been set up. The collision of this "presumed" path
of motion with the other path substituted for it gives the effect of a jolt.
The phenomenon of cinematographic movement is also constructed on
an analogous ability to retain the imprint of the viewer's impression.)
It is very curious that in certain featues of this method, Piranesi
corresponds to the 'Vertical" landscapes...of Chinese and Japanese
painting (kakemono).
This is its scheme [see Figue 12].
Here also an amazing feeling of ascension is achieved.
But the nature of this "ascension" is very different from the examples
of Piranesi.
If in Piranesi everything is - dynamics, whirlwind, the furious tempo
of drawing one into the depths and into the interior, then here everything
- is a calm and solemn ascent to the illuminated heights.
Both this and the other modeL in their emotional effect go beyond the
limits of the usua-l realistic effect.
The fist - by passionate intensity.
The second - by lucidity.
In them it seems the active aggressiveness of Western ecstasy was
impriated (Spanish, Italian) in contrast to the ecstatic quietismrl of the
East (Indla, China).
It is interesting to compare the different means by which these effects
were achieved, different in nature but similarly ecstatic in relation to the
"normal" course of effect on things.
The attempts of the ltalian are directed with full force to making out of
the flat surface of the engraving a truly captivating three-dimensional
body.

Piranesi orthe flux

offorn

151

The volume of the object (the mountain ridge) also is "beside itself in
relation to the presumed scale.
But this is a leap not in an increase of the range between the normal
size of details in perspective, but on tle contmry in a decrease of this
-

range.

In tlte diagram below it is apparent what is happening in both cases.

Let the real perspective reduction of the object AB at the point Ar be
o<pressed through,481.
Piranesi at this point depicts it in measure A1C (i.e., AtC < Afit.)
Consequently the 'Jump is more powerful, and the illusory sense of
depth is greater, and the eye, carqring point A7 to A2, plunges into the
dep$s.
Tlle Chinese at the sa:ne point A1 represent the objecr in rhe
dimension of A1D (where AtD> Afi.
The jump between AB and .41D is less than the normal perspective
interval AB - ArBr, and the eye, bringing point A1 to A3, stletches it
forward into the plane.
Figure 12. Eisenstei,s schematic aaalysis
of .Vertical" landscape in Chnese arr.

The attempt of the chinese to make out

of three-dimensional rearity
a two-dimensional image of contemplation,

This is the sourceperspective of one and

Common to bo

tion done in an i

of the ,"pr"r"rrtutional canons _ the

extreme

the reverse perspective in the other.

the contjnuity of representa-

+^r43A

er'

In Piranesi te
broken by colunns' arches,
and bridges
In Choko and yosa BusonrlT the fusion of representation
is simpry

ks of clouds.

that slipped through,

is

asain not siven in the scale dictate

iri::il:rnass)
But, in contrast to piranesi, here the new element
tums out to have
been unexpectedly decreased, but arso
une:rpectedry
increased (arso
exactly
twice as much!):

As a result both cases have an ecstatic effect, going beyond the limits
of a simple tue reflection of the appeatance of phenomena.
But they are characterized in a different (opposite) way: one serves as
the ocpression of the pantheistic quietism, characteristi of the ecstatic
contemplation of the East; the other expresses the ..explosiveness,,
typica-l of "active" ecstasy - one of the proclivities of '.western" ecstasy.
Crhis certainly does not mear that the East is unaware of the fanatic
ecstasy of the dervishes or of Shakhsy-Bakhsy, and Spain
- of the
mystical ecstasies of st. John of the crossrrs; or that the works of Fra
Beato Angelicolre do not correspond to the Bodhisattvar2o of India or the
Mongol demons with the works of El Greco. This division, of course, is
quite "conventional."
Quietism ties to bring opposites together by dissoluing them into
each othen Hence the reduced scope of the dfference in size repeats this,
returning and bringing the explosive jumps to a single smooth flow.
The other type of ecstasy acts in a diffeent way: Maximally
intensifying each of the opposites, it tries at the highest point of this

II.

Patos

152

intensification to force them to penetrate each other, thereby raising their

shattering dynamism to the highest pitch.
The present section of this work is basically devoted to this type.
Attention is given to quietism in another chapter in this collection - in

Nonindiffeent Nature.
This method of capturing the depths of space is close to me because of
my own work on the shot.
It is interesting that this method has been most distinctly formulated
in Te OId and the New, and its most extensive application occurs in the
set designs for .Iyan the Terrible, promoting the effect of the ,'giganticness" of the interiots. I wtote about the significance of the different
scales in relation to tle theme of Ivan in lzvestiva (Feb. 14, l94S) in
connection with the premiere of the first series of the film. And it was
probably not accidental that I refened to tleir size not by a static term,
but by a term reflecting the dynamic conception of "growing size,,'
"rising" vaults, etc, The feeling put into them of the obsession and
exaltation of the theme achieved by the author appears through the
terminology.
This method consists of the fact that the ',set design prope/' for my
shots never in itself exhausts the real "place of action.,'
Most often this set design proper seems to be a '.spot in the
background," which appears tbrough a system of foreground.s placed
like 'Yvings" attached endlessly in front of it, driving this set design
proper further and further into the distance.
In my work set designs are inevitably accompaaied by tlte unlimited
surface of the floor in front of it, allowing the bringing forward of
unlimited separate foreground details; and a collection of just such
details: portable co.umns, parts of vaults, stoves, piers, or objects of
everyday use.

The last point in this method is the close-up of the actor carried.
beyond all thinkable limits. over the actoy's shoulder is put the whole
space in which can be outlined the set design with all its substructures,
and the back of whose neck covers that part of the studio that can no
longer be fettered by the insufferable details of the 'lace of action."
This "ecstatic" method of constn-rction of set designs according to a
scheme. . . based on the telescope, is not limited in my work to the area of
the visual and plastic.
As in all other "schemes" of ecstatic construction, this also occurs in
my work in the dramatization.
If in respect to Poternkin and The General utzt we touched on a
"transference into the opposite" within te course of the drama itsetf, and
in Te Old and te New the very pivot of the action consisted in such a
transference from the "old" to the "new," then in another epic-drama case
we are dealing with a pure scheme of phases of a developing historical

Piranesi orthe flux of form

153

subject that consecutively -'Iike a crossbor/'- eject each other.

It is in just this way that the scheme of the film about the Fergans
Canal was constucte, which we planned with P' A. Pavlenkor22 right
after Alexander Nevs, but, uffortunately, it was not realized'
I conceived it as a triptych of the stuggle of man for water.
Three phases:

Tanerlane,*
Tsarism,
The kolkhoz lcollective farm] sYstem.
How should one connect in a dynamic unity three similar epochs
standing apart from each other by centuries and decades?
Hefe the d.evice tums out to be the "triple crossbow" separated in the
tempo of naration - the double transference beyond oneself arranged in
reospective sequence.
The fist link.
The epic-lay deployment of Tamerlane's campaigns and Urcheng's
sieges passed by.

And its tragic finale flowed together into an image of an old man' the
narrator Tokhtasya, singing about these times of yore.
The figure of the old man closed the fist link'

And the singing old man oPened

the second linlc
It narated - no longer in primordial forms but in colmon, everyday
forms - the tne of battle for a centimete of an irrigation ditch of Cental
Asia impoverished undet the tsars, a battle, repLacing the scope of the
campaigns of medievaf titans, that dove hundreds of thousands of
sol.diers against each other, draining rives from besieged cities, fighting
each other by depletions and by the influx of water that drowned the
besieging armies.
In the unequal battle with the bey ffurkish governorl and the tsarist
official, the old singer abandoned his native Central Asia after having
begun the mornfu. page of this story with his song.
The daughter was taken away by a merchant and bey "for a debt."
Along with the father, re meditator and nonresistor to evil, the young
son broke away, Ieaving for the Liberation movement.
And the old man dragged himself into the Irania foothills, far away
from the people.
But even this episode turned out to be a narative: not a song of the
past, but a tale around a camPfire.

II.

Pathos

Itt

The tale of an engineer-builder,

one of t,,e particpants of
e Fergans Canal.

[F.xamples of ecstasy]

155

the

the son of Tokhtasyn, who

the fllm was the story of how,

the Fergansky construction.

the third link of the epic

- The third lin beginning
fresc_o of new campaigns b!
the form of a battle agains
t of a man freed from
creating Communist

natute, a subjection
man.

In the fury of this construction, the

lively
Iranian foothilrs and met his son iioll"ynTolirtasyn returned from the
l moment when the wate
begins to flow.. .

In the

telescopic

Figure 13. Eisenstein's dawing (Mexico, c. 1930) showing

ex stas's (=pathos),

leap from
preceding examples.
[Exarnples of ecstasy]

incident that may serve as a

es of ecstasy.

tos composition, as it has been

long before
once in all its aspects, still
detail that even thirty years
how a diector composes a

I remember how, after one of those rectues

- I think it was in lg33 _
concerning the ecstatic_te1n win-in_a
comnos.it-ion of puo", one of
my
audience came up to me, Cmrade
o., **ia, a
sly-grin-;yli"riorrrtv
[ailovich, I bet you cou]n,t guess
me think of?,,
riously at a question about the
to the shape of his head, it was

comade D. efused to divurge his secret to me, but promised to

confess his ideas in a few days.

In severa-l days he realty did come up to me again,
embarassed look rather than a mysterious one.

but with

an

The invention turned out to be a fiasco.

It turns out that the contents of my lechrre on ecstasy made him think
of. . .a rocket missile system ofconsecutive ejections ofone rocket out
of

another.
He rushed over with this idea to someone in the military d.epartment.
Ho-wever, there they carmed him d.own, saying that something
of the
sort had already been investigated there and was well known.
What it was oractly and to what degree _ is unknown.
_ Later something of the sort realy seemed to have been adopted in the
Finnish campaign, iudging by a chance tale, somewhat confuied, of one

of the pa:ticipants of the battles in Fintard.

In general, rocket missiles of the "chain" type seemed to have been
adopted for practice even in World Wa II.
It is quite probable that the principle of the rocket missile is actually
quite ancient, and there is an opinion that even in 1232the chinese used

Il.

Pathos

l5

such missiles against the attacking Mongols. Since the fourteenth

century this missile was widespread in Europe. But definitely since 18S0
- when the perfection of precise aim increases - the mssiles of tlre rocket
type being imprecise in ths regard, disappear from practice and from the
area of any theoretical interest.
The honor of a new revival and wide application of this principle in
World War II belongs to the Soviet Union, which, since 1941, brought
down on the German invaders a massive series of rockets from our
multirocket projector (nicknamed Katusha).

The Germans are building their "V-2" according to this principle.

England and Iater the United States have been diligently studying the
discoveries made in this area during the war. The new intensification of
interest in the idea of a rocket missile now depends on what this missile
would be like if freed from the action of the so-called recoil - the reverse
push that unavoidably is produced by each common artillery missie on
the weapon ejecting it. This lack of recoil makes the rocket prnciple

particularly valuable under conditions of firing missiles of great

destructive power from relatively light and unsteady structures (light
airp.anes or smalL sea units).
But I have no particular interest in tlre "simple" rocket missi.e or if I
have, it is only because the "beautifuI" here is i the initial active
principle being taken in reverse or the "i_urpeding,' principle of the
"normal" type of artillery. The principle of recoil is what should be taken
as the active basis, transported from the aea of counteraction into tle
principle of action itself; the power impetus is directed totally to the side,
and, figuratively speaking, "te cannon" is reversed with its back to the
opponent and strikes at him by means of the infinitely increased power
of recoil aimed in his direction.

Thus the significance of the common expression, "cannon go to battle

backwards,"* is reversed from the image of where to strike the enemy,
into a new phase more shattering in its blow! This a_lmost recalls a
similar paradox in the area of agricultural indusy.
It is well known what a scourge the locust is.
But it is also well known what a great bearer of fatty tissue is this pest,
which utterly devours the crops, grain, and earthly vegetation.
This fat forces steam engines to skid helplessly on the rails covered
with the squashed little bodies of locusts.
And during my stay in Mexico they told me about ar incident that took
place in South America, where it rurns out in certain districts itwas more
profitable to process the fatty substance of the locust (which was not
allowed to develop to the stage of being able to fly) than to try to save the
carelessly sown and unsown fields.
* "Puski k boyu sta.li zadom," a Russian idiomatic e:rpression

- HM.l

757

[Examples of ecstasY]

A comparison of a military-technicat incident with an incident from

the biologica-I-zoological field (where else could you find a similar use of

locusts?!) is quite normal at this point, when spheres of principles

previously rigidly opposing each other are closely connected, spheres
that lie at the basis of physics and biologY, the treatment of inorganic
phenomena of nature, which merge with the norms of the organic
kingdom of nature, etc.
This will be discussed below.
But even now it iS curious to note that the rocket movement of missiles
whose application clearly has a broad future has as its most profound
"prototype" a phenomenon that is purely biological and' one might add'
in its, ealiest stages of development.
Dosn't it seem that this principle is completely "copied" from the
characteristics of the first steps on te path of independently moving
shirts of the so-called Brownian movement in colloids?
This is how John Yerbury Dent describes the scheme of how molecules
of living protoplasm shift:
Now let us irnagine this catalyst as a compound with a big molecule: It has the

of a colloid - that is, it is big

enough to be
yet small
molecules,
smaller
vibrating
of
comparatively stable in an environment
enough to be jostled by them. It exhibits what is called Brownian movement. We

attributes and behaviou

must pictule this molcule as being able to absorb and combine with certain
molecules which we may consider its food, and able to break down at the other
end of its molecula chain, giving out molecules as its waste products' This large
molecule is impinged upon oD atl sides by other molecules but, it is able to
absorb some of them. It is not displaced by the molecules it absorbs, and it
suffers some recoil ftom tbe molecules i1 discharges; in other words, it moves
towads its food and away from its waste products. It has developed another of
the attributes of tife, It is quite possible to picture a-ll movement of protoplasmic
a-lso

molecules in tLis way. The diection is governed by the absorption of some

molecules and the discharge of otlers'*

However, Iet us return to the type of ocket missile my lecnrre on '-the

formula of ecstaqy'' inspired Comrade D.
It is quite apparent that such a 'Torurula" applied to the treatment of

increasing speed of the missiles (or flYing machines) must definitelY

take into account ttre normal limits of speed, just as the flight of ecstasy
must regard tle conditions of normal emotion, and as pathos must
regard - simple uPlift.
And it cannot be that technical thought - so skillfully using the
'.ecstasf' of transferring certain forms of energY into others, provoking
"explosions" bY a definite form of composed mixtures, which are
a

John Yerbury Dent, The Human Machine,

Afred A. Ihopf, New York' 7937, p'

7.

IL

Patos

r58

The Gothic

159

XS-l work, if at the basis of the construction principle one puts the
"multistep" principle, according to which a system of tandem rocket
motors acts like a consecutive "chain," ejecting the "head one" forward into space. The difculty in its practical realization is still the high
temperature (5,000 or more degrees Fahrenheit) to which the chamber of
the inner structure is subjected. If this difficulty is finally overcome, then
the given construction completely ensures the possibility of passengers
flying beyond the limts of the space directly surrounding our planet. . . *
The third "deepening" of the principle - from an airplane ejected from
an airplane, through a rocket ejected by a rocket, ejected by a rocket,
ejected by a rocket, etc.t - to a fraction of the material ejected in an
endleEs series of chain reactions of new particles flying out - carries us
beyond the limits of the Chicago conference of the practitioners of rocket
construction - into areas of the practical application of the atom, which

is now so much

obsessing

tle imagination of nations after

the

destructive action of the atom bombs dropped on Japan.

The Gothic

Already several times in the couse of this work the sharp profile of Gogol
protruded through its colorful variety, as a shadow slipping through its
separate sections. [. . .]t'5
It would be too simple and too easy to flood these pages with another
sea of quotes, taken from well-known pages of pathos in his works, in
which digressions "rear up" once in awhile in his poems, stories, or
tales.

The "ecstatic" structure of them is distinct and clear everywhere.

And we will relate Gogol to our theme in more detail at this point.
In an aea with which he wouldn't usually be assqciated.
Let us consider Gogol alongside of Piranesi...
In regards to. . .architecnrre.
This would appear to be strange and unexpected only if one forgets
how many montlrs Gogol spent in that same Rome that put Giovanni
Battista's imagination in a fever.
Forgetting about those spiritual "prisons" through which Gogol drove
his reader in "The Inferno" and "Purgatof' of the final parts of Dead
Souls,126 out of which he himself so desperately sought an escape into
the light, like the fi.gure of Pianesi conceived by Coleridge, rushing
along tlte precipices of the passages and staircases of his own etchings.
* I am describing these data according to a report on a conference in Newsweek of June 30,
1947.

treat this formula here in the manne of the "translanguage" of Genrude Steinr2a
will help us esablish the "correspondence" betlveen the
material of this chapter and tle ne:<t.
I

because in the next section this

II.

Pathos

r0

And having quite forgotten Gogol's wonderfuIly passionate enthusiasm for architecture.
And how Gogol perceives architecture and how he writes about it probably the closest approximation of how Piranesi forces it to live and
tremble in his etchings.
Namely, the way Gogol writes about architecture as a form of being
beside oneself and as a form of transition of one form into another; in the
pathos of his descriptions he reveal.s the ecstatic charactdr of his nature,
as well as a reflection in the very principles of architecture of those basic
necessary strivings of our nature, which find their expression in

architecture.
There are probably few who now reread the Arabesques. Even fewer
readers linger over the article "On the Architecture of Our Time.,,yes, and
even I wouLd have hardly glanced at it f it had not been put next to the
article "A Few Words on Pushkin," which I needed for another, quite
special occasion,
Therefore, this article should be discussed in detailed excerpts.

It is particularly characteristic that, of all the various types of

architecture, the kind that is most attractive to Gogol is the architecture
that is the most ecstatic - the Gothic.
Not in vain, Coleridge (and after him De euincy), in d.efining the
actual style of Piranesi's visions, turned to the term .'Gothic hall.',
Incorrect in defining the true style of these halls, but quite corect in
defining what Piranesi (ecstatically) does with these halls!

...No matte which kind of architecnrre it be - the smoo, monumental

Egyptian, the huge and colorful architecture of the Hindus, the luxurious
architecture of the Moors, the inspired and gloomy Gothic, the graceful Greek
all ae good if they are suired to the specified constmction; they will all be
magnificent only when they are truly comprehended,
. . . If, however, one must give a definite preference to one of these architectural
styles, then I would always give it to the Gothic...
. . .But it disappeared, this beautiful architectue! As soon as the enthusiasm
of the Middle Ages was extinguished, the thought of man was dismembered and
strove for a multiplicity of different aims; as soon as the unity and wholeness of
the one disappeared, so did the grandeur as weII. Its forces, once having been
dismembered, became small: it suddenly produced a multiplicity of wonderful
things in all shades and varieties, but no longer something grand, something
gigantic....
..

.They passed -those centuries when faith, strong, ardent faith, directed all

thoughts, all minds, all actions to one end; when the atist strove to raise his
consciousness higher and higher toward heaven, to it alone he strained, and
before it, almost in sight of it, he revetenrially raised his praying hands. His

building flew toward heaven; narrow windows, columns, vaults stretched

infinitey toward the heights; transparent, almost lace-like spires like smoke
appeared over them, and the magnificent temple was as great before the

The Gothic

161

common dwellings of the people as tlre demads of the soul were great before the

demands of the body.. . .

. . .Gothic architecture, that Gothic achitecture which was formed before the
end of the Middle Ages, is a phenomenon which the taste and imagination of man
has never again produced. . .In it everything is unified together: this forest of
vaults rising harmoniously high over your head, windows, huge and narrow, with
numberless vaiations and intertwining, joined to this terrifying, colossal mass
of the tiniest, most colorrl decoations, tlis light web of carving, entangling it
with its net, winding aound it from tle foot to the top of the spire and flying with
it to the heavens; grandeur as well as beauty, luxury and simplicity, heaviness
and lightness - these ae the virtues which never, except for this period, were
contained in achitechre. Entering into the sacred dakness of this temple,
throug\ which the windows multicolored light peers fantastically, and raising
yoot eys upward, where lancet vaults lose tlemselves and intersect one over
another, one over another, endlessly - it is quite natural to feel an involuntary
terror in your soul at e presence of a female saint, whom the insolent mind of
man dae not toucb. . .
. . . Look more often at the famous Cologne Cathedral - thee is all of its
lGothic - SME] perfection and grandeur. A finer monument was never produced
by ancient or modern epochs. I prefer Gothic achitecture because it allows the
artist to engage in more reve. The imagination strives more vividly and more
ardently to height rather than breadth. And therefore one must use Gothic
architecture only in churches and in high sing buildings. Lines and Gothic
pilasters without cornices, close to each other, must fly through the whole
structule. It is sad ifthey staad far apart from each other, ifthe building does not
rise up to at least tw'ice its height, if not triple ! It then destroys itself. Raise it as it
should be: so that its walls rise higher, higher, as high as possible, * so that their
numerous corner columns surround them more densely like arrows, like poplars,
like pines! Let t}ere be no cut, no break or cornice that would give another
direction or would diminish the size of the building ! So that they be equal from
the foundations to t}re very summit! Huge windows, varied in form, more colossal
than their height! More ethereal, lighter spires ! So that the more everything rises
upward the more it flies and peneuates. And remember the most important thing:
there is no comparison of height and breadth. The word breath must disappear.
Here there is one pnciple idea - height. t

Magnificent pages!
Magnificent in the feeling of the pathos of Gothic architecture.

i Wasn't the cry of Plevako, so famous for its - pathetic quality, taken from here, which had
esounded in the uial of tbe Mother Superior Mitrofanya,r2T which, as is well-known, lay at

the basis of the subject of A. N. Ostrovs$s Wolves and Sheep?

t N. V. Gogol, On the Achitecture of Our Time, collected works in volumes, vol. ,
Goslitizdat, Moscow, 1959, pp. 40-1. This article is cited late. [Victor Hugo, "Peface to
Cromwell," also sees contrast as a mark of modern genius: ". . . it is of the fruitful union of
the grotesque and the sublime types that modem genius is born - so complex, so diverse in
its forms, so inexhaustible in its cleations; and therein directly opposed to the uniform
simplicity of the genius of the ancients." In G. Andeson and Robert Warnock, eds., Scott
Foresman, Tradition and Revoll, Chicago, 1951, p. 35 - HM.l

II.

Patos

162

And wonderfur examples of the feeling for the

chaacteristic features
of. pathos construction.
A basic significance that, in the given case,
has tre ardor of an id.ea.
The flowing of a[ variety into t]re problem
of
unity of
this idea.

The Gothic

13

prototpes of imitation or inner dynarnis stimulats (the

dance) that to a
great extent determine the forms and rhythms,
harmony and nature of
achitechrre constuctions :

""p."."io-,rr"

The unity of opposites as a factor of its erpression (,'grandeur

as
as
.,heavirr"r.

we'
beauty," "luxury and simplicity,*
ghuress.,, At
another prace in his article Gogol *tit"", ,.The
Eue effect is contained. in
sharp antitheses,,).
.Repetition leading to innity (.,lancet vaults one over anotier...
without end").
The leap from dimension to dimension (,.so trat
their numerous
corner columns surround them densely like
arrows, t*e popiars, tite
pines"; "lace-like spires," coming orrt oi the
stone sustancend, ,,like
some," appeared over te building).
And in the statement itserf about the features of the
Gothic _ there is a
jump from description to direct authoriar
addess to the read.er: ..Raise
it" 'higher, as high as possible..." From an ad.dess to the reader-to
direct command to the phenomena: "Let thee be
no break. . .so that they
be equal" 'Huge windows...A more etrrerear, righter
spire! so that
everhing would. . .fly and peneuate!,,
And now, as if in ecstasy, we scan that s
e scale of gradations
ejecting each other b which Gogor many yes
rater achieved the
description of the pathos flight of re "bird-troika,,
in
Dead sou.s.
But other pages of^the articre are variegated
with that same type of
dynamic exposition of the vivid. movement of
architecturar forms.
sometimes the exposition is ecstatica'y explosive,
and the imlge of it
resounds rike a wet-known figure (I w'i
emphasize it in the rext):
' ' ' A portico with corumns . . . we also have lost: it did not
occu to him to give it a
col0ssal slze, to push apart the whole width
of the building, to raise it to its fuil
height ' ' . Is it surprising that bu'dings,
whicb trrey aemaed unr", seemed
empty, because the pediments with colums
were

porches...
..

sculpted onry over thei

.New cities have no form at all: they are so

colec!

so smooth, so
monotonous trrat, after cr ssing one s'eet
and feering uo.", " "ect any
desire to look at anorher. These are a series
orwars,
,rott irrg .el useress
10 try to find a viewpoint from which
"o walls
one of trese continuous
would at some
point suddenly grow and arp).ode into te
ai like a bold. broken vault or would be
ejected like some kind of towel-giant.
sometimes the very form of the description srips
into anorher system
a metaphoric system.
And then these descriptions take on a particura
sensuar charm, for
the comparisons themserves are chosen uy ttre
maks of those extemar

d its stone limits, and the temple turned

this is how the image of '\he kingdom of

come to life when combined with people.

walk aound it, its light minarets cluster

osing in tlre center, its dome turned like the

ld robe.

But even these Uansformations

By his will the architectue is for
forms pouring into each other (he

of

Il.

Pathos

t&

taste common to pre-historic peoples, and then a gradual shift of it into different
forms: a great metamorphosis into the colossal, full of simplicity, the Egyptian,
then into great beauty - the Greel then into the sensual Alexandrian and
Byzantine with low domes, then into the Roman, wit several, rows of arches; later
descending again to wild periods and then suddenly rising to unusual luxury - in
the Arabic; then to wild Gothic, then Gothic-Aabic, tlen pure Gothic, the crown
of art breathing in Cologne Cathedral, then a terrible confusion of architecture,
proceeding from a return to the Byzantine, then the ancient Greek in new
costume, and, finally, the whole steet would terminate in gates which would
contain elements of a new style. . .

The perception of this formation of new types of architecture as a

single stream of different varieties flowing into each other is manifested
the whole time in the words in which this strange vision is described ("a

gradual shift...into different forms," "a metamorphosis...into the

Egyptian," "then into great beauty - the Greek," "then into the sensual
Alexandrian," "descending again to wild periods," "then suddenly
rising," etc. - all this characterizes these changes as a single stream, as
single forms "metamorphosizing" into others, "descending" fiom some to
others and "rising" from some to otlers.*
However, what is probably most striking in this whole article is how
Gogol, with the tme insight of a seer, "distills" from a conglomeration of
models of past architecture and contemporary architecture - a rough
sketch of models of future architecture.
Meanwhile, he seems to have "guessed". . .the skyscraper (although of
medium height) when he drops remarks about houses placed on city
hills ("One should observe that houses show their height one behind the
other, so that it would seem to one standing at tle foot that a twenty-story
mass was looking at him.").
Sighing very reasonably:
"Surely it isn't impossible to create (even for the sake of originality)
completely original and new architecture, by-passing former conventions?. . ."
No less justly - even for our day! - he grieved:
"...Isn't it possible for us...to turn shattered bits of art into
something grand? Must everything we meet in nature necessarily be only
a column, a dome or an arch? How many other forms have still not been
touched by us at all!. . . How many of these which not a single architect
has yet entered into his codex!. . ."
In anticipation, Gogol mischievously throws in a concrete example at
the end of the article:
* At another point in the book I will bring in (for another reason) a desciption of a similar
type of picture composed of the movement of changes in the appearance of women's
fashion. It was written (in an ironic manner) by Jean Cocteau.r2s As we have seen, our
Gogol, a good hundred years earlier, "outgalloped" the French wit of our time.

Superconcretenesa

15

Let us take, for exarnple, those hanging

decorations which have recentry begun
to
appear' So fa, the hanging achitectuL
only appears in tleater boxes, balconies,
and

in small bridges.
if whole storeys hang out,

But

if daring arches ae huled one after another,

if whole masses instead of heavy columns find
supports,

tlemselves on castiron

if a house is hung over from top to bottom with barconies

decorated with
castiron rinceau banisters,
and in thousands of different forms, castiron
decorarions hanging from them
envelop it with rheir light net,
and it will look throug_h rlem, as through
a ransparent veil,
wheq these castion rinceau decorations,
twined aound a pretty, circurar
tower, fl) with it to the slcy,
what lightness, what aesthetic etrerearess
would our homes acquire then!

once Aadrey Bely struck his readers by a quote

from Nevs prospect
that anticipates picasso.r2e
But somehow even Bery saw trat Gogol
.had anticipared Le corbusiels
ideas about a house on t.ee u.unis;tao-|j-i;J"
or ,1n"
transparenct'' of architecture was sorved,
,\ransnot
by
rri"
.urtiror,
parent veils," but by.
tlen
'.glass,
- t was the glass of the American
(Frank Lloyd Wright), .Tathe_r of transparent
houss,,,r.t unJin" concep_
,,beautifirl
tion of his
towe/' _ is Tatiin,s towet.r32
It is
in Gogol, a separate ny detail
(hansin
mail brdse") d";;i;;, r,,o ,,"*

form of
"
And how he has become aware by himsetf
of this featue and potenriar.
Ad now he considers this featuie and. potentiar
to be inherent in the
creator and poet:
"But what a multitude of hints about
everything exist, capable of
engendering an exEemely unusua and vivid
idea in the head of an
architect, if only this achited be a creator
and poet.,,
And this was all written in _ 1B3l !
superconcreteness

[" '] we discovered a certain 'Tomula" accord.ing to which works

pathos Ee constructed.

of

clearcut condition for that state, in which

all
given work must be or appea_r, in order
that the

o:

state or au its eremcnts

nJ,"J.T,!i;:i'j::
spasmodic transition from quantity to quality
as well as

features).

ff ':,:'J3l
a series of other

II.

Patos

166

niversality of this ,,condition of a

characteristics of the composi_
and branches of art. We selected
our examples so that they are as colorfil and varied as possible, without
taking into account time, place, nationarity, or theme of the works chosen
t. ..1
And we discovered everywhere that one and the same formula by
which, without regard to person, epoch, or field, the fundamental ecstati
explosion is achieved, which lies at the basis of the patos effect of the

whole.

The question natumlly arises - what is this oruahistorical, entranational, extrasocial "panacea" with certain "imanent', features ',outside of time and space"?
And how can it be
and ilcompatible
contents in these most
iple of ,,pathosiza_
ton," the principle of
conditions of the
pathos quality of their sound they suddenly turn out to be exactly the
same?

concerning the employment of pathos, with which consciously or

unconsciously, intentionally or wirout conol, the inspired author of a
work of pathos operates. In short, such a description would soud.
something like this:
or

to tie

state,

form of inspiration (se

And if a very precise
genuine patos and

nd
of
all

or it comes to him involuntarily in the

this type of solution).

it is, namely, in cases of
of such a work that
are so inseparable and
, serving as a necessary
when it finally achieves

one way or the other, examples of patos construction manifest their

final results in exactly such a form.
If any production, from any area ofthe arts, turns out not to have been

Superconceteneaa

167

treated according to tle discovered "formula" pathos, then that special

psychic state carnot arise (I repeat: not a psychological, but a psychic
state beyond its limits) that, coloring the theme, was the reason for the

creation of the wor forcing it to vibrate with what we call pathos.

What at first glance seems to be so "daring" an assertion turns out on
close inspection to be 'Tmpudent' only in terms of size, volune, scope,
and variety of the enormous compositional edifices, which are based on
a single universal, principle: No matter what, these are the most
overwhelming examples in the creative works of the most varied
couatries, natioirs, epochs, and periods.
Essentally this mak of "universal$' is characteristic of all more or
Iess basic, stable methods, which in a certain way impregnates the

mea\s of atistic expression.

The content of Homet's and Mayakovs's metaphors are different,
incompatible, incommensurable, and often can be compared only with
great difficulty.
And it cannot be otherwise through the abyss of the ages and the
diapason of different social systems that gave birth to both giants.
But "the principle of the metapho/' - its structure, its psychic effect,
and the norms of its appearance and presence in a definite degree of
thematically necessary impressionableness - is identical.
The walE "cannot occuf' until a system of images, exciting equally
(and in an equally colored emotional state) composers of such different
nationalities and epochs as Johann Strauss and S. S. Prokofiev, ',kicks,,
the "given" waltz into the caonical structure.
(And now, of course, any historicaL changes are possibLe, but if the
"Viennese wallz" is not the "Boston walv,,, still - they both remain
'\altzes" and as such they are not confused with the mazurka or "turkey
trct''!)
There is probably nothing that, on a par with theme and. content, is
modified so sensitively in step with the change of the times and. the
social systems as the multitude of rhhmic signs of works of different
periods and epochs - from the hexameters of the galteys of antiquityr33 to
the helicopters of the "chopped line"rs of the twentieth century, from the
structure of the Gregorian chants sung in unisonl3s to the rhythmic
zigzags of the musical palette of Gershwin.l3
But the principle of the necessity of rhhm, without which a work
would simply not exist, has remained true to itself through the centuries,
just as the thesis of theme and content begins to turn into the flesh and.
blood of a genuine, artistically impressionable work only from the
moment when it begins to pulsate through the material with an animated
and vital independent rhythm.*
We must add to the category of such phenomena what we have

See

"How to Make Verse" by V. Mayakovs, Curbstone press, Willimantic, Conn., 197.

II.

Patos

r8

allowed ourselves to call "the formula of pathos," discreetly putting this

term in quotation marks so as not to hide re fact that even to our eals
this term sounds somewhat unusual.
Having put it in quotation marks, we should note that lis term should
not be understood primitively, vulgarly, statically, or mechanicall,y, but
in that dynamic sense in which we have ied to show it in practice

SuperconcreterresS

the course of nanual phenomena (from which also comes the scheme of

the composition of works of pathos as a coPY of the dialectic laws,

according to which the continuous process of the formation and
development of the universe occurs, second bY second).
As such, by its very nature, it is "obiectless" to a cprt^i- o*to't in relation to tlose

glt''
work of pathos, one inadvertently recalls - from another aspect - those
words Schopenhauerl3T spoke on the freedom of the will: "Man, of
course, is capable of achieving what his will pushes him toward, but
outside of his will he is capable of determining what it is his will is
pushing him toward - to what he wants."
Here is that "umanageable" prerequisite for positive "creative
willing" in the artist, and that obsession with the theme, outside of which
it is i.mpossible to create not only genuine works of patos but also aly
other kind of work of a less exalted temperatu-re.
The rest - is a question of a purposeful (conscious ad uconscious)
creative'\,villing" and technique.
By posing the question in tlis way, "the theme" engendering the
necessary "obsession" is equally protected from the e)ftreme of "gettirtg
caried away with the tleme - the rest will fall into place" - as well as
from the exrreme of underestimating its historical significance and its
constantly changing basic social significance for creations of unsurpassed value.
The phases ofthe details ofthe actual course ofthe process ofcreation
repeat exactly the outline of this general theme.
The definite degree of obsession, charrr, and absorption of tlre theme

engenders that "special" psychic state in which described norms of

perception, vision, expression, and performance operate in the vivid
images of that given material of the theme that appear in the finished

work.

This state is possible only at that same "precise degree" of a psychic

state ("of inspiration") as the transition of liquid to a gaseous state is
possible, only at a precise degree of temperature, and as the storury artd
unrestrained leap of mass into energy is possible only at a precise degree
of the state of necessary physical conditions, the leap that, according to
Einstein's fomrula, "l.iberated" the unprecedented supply of natual
forces in the explosion of the atom bomb.l
This psychic state was characaterized by us above (quite early - in the
first article on patos) as t}re sense of participation in the laws governiag

: Through
makes its way into

material* through whose essential qualities this very state arose, so that
it forces this material to take shape according to the law of copying
precis,ely that psychic state in which ("inspired") the artist found
hims$f.
The norms of this state, as we have already said, are known to us.
They are single and unchanging.
These are those basic laws according to which the formation of
everything that exists flows.
The "obsession" relates to them.
The stmcnrre of its psychic state is tuned in unison to it.
And through it this system becomes the basic structure of the work
and '\he formation of its material."
And in a vivid experience, those perceiving this structure, through the
system of images of the work, participate in the operating of the norms of
motion of the whole existing order of things and, experiencing it in dzzy
ecstasy, participate in the state of being possessed by pathos.
Now it is clea why, independent of the material and the figurative
er<ecution of the content, all examples of art of genuine pathos of different
periods and nations - by the mark of nonconcreteness - by the mark of
the structure of itself - unavoidably and inevitably correspond and must
conespond.
For this strucRrre is a copy of the structure of those norrns of general
movement and development, according to which, changing geological
eras and historical epochs and succeeding social systems, the cosmos
and history and the development of human society move.
If you allow yourself '\o vulgarize" and somewhat mechanize and
debase the picrure of the process discussed here, then the following
phases apparently result:
1. The inspiration of the subject (idea) of the theme.

2. The ecstatic state evoked by the intensity of the inspired experience of the
* '...and tie earth was without form, and void" (Genesis 1:2)' "Tbere was not
nonexistent nor existent...All that existed then was void and formless" (The Rigveda
Song of Creation, Book X, Hymn 129, R. T. H. Griffith, trans., Motilal, Banarsidass,
Delhi, 1973 - HM.l

II.

Patos

t70

Superconcteteneaa

t77

The fornless "beginning" - the course of the laws in which the

- is quickly dressed up in the image of a materially
objective,'ersonified" god.
The participation just experienced (the experience) in the movement of
the universe, which the ecstatic has just shared, is stubbornly ad
foresightedly connected in it - in all the refinement of the mechanics of
forming a conditioned reflex - with the image of an apparently really
existing god, with all the objective attibutes depending on which of tlle
Olympuses it belongs, through whose ecstasy he is approached., out of
what shades of religion and in whose interest this personification is
called from the religions to serve, this creation in the image and likeness
of man, a personication of tlre basic principles and laws of the
moveent of the universal elements!
can one find in tlre positions discussed here any objective testimonial
ecstatic takes part

At this point one would like to bring in data and. illustrations

proving that the process really and truly flows in this way.
Let us limit ouselves now to only one "illustration" the inspired
coloring and refined experience in the "psychotechnique" method of a
'\itness" who is quite convincing. In addition, it will be taken from an
area that, in terms of ecstasy, is close to the ecstasy and patos created in
the area of art.
From the area of religious ecstasy.*
The aims and problems of religious ecstasy, of course, are different
from the aims the art of patos set for itself.
But in the method of achieving "rapture" tley use a psychotechnique
quite close to it.
strictly speaking, "demacation" occurs at the third juncture. At the
stage of material "embodiment'' into a system of concrete images of that
ecstatic experience that the ,.second phase', produced..
In the process of creation of an artistic work, everhing is directed
toward compelling these discovered laws of the movement of the cosmos
to resound and act through the most complete, clear, and varied
presentation of the richness of real objects and concrete images of the
created work, intended for the widest field of social. distribution, contact,
and influence.
In religious ecstasy, the process is also directed toward getting the
formlessness and objectlessness at the highest point of the psychic state
of phase two - "to turn" into a concrete objective image in the third
phase.

But only one.

mental process.
By its nature this "image" is totally abstact. And therefore it is very
diligently "obj ectivized" into concrete objectivity.
* It is quite impossible here
to probe
- this is really the theme of a
the aims, problems, and nature of re
only that featue from both of these
ecstasy

confirmation?
Just imagine, there is!

And what is most surprising

according to just that religiously

colored branch of mage making.

It would appear that, namely, here would have to be hidden forever
every smallest detail that is capable of shedding light on the genuine
psychological features of the mechanics of that psychic process that, not
only for art, met
to Apollo,,'but
also for

religion,

holy, hermetic,

,,
teurgic,l4 and
what kind of practical "analysis" of genuine psychic states at such

moments can take place here?

At best it is possible to expect numerous ad endless authentic poetic
effusions on the theme of their experience at these moments from saint
Theresa, Saint Angelo, Saint Catherine, etc., etc.
And meanwhile, from the very bowels of the mysterious Manresal4r
tjs cradle of the most efined methods of ecstatic psychotechnics - andfrom the hand of the very creator of this most perfect method of achieving
ecstasy, from the hand of Saint lgnatius Loyola,t4z we have a most
interesting psychological observation on the most refined and d.elicate
phase of the ecstatic state - on that very phase we are particularly
interested in here.
However, strictly speaking, in whom would we look fo similar data
tha in a man devoting his staggering energy not only to the creation of
one of the most powerful organizations of the world (for his time and the
periods following it) but who, with sinila persistence, delved into rhe
refinement of the tiniest bend of the human psyche, so that it, as well as
the earthly sphere and the universe, would obey his merciless direction
in fea and obedience to Rome!
However, e scientific honesty, scholarty objectivity, arrd psycho-

fl.

Pathos

172

Iogical perspicacity nevertheless strike with that boldness of the record

of the "materialistic" result of this ruthless observation.
And all this in the epoch of boundless spiritual fanaticism, of the
blossoming of mysticism and the insurmountable veto placed on the
smallest attempt at gnostic scrutinyla3 concerning questions of truth,
religion, or canons established once ad for all!
It is true that this material has been taken from a little notebook of
personal notes not intended for anyone's eyes.
This notebook - is singular.
And what a miracle that it has been kept up till now in contrast to a
whole series of its sisters ruthlessly burnt by St. Ignatius.
And not without reason.
Into these notebooks wee noted down the data ftom the observation of
ecstatic states and "trances" into which Loyola himself plunged, not
omitting here the most penetrating analysis of his own psychic state in
the aims of the most refined treatment of the principles of the
unconditional and shattering "plunge into ecstasy" of his followers,
novices, and flock.
At what moment of careless indiscretion did the Rvrent Pre Poulain
allow a passage from this lirtle notebook to slip into his weighty tome of
exhaustive research and methodological guidance to the "spiritual
exorcism" of Saint Ignatius (Des Graces d'oraison)?
At what moment of a tragic dimming of reason did a chapter of the
Order of Jesuits decide to prinr (although in small print) this unprecedented and improbable assertion of the first general of the Society of
Jesus Christ ("de la compagnie de Jesus")?
In any case, these lines were brought to my attention by this very
book.

Describing for himself - considering that no one ever would see this
- Saint Ignatius defines his experiences at the culminating moment

Superconcreteneaa

I think everhing we need has been expressed here openry, direct.y,

and without beating around the bush.
e whole system of religious
basis of the system of a
not move me right now.
What moves me is

St. Ignace eut de ces visions Manrse.

Il

a dcrit de semblables dans un petit

journal spirituel qu'il avait oubli de brler et qui comprend quatre mois de sa
vie. Parfois une image symbolique telle gue celle d'un soleil, accompagnait cene
vision; mais ce n'etait evidemment qu'un accessoire, Tantt il apercevait "non
point d'une manire obscure, mais dans une vive et ts lumineuse clate l'tre
divin ou l'Essence divine" "sans la distinction des personnes," tantot dans cette
vision il voyait le Pre seul, "sans les deux uues person."*

* Saint lgnatius had these visions in Manresa. He described their appearance in a small
spiritual joumal he forgot to burn and that encompassed four months of his life. Sometimes
a symbolic image accompanies his vision, for example, the irnage of the sun, but it is
evidently only an accessory. At times he perceived *not obscurely, but in a clear, glittering
light, the divine Being o divine Essence" 'Vithout distinction of person," sometimes in
these visions he saw only the Father, '\^ithout the two other persons."

tlre

past master

of psyhotechnics as to

and states
und when it

through which the consci

is in a state of ecstasy.

The formation of the mosf divine concepts and the appearance of

personified gods proceeds in a historical and evolutio.tury *y
along just
such a path as this.

It is

note

of ecstasy in this way:

173

exactly identical for the majority of pre-christian beliefs of

antiquity.

on tle lower (earliest) stage - it is no more than the feeling of a cerrain

force, a cenain principle - formless and objectless.
At a higher stage - the personified divinity reflects the characteristics

being established at this moment of an earlier social formation of

society.

as we have said, the ecstatic person

therefore he also

iUnaT.

hirself eperieru:ingJssenc-ard "Etdj [being] ue.o*ing and

the
principle of becoming, and lne]6 o-f i'the prsonified
g-od,, arso
appears in him "afterwards," when he returns, "enriched,' uy tne objectless and formless experience of ecstasy, to the stage of a normal state.
*

"He saw the Being ofthe Father, but in a manner thar'at first I saw the Being
and rhen the
Father, and my praye ended with the Essence before arriving at the Fathei.,,,
I Footnotes hee in the original
tanslated these terms into .ussian _ HM.l

II.

Patos

174

In art he intro
this o<perience, not in the image of
a god who is "sp
'with tis feeling, ut into a sysrem
of those images
and forrred fom the material and
theme of his pro
a_re those same themes and material
that served him as the originar erements for his inspiration,
as the
contemplation of rerigious "subjects" served the
same p"ipor" for the
ecstatic person.
the way, is a clea picnrre of the sequence of stages
-9r", by
from
religious
inspiration to inspireart.
one should equalry note here both the connection between
them, of
proceeding in stages, as we as the quaritative gurf
betwee'ih"r" t"o
,.activity.,,
varieties of human
(It is approximately the same between the concept of .,culf,
and
"culture," in which historicar sequences are arso
both connected. to each
other and opposed to each othr in approximately the
same way, in
approximately the same degree.)

At this point a

categoricar refinement

of descriptive terminorogy is

necessary so no mistaken concepts may arise.

This is particular\ applicabl to tfre term .,participation.,,

As in the circle of the usual associations ccomianng
it, in the
descriptions of ecstatics as well
- this exrression arways evokes

Superconcteteness

t75

One of the particular manifestations of this matter.

And as such a particular manifestation of it, those same laws function
in us as in any other manifestations of matter.

possible to any extent?

To be more precise: Is this possible as an objectively formuated
presentation of these laws?

It

seems not.

An objective "presentation" may be realized only when the pheno-

menon ca be objectively "presented" to itself, that is, when it is possible

it in font of itself, that is, having separated it from itself, that is,
havi+s put the phenomenon separated from itself, and itserf as an
observer of itself - opposite each otler.

to put

Actually, even in tl'e most co''rmon phenomenon, for example, a

totally "objective" relation to it is possible only under cond.itions of the
removal of any "subjective coloring" in relation to it, that is, any personal
connection wit it except for a scholarly, unprejud,iced intereit us to an
object or exterior phenomenon.
we certainly cannot put ourselves into these conditions that are
necessary for an objective discernment of the laws of the movement of
matter' in respect to that matter tlat we compose (and that composes

us !).

God exists.
He exists outside of us.
Through ecstatic manipuration we participate
with him who is outside
of us (he settles within us, we in him, etc., etc.).
.

This term has quite a different interpretation in the

application we

give it.

of
is,

with the principtes

and function - that

continuous proces
But what is the
Is this the estab

eing, of matter as a

ourside or us

somethins

rike

in individualized form?
No. No. Ald, of course, no.

somewhere,

We ourselves

are part of that very matter.

""lit:

An orientation of our interest to an awareness of this movement

through that part of matte which we ourselves are, which each one of us
is, is inevitably predestined to be inseparable from the subjectivity here
completely dominating us.
Therefore such an orientation to ourselves (into ourselves) cannot
produce objective knowledge.
However, what does such a striving toward oneself give to someone
turning his thoughts in this direction?
It does not give objective knowledge (as we have arready said), but
. . .the subjective experience of these laws.
such a man contemplating may experience t}te laws of the movemenr
of matter; he may feel them subjectively, but he will be incapable not
only of objectivety tanowing them but he will even be incpable of
drawing and describing them ctearly and articulately.
This will be a very curious state,
we are aware of it in less improbable situations and circumstances.
"The common mortal," for example, ,,cannot find the words,, to
describe the feeling that seizes him, for ocample, in a burst of love or in
ecstasy before a suriset. His subjectively tyrical state cannot be arranged
by him into objectively registered rhhms, imqges, or features of that
"state" he experiences.
Being in the area of subjective expeience, he cannot '.become higher

Il.

Pathos

776

Superconcretenesa

177

than himself' and objectively obsene what is happening to him, and in

the proper way, through reproduction by words and speech to give a
concrete, objective presentation of it.
But here comes the poetr who knows how to.'experience,'not less (but
probably more!) strongly the subjective emorional state and., besides
tat, cah also
description, structure,
images, and t
analogous experience
(Pushkin, Tolstoy, or Dostoyevs from the point ofview ofthe "feelings"

of their heroes).
What condition lies at the basis here?
What necessary prerequisite is operating here? Il/hat provides tle
possibility to the writer to "objectivelt'' (and, in addition, as sensitively
and subjectively colored as you please) srate through the individuat

"particula/'experiences ofhis heroes the very essence ofthose feelings,

the truth of their nature according to given norms?

Why does '\he word seize" him where, in someone incapable of
becoming more subjectively enslaved by his feelings, ..speech is
paralyzed" and he is capable of "burning with experience," but incapable
of leaving a nonephemeral trace of it in concrete images or precise
concepts and ideas about these feelings? First of all, because such a
truly great artist is never limited to introspection alone.
Parallel to "knowing oneself' and as a necessul condition for tlis
awareness - he knows others: He knows the maifestations of tlose
same feelings in others that are analogous and exist objectively aound
him.
(This includes rhat knowledge of reality without which a creator and.
artist cannot exist.)
In this process he stands at the opposite exteme: Here in a conflict
with someone else's feelings - he is completely separated from them, he

is completely opposite to them - he is in a condition of compete

separation, complete objectivity.

But such a position, of course, can occur only in a mathematically
abstract situation. And if one follows such a concept of the existing
order of things, unintentionally and unavoidably the artist must arrive at
the principle of the unknowability of the nature of thiags, the unknow-

This can be direct, unforeseen, ad unenvisaged shock. or speciar

which one can ,,bring" oneself to this state.

mens by

be achieved also by means of narcotics,

evoke any shades of the psychic srates,
of the physical and psychic-psychologicat

But I am asked if it is obviously impossibre to recognize these raws

inside oneself, then is tre sensation of trem in oneseri possibre?
Isn't this fantasy?
As an answer to tis, let us look once again at exampres that are
simpler, closer, and more accessible.
fom the area of subjective feeling, like
th
or the registation in one,s sensations of

th

t. . .l If such is the position witl mastering the nature of one's own

II.

Patos

178

Onthe question of suprahistory

179

You begin "to notice" your breathing apparatus only when your
"breathing stops" or there is ,'shortness of breath., And finally, there is an immense collection of so-called subsensory
phenomena, i.e., those that act on us not only witrrout
being noticed. in
out being registered in our sensations.
moodsl, the intoduction of additional
this threshold of sensory perception;

al2ation

a transport out

i::":j.":i"ff.""i"","?",""i1,1T,ll"
it is clea that in the aea of sensation
more than is usually thought, those laws of
movement in which our "material essence,'manifests itself,
that is, we as
"bundles" of thinking material.
be a certain release from tle generally accepted.
ps
degree of liberation from superstructural lJyers
of
ions and ideas; that is, tht primeval, purely
sensual state into which a "patient" is prunged by the whole
invented
system of "exercises" Ieading to state of ecstasy.
The pantheistic "serf-dissorution of self in a universar feeling,,,
in
nature, "the sensation of serf as one with the heavens, the grasses,
and.
the insects" (on this see, for exampre, the word.s of Geoige
sand,l
which we wil write about elsewhere in this vorume, in the chapter
Nonindifferent Nature) is absolutely relevant here.
It is a "picturesque" description of the same feeling that everything ,.is
governed" by a single system Of laws tO which
uuu, iry own littleness is
subordinated through a sense of "participation" in ttris
structure.
Participation is understood as a feeling of generar unison,
as leading
to a "reality of feering" of trese same penneaiing and univrsat
raws in
oneself, within oneself, as well. [. . .]

it is possible to penetrate,

On the questin of suprahistory

The excerpt from Loyola's notebook cited. above is extremery

remarkabre.
A whole system of cunningry invented. technicar aevices
in the
"patient" evokes a definite state of exartation, nervous
excitement, and
stare

wish to call it.

in and of itsett, ri-Tpsyclologicat

there is a stage in the state of thnking when trere is

understanding, and the only mean

stil

no rcn
rv

Ecstasy

is

exactry rike

this in its final peaks: a transport out of

s (rs EserLlar moments of physicat

:"f."J::iiiT"":".r?:?"""",,arreeconsciousness,beins
existence,
human
(I wi' not discuss the fact here
,'grows,,
that the curt

concepts at lower stages of

develo

,_"rri

itserf
out of
with those same
"orrrr"cted

of

Il.

Pathos

180

"events." Right now I am interested in the "second. phase" when the cult
no longer lets the reflex apparatus out of its clutches, continuing to rivet
religious concepts to consciousness by means of a ,,reflex arc,,!)
How all-embracing and appropriate this technique is can be seen from
the experience of war.
A son returned safe from the front. Or a husband. Or a father. foy,
And the senant of the cult drops by the house apparently by chance.
Even more accidentally he drops the phrase.
"And we prayed for the health of your son (husband., father).',
The heightened, intensified emotional state is ready and willing to
color any phenomenon falling into its orbit (the desire to "share" joy) and
is unusual.y receptive to receiving such an irrelevant communication,
almost as if it were the prime cause!
And the trap for the establishment of the first reflexive or associative
tie of religion and well-being has already been ser; this is particul.arly
convincing for a consciousness that is not too steadfast or predisposed,
and in a state ofjoy; that is, ofheightened effect less controlled. by reason
or analysis, and therefore quite compliant to this type of influence at a
grven moment.
This same technique also works in a state of '.grief."
The father has been kitled. The son. The brother. The husband.

Again

a poignant effect.

And sometimes a mournful sigh of sympathy is sufficient: ,,Oh, why

didn't you pray to God to watch over your father (son, brother, husband)"
in order to connect the concept of the possibility of avoiding sorrow with
the name of the Lord God!
One can read about this "technique', in .iterature also, and not only in
artistic literature, but even in Mancist literature.
And in the latter - because of a touching description of a scene of
similar technique, described in the form of the spiritual good deed of a
pastor-mentor, from whom Man< angrily and damningly tears off the
mask of falsehood and hypocrisy, thus revealing the "mechanics."
The description belongs to Eugne sue and is taken from the touching
pages of The Mysteries of Paris, devoted to how Madame George and the
priest Laforte are taking care of the spiritual salvation of Fleur-de-Marie.
And the exposure of Man< and Engels taken from the pages of criticism
in Te Hdy Family (III), devastating for this novel:
Let us follow Fleur-de-Marie on her evening walk with Laforre, whom she is
accompanying home,
"Look, my child," he begins his unctuous speech, .,at the boundless horizon,
whose limits are invisible to the eye" (it was in the evening). "I think the stillness
and boundlessness almost inspire us with the idea of eternity. . . I am saying this
to you, Marie, because you are susceptible to the beauty ofthe universe. . .I have
often been touched by that religious ecstasy which they evoked in you. . . in you,
who have so long been without religious feeling."

Onthe question of suprahistory

181

The priest had arready succeeded. in turning the spontaneous,

naive, joyful
enthusiasm of Marie for tre beauries of nature into retigus
;;,h;!i**.
Narue
has been depreciated to the bigoty of chistianized nature.
It has been brought
down to the lever of ceation, The transparent ethereal
ocean has been dethoned
and turned into a symbol of motionresJ eternir. Maria
already perceivea that alr
human manifestations of her being were of an ,,earthly,,
nature, that they are
wirout religion, true horiness, that they are anti-rerigius,
goatss. . .

That is, again we see tlat this special psychic state

of ..rapture,, _
infinitud
ar twilight, a
,, no
address,"
definite
ured by F
s into,, forms
use of its
ith images of
relgious
conceptions.

se
^.
ur

e series of figures of particularly

ntemplation of the magnificence

to fall into exaltation or a state of
ecstasy, then the case discussed above is compretely
appropriate both
from the nature of the observation of Ignatius Loyot -an
from the
'technique" of the use of the given circumstance in the
interests of
religion. (Let us recar the "ecstasy' of pierre Bezukhov
in war and

Peace.)

And the concrusions of Marx and Engers put a final

dot on the ',i,, in
this matter!
However, right now I am interested in something
different.
Namery, that it folrows that such a state of rapture
whether under the
influence of contemprating evening nature, or as a
result of the psychic
"exercises" of st. Ignatius's system can also be
coupred wiii, i-ug",
that are totally unreligious.
is not Fleur_de_Marie who will be looking
ar
ure the crafty Father Laforte links with the
sy
then it will be a poet reveling in the
landscape, pining for-a beautifuI lady, or a sociar
reformer - then the
rapture of the first will merge in him with the image
of the Iady of his
heart, and the second's rapture at the infinite ,.op
of the heavens wilr
"stick to" the breadth of those good d.eeds that he intends
to shower on

humanity.
Thus it turns out that one and the same evening s,
having evoked a
definire, particular psychic state (raprure-exaltation)-in
tnre different
cases adds exarted rapturous cororing to three quite
different objects:
Go!, u pretty lady, and a utopian plan of social reform.
The state itself - is vague and. neutral, objectless, and
only in
combination with an object of interest, on the on hand,
aoes it take on
material objectivity of the content of eiperience and,
on the other hand,
"!aises" the very experience-of each of these themes to the ..unreachabre
height" of uplifting, exalted effect.

II.

Patos

182

The kangaroo

183

Thus, before us is an example of such a "particura-1' state, whose

characteristic mark is, on the one hand., its transport beyond the bound.s

of the concept-image of an object, and on the other of the ability to add

its dynamic intensity to any image acting in connection with it.
The sensation, "first of being."
And'then - God."
And, therefore, tlere is nothing surprising in the fact that these states
of "ecstasy," "exaltation, ', .,frenzy,', and ,.being beside oneself' are
similar both in their distinctive features and in the method of their
psychological "bringing into being.,'
They are brought into being through a definite psychic,,distillation,'of
perception through distinctly arranged phases of the wor copied from
the structure of the phenomenon itself. (we defined this stulture and
phases as a system of qualitative jumps, marking a continuous transition
from quantity to quatity.)
Therefore we should not be at all surprised at the fact that, in
extremely different authors or anonymous authors, this basic structure
turns out to be identical in terms of its overwhelming featule.
An accusation of the "suprahistoriciq/' or "ahistoricitf' of this
condition is not appropriate here.
In the rst place, according to the actuar materia-r of the anarysis, this
condition is demonstrated quite clearly.
But, in the second place, also in terms of the interpretation of the real
cause for this condition, to which we have devoted so much space.
And finally, because,

from

tle beginning of the viral

The degree of the distincress of th

ing to the extent higher forms of soci
highest of them - the reality of the clas
and the broadening of our means of

lbe kangaroo

once had to write somewhere, but perhaps not about the

fact that
everything I once thought absorutery necessary to-examine

areas of art

- I always first encountered

enthusiasm.

in

separate

as an object of direct passionate

I became intoxicated with Daumier much earrier than I was abre to

realize the significance he rater had for the development
ortne principles
of expressive human movement.

)+'

I was enthusiastic about china much earrier than when its hierogryphics helped me master and und.erstad the system
of rnontage
speech.rae

And in the same way, "I rove"* is similar to "wait for Me,'r ad stanzas
of Dante to "I Remember the Wonderful Moment,,'r
*

[See Herbert Marshall, Vadimir Mayakovsky, Dobson, London, 1977, p. 122 _ LfM.)
By Constantine Simonov - HM.l
t
[By Alexander Pushkin, - HM.] walter Arndt, pusn Threefold, Dutton, New york, 1972,

And tlie enthusiasm for primitives rong preced.ed an understanding

of
the norms of their sensuous thinking, wtrictr, rike pandora,s
box, hides
the whole syntax of the laaguage of the forms of art.rso

It is striking that the chain-rocket method of ecstatic writing first

began to occur

in conceptions that were quite irrelevant ana nturative.

as a comic picrure...

Moreover!

p.

And in two aspects.

As a memory of a comic tale.

18

HM.

ll.

Pathos

tu

And as a thick black vignette illustrating it in the whole tength and

breadth of the white pages of the stand Magazine of one of those years
preceding the Imperialistic War of 7g74.
I am a respectable hoarder and love to hang on to any material I found

striking. I keep it to remember. It might come in handy.

And quite recently in a bu
me this very
page of the tale that had o
the English
monthly Strand Magazine.
rmong my
household goods because it
es of Conan
Doyle about. . .Sherlock Holmesf)
I must say with pride that the memory of it arose much earlier, in te
form of a direct association with a possible aspect that the formula of
ecst
ake in the case of a comic interpretation.
L
argins of the English magazine, there jump
one
ly smaller - kangaroos.
Not one after another!
But one out of the other!
out of the "pouch" of the biggest arc flies out tle second in size. out of
the pouch of the second - the somewhat smaller third.
Out of rhe third - the fourth !
Out of the fourth - the fifth.
And it seems that it won,t end until the sixth, until the tweHth!
What is going on?
\Arhat is the source ofthis chain ofkangaroos, scared to death, ejected
"rocketlike" from each other?!
They are illustrations to the short (second) comic story of tricks
invented by smugglers.
In the first story the dodger smuggles dozens of . . . alarm clocks across
the border, having them swallowed beforehand by...an ostrich, for
which he does pay duty.
They play a wicked joke on him.
An offended partner winds all the alarm clocks to go off at exactly the
minute when the ostrich will have to pass solemnly through the
customhouse.
The alarm clocks begin to shake inopportunely, d.ue to the panic in the
ostrich who, it turns out, was .,unpacked" a bit too early.
The second story is about kangaroos.
And of someone who wanted to bring twelve pieces of merchandise
over the border, after having paid duty for only one.

Twelve kangaroos are carefully put one after the other successively
into the "pouches". ..
But then at the critical moment the largest of the kangaroos. .
sneezes ! And. . .what happens is that they run like black spots across the
white margins bordering the story. Like a catapult, all twelve kangaroos
shoot out of each other!
.

lbe kangaroo

185

I am not trying to assert that the lively potpourri (settling somewhere

into the layers of the subconscious) of the customhouse tat" of the
kangaroo family definitely hetped me in interpreting the ecstatic scheme
of te construction of pathosl
Altlough, of course, it is very suspicious why somewhere between
Pianesi and Frederick Lematre, iust behind the comer from El Greco
ad tlre Battleship Potemkin, just these twelve prayfur surviving
inhabitants of the Ausualian plains had to intrude, in the form of an
"accidental" association, with silly tricks of an absolutely identical

forurula.

Neve
th
And

, in the form of an association, emerged

that had once attracted my attention.
they loudly - as "friends of childhood,,_
demanded the rights of residence here in the environment of serious

from

effective images,

making claims to an island of comic interpretation of material

according to the canons of ecstatic writing.

One must agree witJr this. [. . .]

taphoric concept to a nonmetaphoric) of

elf' than a kangaroo jumping out of the
absolutely identical to it (and actually
Many, mmy yea later - after the end. of Wortd War II _ I again
remembered my contemporaries: the kangaroos from an epoch preceding

World War I.

What provoked my memory was the very well-known, popular

drawings of Saul Steinberg.*
The simplicity of his dlawing is striking, not only in the purity of its
line but also in its theme.
llrhat seems even more striking is the exceptionally strong attraction
of this, apparently not only vapid, but simpty trivial drawirig.
Meanwhile, its effect is almost hypnotic.
Ad this drawing consists of - all in alt - a hand with a pen drawing
the arrival of
the achitect
war. His ant

the fronr in I

II.

Patos

t8

A priest had a dog

And he loved it.
It swiped a piece of meat,

And he loved it.

It swiped a piece of meat,

And he killed it.

And into the earth he dug,
And an inscription he mote,

And a inscription hewrote,

That-apriesthadadog,

Thekangaroo

t87

And he killed it.

And into tle earth he dug,

That-

a priest had a dog,

And he loved it,

etc,, etc.

The attnction of this irrelevant, innocentf End appa-rently vapid

drawing is built on many elements,
Not only on that hypnotic effect, which has a constant monotonous
repetition, inevitably inserting "automatism" into the viewe/s perception
and from here on his visuar behavior, evoking a temporary iniibition
of
gray matter in the brain.
And especially in the thematic side of it.
Actually here that same thing that was represented. in our kangaroos
is
depicted in black and white: Here step by step a man comes out
f a man,
comes otrt of a man, comes out of a mrn.
But each person is identical to the other, and thus te ma
continuously - is being beside himself!
Here the difference in size is not even distacting.
That is, before us there seems to be a extreme version of the formally
observed condition of ecstatic construction.
we are already aware of its profound. ties with the structure of the most
profound life processes, and therefore we shourd not surprised
by the
uniquely fascinating effect proceeding from here, of the unprecedented
chain reaction of the drawing created by such a prescriptin.
However, why is there no effect of an orplosion trerei
First of all, the dynamics of any drawing are, of course, conventional,
and a genuine explosion in tre conventions of a drawing has to be
conventional, although by certain meus it can lead to very ecstatically
explosive effects, Iess completely, perhaps, than painting oi etching (w
did after all anae El Greco and piranesi!), but Jtitt powerrul in its own

terms.

However, in this drawing - secondly, even basica.l.ly _ the most

important condition cf evoking an ecstatic effect of being beside oneself
is not observed - this leap is not accompanied by a leap into a new
quality.

Figure 14. Ca:toon by

Saul

Steinberg: @ 1945, 1973 The

New Yorker Magazis, s.

its continuously increaslack of a qualitative leap,

motion, where the frenzy
concentration of waves being dispersed.

ca
be
as

circles on water

like

oder not to be perceived as one whole, must

d into one; the hord is perceived nor simply
as a multisound unit of both a definite sound
"composition" and its interrelationships].

II.

Patos

188

The kangaroo

189

However, this same steinberg also often uses the exact scheme of the

EX

IT

separated from the

sents, let us say other's hand on the

Here it is interesting to note that the direction of reading drawings
done according to this scheme is doubre, or to be more prcise two
directional.
on the one hand, if one reads them according to the formura "smar,
smaller, smallest," we have before us a rush into the depths, baclcwards,
into a cell, and within the timits ,,into zero.,,

on the other hand - with equal success one can read a similar column
as an image of "progressive" movement forward in the aspect of scale
in reverse; that is, of spatial perfectability from ,,zeto,,,from a ,,cell,, to
-

And.

doesn't this

tie at the basis of yet another of its

outer

appearances, stunning in its simplicity and in the profundity of the

conception of the drawing lying behind it? where is the path toward the

humanity, and by its crown, growing into infinity

of heavenly perspec_
tives of the tuture .:.i11 andlpiritul progress
of humaniry.
Here given shtisticarty in a comic
it contains within itserf
t.at same figurative embod.iment of this
""h"*",
thought
as those
or
",
drawings read .'from any end.,,rha: we rirrg"r"u"iu;;;u, systems
Th
them
form,
that,

pairs themselves, but the actual pr

formation of phenomena of nature and
its inhabitants - by cycles or
generations immutably one from t re
other.
The principre discussed above ries somewhat
less riterarty emphas_
ized in another favorite theme of steinberg,s
as welr - to show a harfopened door through which the next half-opened
door is visibre, through
which - the next, then the next, etc.
Finally, there is the fascinating exampre of a
deviation so remote from
the basic scheme that one
it
only by .,renouncing,, the
""rt'.".ogrrze
everyday motivation on which
it is bsed.
This is - surprised passers-by looking at a gigantic
profire by which a
little boy with charcoar in han, crawtig atn!
the ,"*ult, ourlines
them.

exit drawn las in Fig. f5]?:

is the point of sto

t
t
*

the formula of that

cted _ equally des

ccumulation

of

Junk: a Chincsc flat-bottomcd ship with balrcncd sails_ Wcbstcr,s.

nto

of

contour.

section of the figures of the passers_by by

the
drawn on te ground, if read.flaty,,,that is,
to
associations _ simpty as a two_imensional
as a smaller human figure .,flying out,,
of the

In this form of a larger human being (a human

face), the d.irect

connecrion of this drawing wirh the basic
scheme we ue taced by
wlch Steinberg works, is apparent.
Equally comprehensibte is the attractive force
of this drawing as we, _

E.

Pathos

190

Figure 1. Canoon by Saul

vvr
_steinberg (Hitler__invading Russia).
------E/ Copyrignt
1943, Saul Steinberg; originally
appe"e in pM, ic43-

even more attractive

its own way, since here the basic .,attacting,,

_in
image is given not dir-ectly,
but aJ penetrating through the everyday
subject. The "attracting" scheme of th transport
of the lmdt figure out
two interpretations,',
two dimensionally or,

thus"-aconditionin

creared as weu as its quite

,nu*.n,*,#i::ntif

the drawins is

However, let us now look more intently at the reason

why these
drawings are so effective.
on our path to rhis it is perhaps appropriate to mention that .verbar
equivalents" of the constuction of the firstdrawing are not
limited to the
"ballad" of the priest and his dog.
This is the style - usualry of a tripre repetition that rhe
late poetess of
trans-English and trans-French letters uied to rove
to write in _^Gertmde
Stein, whom I was fortunate enough to meet in pais
i 1929.rs1
The "mechanisms" at trre basis of steinberg's d.rawings
ad Gertrude
Stein's 'Verses" are exactly the same.
The witty and ironic apfDcation of tese mechanisms
by steinberg
often satiricar drawings differentiates trem (see, for xampre, to
the
traditional application of it thar has been anaryzed in being
.ppii"a to u
caricature of Hitler
in significance), at
herself," formlessly

of surprise "once,"

applied both oppornrnely and inoppornrnely (and most often

inoppornrnely).

it

was

thekangaroo

191

II.

Patos

192

Sergey suburb, where into a conventionally depicted human figure mostly female (let us remember Eve!) - are stuck in succession those
same "small, smaller, smallest" female figures. (Of course, even here
somewhere along the way there probably was a cult ritual stage that has
been Lost and probably the transitional "crosspiece" leading from it to
the matiskas.) Nevertheless, another toy, in principle if not in
appearance, is connected with the mafskas.
It is remarkable that in its dynamics it corresponds to what the basic
drawing of Steinberg showed us in the form of consecutive static
drawings of beings besides themselves and little figures drawing
themselves, with which conversation about it begar.
This toy - is the system of sticks attached by hinges arrd arraaged
crosswise that instantaleously (pay attention: instantaneously!) fly out
lengthwise, as soon as the ends of the sticks at one of the extremeties of
the system are pressed (see the drawing).

Here also each new pair of sticks comes out (is thrown out) of each
preceding pair. The sticks are equal in size, but they are charged by
speed, and this occurs at one and the same moment, magnificently
growing from the beginning sticks to tlre sticks at the end, which are
capable at that interval of time of being hurled an incomparably greater
distance.

From here the free end of the system flies out instantaneously, so
swiftly and incommensurably, with a quantity of the spent energy.
If you could imagine this system still exploding - flylng to pieces then I think that in this toy you could find a model of the instantaneous
effect of a huge exp.osion, as in the simultaneous mutual ejection of a
whole chain of separate links; that is to a certain extent what occurs in a
"chain reaction" of the fission of uanium, observed only from the point
of view of the accumulation of the dynamic enetgy of an explosion.
This toy is also good because it cLearLy demonstrates plastically what
we had in mind when we spoke about a spatial complex of illumination,
"straightened" into "chains" of ornament or presented in a sequence of
sounds.
The first will be drawing A, the second - drawing B, the "culmination"
-: the dynamics of the moment of transition from one to the other.
In the case of Steinberg - a chain of little figures drawing and growing
out of each othe will be B - the "resuLt'' is dawn in t}le sketch.

The kangaroo

193

According to this result, perception "collects" them back into A. This

occurs at the moment of the recognition of their identity; the recognition

of a similar identity can generally also be realized only

through
speculatively putting separate depictions on top of each other, which
thus give a precise flanened scheme of the state A in contrast to the
"extended"

B.

speculatively the next phase also flows as

a.n

"explosion" from state

to state B.
A trace of the dynarnics of such a speculative process is included in
the actual literal meaning, that one figure comes out of another, that
one figure draws (that is, actively - realy - calls to life and being)
.A

another.

on the other hand, the system of continually decreasing boxes going

into each other - a toy especially popular in the East is answered
"mirror image" by. . .the pyramids of peoples, which grow into mammoth

size. The invasions of these peoples swept earlier cultures away, erecting
new pyramids over the existing pyramids, swallowing them into the
core by their incomparably huge size.
Thus one on top of another kind of "coverup" hangs strata of Mexican
pyramids placed one on top of the other. rvvhether they are in far-off
chichn rE- Yucatan, where that is done with palaces; or in cenrral
Mexico - near the Pyramid of the sun and the Moon in san Juan de
Teotihuacn. Incidentally, this method of "entombing" more ancient
pyramids under the sata of new pyramids ensures complete protection
for monuments of an earlier stage of culture, in strata going deep, one
under the othe.
Excavations in Mexico are carried out by cutting such ,'stratified.',
consuctions section by section, and the Lower stratum is revealed in an
almost perfect, untouched state of preservation.
The spanish conquerors continued the process by erecting on the
pyramids. . .Catholic cathedrals.
It is interesting to note how seemingly, right up to the fifteentl and
sixteenth centuies instinctively in this process - in the reverse
direction! -the scheme of the "ejection of the next out of self,has been

preserved.

It is natural that the

scheme of the most obvious embod,iment of the

irnage of a "liquidation of the preceding" had to use the directly opposite

scheme of "coverup."

we should not forget what an exuemely decisive role tleir figurative

stucnrre had in all early rituals. The image of a sjmila stucture in these
periods is at the same time an actual fact, and not a figurative reflection
of it in ceremonial. forms. And in this situation the outer form, by means
of which the liquidation of the subjugated previous culture occurred,
had a definite "practical" signi.flcance. It is not accidental that such a

ll,.

Pahos

194

method of cover up of one pyramid by another exists everywhere in

Mexico."
In this device we probably have a multilevel metaphor of eath and
stone of approximately the same sound as what is preserved in the
literarl metaphor "to cover."
Until now one says of an orator who has beat the argument of his
opponent that he has "covered him with a higher cad." (i.e., trumped
him)
And a map with a great number of points on all corners of the earthly
sphere, for some reason, until now has been considered as "covering" a
smaller map, which it destroys or subdues (especially when, in the form
of a "trick," it brings the smatle "trumped' one to itself...into
captivity!).t
The actual act of the coverup by placing the new pyramid onto the cild
one includes the conscious act of destruction in its plastic form,
naturally "reverse" to the act that responds to the entry of the new God
into the world: Out of the womb (the middle) the arising one mingles
in the middle (in the
,
t Ot courser only a s
u), fatisfaction to the fig
$image prevails by its
Thus, in these external reflections of conceptions in objects we have
analyzed (apparently quite unmotivaed), as in all the enumerated
interpretations, fantastic in form, we see an awlanad attempt to include
in a tangible, imagistic form, in a new aspect, the vague feeling of the
"spiral" repetition of features and chaacteristics of phenomena according to the degree of evolutionary movement and quantitative leaps from
generation to generation (the actual transition from self into those
simila to oneself), from tyle to type, fom form to forrn. And such
soaring repetitions, from the smallest particles to the whole, which we
observed above in the structural laws of natural development, correspond to formulas ot togar.lln'icry!|and the g1}lqsgBg".
* [Many Mexican cultures pncticed this among themselves, Pierre lvanov says, "The
discovery of one edifice inside another is not o(ceptional, for the Maya of the classical
period often demolished their temples in older to build new ones in the sarne place. The
Aztecs also, like the Toltecs, followed this procedure in obedience to a ritual'edicf that

required the destmction of all temples at the beginning of every fty-two-year cycle.'As a
sign of new life, new sanctuaries sprang up on the enlarged pyramids" (Pierre lvanov,
Monuments of Civilization: Maya, Grosset & Dunlop, New Yor 1973, p. 102) - HM.l
lThe correspondence to the cattle breeding connotations of this term does not contradict
this in any way. Just the opposite - we should not forget tlat the very rst form of subduing
oneself was realized by this method, and among men at the dawn of the formation of human
society - at the slage of couples getting manied - where the f,rst enslavement was
intoduced at the same time as this act. As is well known, Man( and Engels see in this the
principle of the enslavement of women by man, which they consider the "kernal" of the next
exploitative principles of class society (see The Origin of the Family, Private Propefiy and
Government) [by F. Engels, International Publishers, New York, 1972].

Thekangaroo

195

The "trouble" wittr all these concepts - and the reason they excite our
curiosity - Iies, of course, in the fact that they are a]l uying to present the
dynamic principle, the Dorm, concretely and figuratively.
In addition, the law is taken not as the structural principle of their

constructions (which, in such a case, even takes on the actua.

corresponding reality - which the given work has discussed at length),
but as the content of concrete tepresentation.
It is quite clea that this was appalent in the prrncIe of "being beside
oneself'presented concretely through a phalarx of kangaroos.
Thus, tlrough a comic structure there operates that same basic
generalization of the law that underlies serious stnctures (partty also at
the basis of structu-res of patos, where they are presented and act in the
most complete and pure form), thus ensuring the efficiency of the
construction.
The comic "accent'' on them presents the conflict of a similar early
conception face to face with a contemporary conception, which has
already overcome a former one, connected with an earlier structure of
ideas, in its turn aLso overcome by todays stage of the d.evelopment of
consciousness.

A comic effect is always achieved by

from which the olosion results) of
different levels, when in a corresponding

ct,
ro
as

equally correct and equally significant.

It is interesting that it is not the more progressive that a_re necessarily
funny, but the more baclarard ones turn out to be in the comic position;
for example - the chivalrous, romantic Don euixote who has ,,overstayed" beyond the limits of his epoch.
I was definitely convinced of this, in a very remote area of Mexico, for
mentioning the second story of a house. The Mexicans in this area
never having learned about two-story structures - really burst out
not live on top of \
to name even otr" I

only greeted witfr

Be it the orchesation of wagner, the "eccentlic" assertion that people

can fly in the air, or the first discoveries of the Curies or pasteur.ls

(The dean

of

ambridge Universiry, J.

J.

Thomson,lsT in
he was young, a special
Commission of G
of which he was a member,
was amusing itself by testing the assertion of a similar crank, who said
he could be lowered to the bottom of a pond in a covered boat and would.
s'wim back up again. Of course, he didn't emerge at the top: He sank in
the mud, ald they had to pull out the "ill-fated" inventor with hooks, and
this in the space of only one incomplete human life, from two world wars
which raged with the cruelest underwater battles!)

/vr

.. '

- l. Pathos

19

re kangaroo

797

t'.

.'-' ,
t' -.
Besides which, it wouldn't hurt to remember that a comic effect also
. *,--odischarges and discharges...Iike al explosion. Let it be a burst of
1 ' laughter. But the burst - is a leap from dimension to dimension - which
,,-t'- 'also lies at the basis here as well. [. . .]

problem of the main compositional difference in an identical external

appearance between structures of pathos and comedy (this is a problem
for a separate work) - Iet us only point out the remakable similarity
(identity!) of the method of constructing one and the other.
For this we will bring in several examples where the "formula of the
kangaroos," taken not really figuratively but as a structural principle, is
employed in the interest of very different effects - effects of pathos.
One of the most exalted pictures in conception and composition on the
theme of the Madonna in world art is Sa.int Anne, the Madonna, and the
Infant Jesus with Saint lohn by Leonardo da Vici.rs8
There is an opinion that this picture, quite uncommon in both theme
and composition, owes its unusual quality to pureLy biographical data
on the childhood of Leonardo da Vinci, which reflect in it their
singularity,
They suggest that a group represented in this way bears the figurative
imprint of those special family conditions in which the child Leonardo
grew up.lse
Whether this is the genesis of this original composition or not,
nevertheless, what resulted was a group of three figures, each growing
out of the bosom of the preceding, and, in addition, distributed so that
each of the subsequent figures appears to grow out of the preceding.
This "play of characters" is motivated by the fact that the Infant Jesus
reaches from his mother's knee toward the boy John, and the mother,
trying not to drop him from her arms, bursts forward from the kees of
Saint Anne, on which she is placed.
From the purely physical aspect, we have three figures here representatives of three generations - from which each bursts out of an
embrace - from the bosom (Scoss) (in German, Schoss means both "in
the arms" and "bosom" in the direct sense of '\,vomb") of the older one
and appears to continue it (the older) externally. It is interesting to note
that, if one compares the finished picture witl the magnificent sketch for
it, the distinctness of this dynarrics is achieved only in the finished
creation.
This concept even comes through in the name by which this picture is
known among German art historians: Heilige Anna SelbdrilT - something like our Russiar '\hree-yield." It is interesting that a similar term,
inapplicable in Russian examples of art, preserves its applicability
where it is a matter of pure reproduction of self in the next generation for example, in agriculture, where the identity of the descendant is

Figure 17. St. Anne, the Virgin, and, Child by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 147011490
(Louvre, Paris) [Clich des Muses Nationaux 878N374].

II.

Pathos

198

thekangaroo

3f ::ttlY^tororce-trrffi

199

move according to the ,,prosram_

i'i'9:,::*::.1'::-::,-:-.""'-Trvcurmin;^i;'t",,*;',iliil;

i3:::ft9-"^-9".,0"ins)-erreciorapnvsicto;:';".*"',":
l":":.:::,]::l:_,_""_"j,h._i..tr,"."t"_r:,;il'rff #;"."#:".i3;

:i:::::t:1':11-"-'-ry*abrephvsic'r',i"oi;^;:',i::iJ
possession of man by the powei
t pauos

The areas of application are diffeient.

But the stages ae identical.
The natue of the effects achieved is
different.
But the 'Tor'uras" at the basis of ttrese
nigrrest stages of manifestation, independent of the aeas thems"io"r,
ar" identical.
For at their basis tie the fundame
the results of those processes that
power of nature. This seems to be
of the ancients about Anteus,
by the closest connection wittr
the ancients - with the eath.
essence of the raws of the movement
and formation of the rniverse.

{ "'u

(:II AI'TI:I.

ITI
Once aain on the structure
of thins

Once again on the

strucule of things

207

an opposite way fror-r that which

the European
The "King ot Jazz," paur vrrritemai,-ir,", ear is accustomed to.
in his autobiography:*

familia ba of music. Suppose

we rake
original form:

In a book on directing I have been writing no$r for many years,l among
various other problems I noticed one interesting fact, which was the way
the general dialecric position on rhe unity of opposites is applicable to
the area of composition.
A definition of it is that, under any given compositional conditions,
both the direct solution and its diect opposite are equally valid and

Now les "Jazz" i up.

effective.

This phenomenon also occurs in the treasule house of expressive

manifestations of man - in nature itself.
Thus, for example, in a moment of tenor a man not only backs away
from what inspires fear in him, but, just as often, as if bewitched, he is
drawn and comes closer to what inspired this fea.
Thus, the edge of an abyss "draws" you toward it. Thus, the criminal is
"drawn" to the scene of the committed crime instead of rushing away
from it. Etc., etc.
So in a composition, deriving its experience from the materiaL of
reality, these circumstances can be immediately reveaLed. even in the
most trivial examples.
If, for example, it was decided that at a certan moment in playing a
role one had to utter a ftenzied scream, then one could. also certainly say
that a barely heard whisper would be just as powerful at rhis point. If
rage is resolved in ma:cimum movement, then a complete "petrified"
stillness would be no less effective.
If Lear is powerfuI in the storm surrounding his madness, then the
directly opposite solution - madness in the environment of the complete
calm of "indifferent nature" - will be no Less powerful.
Of two opposites, one is usually more ,,marketable,, ad corrmonplace. And therefore you think of it first. The second acts more
unexpectedly and more sharply; it is fresh because it is unusual. Let us
just recall the dizzy. effect of the Negro syncopated movement of jazz,
where the principle of accentuation, the sa-ure for al.l music, is solved. in
200

."j:j:tffi":

melodies.

later

and the fox-tror had become

1*
cases of the opposite arise...,fr" i"":rzing,,
when jazz

of

rnstrument and turns the fox-trot

i
film.

given case, the '.reverse,,

the concrete ideological
sence of the fiIm.

,":":"-"li:',]"'J'',.'rJi:

kly became very popular; although

ilarly ..unusual,, opposi,u *u" ,ro,
For exampl

becaus;
l,Immobilit;,)

just

he Thtre Franaise,

bjtiry ("La poesie

this teater.

* Paul Whiteman
and Mary Margaret McBride
, Iazz,I.H. Seas, New yor! 1926,p.

de

llg.

III.

Once again

s the structure

of things

202

And Dumas-pre himself intr

examples of the effectiveness of
In Dumas,
Mme. Mars.a

not understand the drama, and when trre reheasar

was in fulr swing he
took away his ptay.
He handed the play over to anotrer trreater,
where the rore of Adet
was played by another famous actress _ the young
Dorval-.I. . . She

properly.

"But

she was neve able to perform

am lost!" (.'Majs je suis perdu moi!,,) _ she

was

supposed to have
shouted, on discovering that her husband,
whom she had betrayed with Antony,
just

had
arrived. . .
she was never able to utter this sentence. . ..and yet
she fert that, if uttered
conectly, these words would make a huge inpression.
And suddenly ir was as if she had a ievelation.
"Are you here, my good author?" she asked, approaching
the footrights so she
could see into the orchesa stalls.
"Yes...whafs wrong?,, I answered.
"How did Mme. Mas ptonounce the words: ,But I
am lost'?,,
"She was sitting and with these words jnmFsd
up.,,
"so," Dorvar said, returning to her ptace. ..t wiI
stand, and with these words I
will sit down."
In the intoxication of the success of the premier",
her parher Bocage forgets
to return the anchai that was o""er""tylo,
this scenel "t oo-*-ireized by
passion, does not notice this.
. . .Instead of falting on the cushion
of the anchair, she fell on its aru, but
.
witl
such a shout of despair, in which there resounded
such pain of a wounded,
renr and beaten soul, that the entie aud.itorium jrmped
out of its seats.

The reverse solution was no less justified

than the ,.d.i_ect.,,
Of- course, a purely mechanicj consructjon
of opposition, not
growing out of a genuine sense of oppo
or, more precisel not growing out of a
the very relationship to the pheoom"r,
convincing.

It remains a superficial pray

203

discover in this single sma example of two treatments of one and the
same movement essentially the whole conflict of opposites of the two
styles of acting, the conflict of the remnants of classicism with the

composition
down in his

ptayed the role brilliantly.

only one prace in the rore botrered her, which

Once agein qn the sg'uc6re of ttrifigs

of contasts in reration to what is

conventionar, and is nev-er aised to the point
of being embodied in a
single eme, presented in the less commn of two
porriuf" u,,a
valid oppositions.
"qrrUy
Actually the constuction "in reverse" made by Mme.
Dorval, which at
first glance looks rike a'ToEraI" device, is only apparentry
so. one might

romanticism sweeping them away, a conflict reflecting the compLex

social processes at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The contrasting solutions in our example are only reflections of the
contrasting traditions with which the "classical" actress Mme. Mars
departed and with which the "romantic" actless Mme. DorvaI entered.
It is easy to "arithmetically" enumerate a third solution that, in spite of
its unelectedness, may appear opposite to both preceding solutions
simultaneously,
Perform this scene, not using a range of movements (upward or
downward - it is all the same) but in restained movement or
urely by
intonation.
But even in this case, within this "arithmetic" there lies the most
complicated complex social process, which was reflected in that style of
acting, about which one of the first figures of this new theater would,
write to another:
"...It is necessary
eal
life, that is, not with y
ce;
not by gesture, but
L.
Knipper). . . *

we are the heirs of the whole incredible treasure of the culture of the
human past.
our art in its nuances, in stylistic features, in genres, and simply in its
individual chaacteristic, include the experience of what was, for the
arts, the foremost sign of whole
s of artistic ideology.
the springboard of a change in
ations and nuances wthin our
single style of socialist realism, which, besides all that is new and
unprecedented in it, can in the great variety of its particular productions
be inspired with any nuance of what was once obligatory nd predestined to be the only possible exhaustive color.
However, the condition of the inner valid.ity of selection of one o
another nuance, or one or another opposition within it, remains in force
* A. P. chekhov, collected
in 72 vorumes, vor, 12, Moscow, Goslirizdar, i952,
pp. 382-3. Lener of January \orks
2, 1900, fron yalta.

III.

Once again onthe s:uctute

ofthings

2M

to this very day. Arso one repraces the other. Thus the orampre of
Mme.
Mars and Mme. Dorvar is quite appropriate and not only in cnditions
of
historical deve.opment and change of styles.
There are many simila cases that couid be quoted. Indeed,
one need
not go very far for anarogous examples. probably trre most prominent
case' which caused a fairry big reaction, was one occuring
orrr'soviet
screen.

This concerned the stytistic chaacteristics of the films stnke and

that
same Potemkn.
How wet I now remembe the period when I conceived. the styristic
aspects of the cycle "To Dictatorship" fom which only the
first film was
realized. I even remember the place when it was disussed.
The place was the curve in the wa[ of tre now demorished
strastnoy
Monastery'* Right by it went tre road from the once famous
movie
theater, "Kino Malaya Dmitrovka, " which celebrated the
',performance,,

9l the most dizzy fitms of American production. Robin riood and rhe

:!:!rof
nere.'

Baghdad, The Gray Shadow, and

Ie House of Envy ptayed

How could one surpass these "giants" of the scope of American

cinema, by the first timid steps of our own cinematogr-aphy?
How could one force our young cinema to resoud. witrr its

own voice
through the chaotic thunder of American-European prod.uctions,
mastering all the refinements of craft and productionz utre.e
could one

find plots that could_outdo American plot in their ingenuity?

whee could one find native "stars" capable of ecripsing iu,
tt
radiation the "constellation" of America and. European ruininaies "i,
of
cinema?

Where to find a hero who by his personality, coutd at once put

the
I of bourgeois cinema ,'on their backs,'?
The problem was not simply to make a good picture. The problem
in
this area as well - in the area of culture was to infrict a blow on the
bourgeoisie, to oppose it in both curture and at. To force it to
risten and
respect what was coming from the young rand of the soviets,
which was
enigmatic and unknown to the Europe and Anerica of those years.
An impetuous twenty-six-year-ord saw ail this as r p"."orrr promethean task.
And the solution arose almost .'mathematically.,,
A plot
more trlvrruus
ingenious than
Hvr vr
l.nan an -unencan
( r
Americar one.
oI
coryphaeus

. *,
ql/\'
'

--,/

)S_,r
)B_ut what
*hut

if one rejected a plot all together?

"Stars" surpassing the American and European ones.
D,,+
:. -- - -^- if
But ...L
what
one made something unpreced.ented. for that time
without "stars."
* Once in Pushkin
Square, Gor Sueet, Moscow.
I [Leader of the chon:s in
Greek drama

- fUJ

a firm

Once again on the sructure of rhingg

205

An individuality more slgnicant than the

individuality of
tional film heroes.
And what if one denie r isolated individuarity
in generar

on something quite different?

IVhat if one did',
"stars," and into th

i:*"*"nn;m

and

conven_

bu't it

Abolish the plot, throw out the

\

ffi::"i""ffi::::i::'im/**

Thus, almost by means of the formar

reverse course, the sorution ,,in
reverse," those stvlistin faqrrrac nr
^,._ ^:_-_-

The emancipation of consciousness

from that whore system of ideas
that a're connected with the uo,rtg"oi,
avr*A new world revealed with
the victorious entrance of a new
tre aena of world
"t"r"'orio

i'"ffJJf.:i:,t";i'";il;;ilu,,""orthe,o";i;;rn'"T",f;vop
These ae the prerequisites from which
one overhea d rhe possibilities
of new speech in cultue and in the
arts.
And just as oppositeana mutuatiy
e*"trrirr"
two crasses were, so those stylisti reatures as the ideologies of these
in afi, with which these
classes expressed tremse es at the
moment of sharpest conflict, could
not but turn out to be opposite.
It would be impossibte to find an. d,iscover
d.eeper inner roots for
solutions that a-re opposite from the lio*"r,,
poiat of view.
It is true that many autlors
t"V o expound the history of
the
creation of one or anorher set of
"lro
*ort
ir,,o
certain canonic formul.as.
",-*ii-i"-;n*;"^'*
Too little has been itten honestry and
frankly about how these
things were conceived., ald created..
Anecdotal details, unexpectedness or
seeming haphazardness, by no
removes arl the wet-known basic laws
of th origin oi worts or
r
But these originar deta's of creative biographies
give a riving
tangibility to the process of creativity, and not
a absuact scheme, which
corresponds reast of a to such a nru-tooaed
process * l.*"rir,'.
Here is one more example of a similarly
frank page of creative
autobiography that is very close to what
we cted. above:
This season I put on The cost of Iire.In
Moscow for a benefit

of Lenss; in
Petersburg for a benet of savina.e In botrr,places
it was successful r.,n".,..y
fist act and turned into an ovation.

...The varue of rife, the question of suicide, doubte

suicide _

naturary
suggests that the auor was buming with this
huge moral problem, that he was

III.

Once agin onthe sguctute

ofthings

Once again onthe

206

seized by the phenomenon of general suicides, etc., etc. Actualy this was not the
case at all. The author was sitting during summer in his vilage ad said to
himself that now he had to write a play. For various everyday consideration it was
necessary. which play he still did not know himself; he still had to find a rheme
...And then once he had put this question to hinself: coDtemporary damas
usually end with a suicide, and what would happen if I would start the play with

Ad

even when the plot had already been conceived, the suicide was

207

mak at the end. And the pubric nmediately

supposed heaven knows
what kind of secret connection with a whole
series of enigmatic motifs.
is only her reverse platitue.
amples,
more than a few cases
accoml
a purely "forma'" way,
that is, without inner ne
cal substantiation for a
simila recoisideratJon,

a suicide? The play begins with a suicide - is that not musing?

And then somehow the author set himself anotter task playwrites always
write so that the third act would be the most bellicose, the most effective. . . a big
ensemble scene - But what if the most important act were built as a duet? That
the whole act, Iet us say would be caried by Ermolo and Lens, ad that the
interest would be exciting. . .

Thus in the memory of us

instances of a fruitful revision of
of moss-covered tradition on their h
groundless arbiuary performances
necessity it turned the Uaditional
chatrer of Bobchinsky and Dobchin
and the unique volleyball response

still only

a stimulus for dramatic situations. Remember, tno acts had already

sfucture ofthings

been

outlined, and the author still had not worked out the moral essence of the .value
of life"; this question in and of itself had still not risen over ttre images, scenes,
snatches of obsewations, as fog rises over ttle swmp, hills and bushes...
The Griboyedov Prize for the best play of the season was awaded rhe cost of

into response rolling Ure whte le

breadth of the foorlights _ the full

Moreover, this mise_en-scne of d

calls up associations with the last
also would turn out to have its dis
substantiation.
In both,
news ro's frrm one end of the table
to the other,
'no<pected
plunging into
a-rarrr the gathering or frienas ad
like-mir
peopt"
dining peacetully.

Life.*

Here in conclusion I would like to bring in one more example of

consuction in reverse used as a means to pass as the original. It
concerns a term that it would not be a bad idea to bring into circulation.
The term is "a platitude in reverse."
This is how the conversation went about Dostoyevs. As everyone knows,
Turgenev did not like Dostoyevsky. As fa as I can remember, he said this about
him:

You know what a reverse platinrde is? when a man is in love, his heart beats,
when he is angry, he tuns red, etc. These ae all platitudes. But in Dostoyevs
everhing is done in reverse, For example, a man meets a lion. what does he do?
He naturally tums pale and ties to ttrn away and hide. In any simple story, in
Jules veme for example, it would be told like this. But Dostoyevsky te[s tlings in
reverse. The man blushed and stood still. This would be a reverse platitude. This
is a cheap way of passing for an original writer. t

I would not like to argue or agree with Turgenev. But I know that in
cinema sometimes they turn to this very metod in order to pass for the

original. Thus, for example, the lion's shae of the "enigmatic quality'' of
Marlene Dietrichlo is constructed by sternbergu by oxactly this-principle
of the reverse platitude. In such pictures as, for example, Morocco, all
the mystery of her gure is built on te simple device of her continuing to
give an affirmative response. . .with a questioning intonation. ,,Have you
eaten already?" - ard the answer is drawn out "Ye-es" with a question
* VI.

I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Out of the Pas Academia, Moscow, 1936, pp. 68-72.

ofthe Pas Moscow, 1919, No. l-4,

S. Tolstoy, "Turgenev at Yasnaya Polyana," Voices

p. 233.

Therefore the general picture drawn by

us earlier, of principres of
pathos constuction, wourd. not have
been comprete if we had not
brought in another example of. at opposite
we ofonstruction leading,
however, to a pathos effect of tfr" ,-"
tr"u.
The patos of the theme can also ue sot rea
through two opposites,
by which the possib'ities of compositional
construlction ar always
arranged.
An exampre of a straight course in constructing
a paros effect was
shown by us in porcr:r,kin.

Gogol's
Griboy
nobility, as prod
*

_[From

fPlay by

HM.]
e lgth century, satirizing contemporary
Russian

.l

lII.

Once agin onthe suctu.re oftJrings

208

There we showed that the basic indication of pathos composition

consists in the fact that for each element of a work, the condition of
"being beside oneself' and a transition to a new quality must be
observed.

We brought in obsewations on man's behavior in tlis state.

". . . Sitting, he stood up. Standing, he jumped, Motionless -he moved.
Silent - he shouted. Lusterless - they gleamed (eyes). Dry - they became

moist (tears)," etc.

About his speech we wrote:
"Nonorderly in its usual flow, the structure, imbued with patos,
quickly takes on the imprint of a growing rhythmic quality. . . prosaic in
its forms, it soon begins to sparkle with forms and turns of speech that
are characteristic of poety," etc.*
Finally, using the "Odessa Steps" we analyzed this position in detail
in terms of composition.
AII these were examples of the "direct course" in the construction of a
pathos effect.
We will reveal the reverse construction giving a similar effect in
another example.
Such an example will be anotler filnn of strong social pathos Chapayev.'l
The patos effect of Chapayev is undoubted and verified in the many

millions of spectators carried away by it.

However, if anyone who read the first half of this work tries to apply
directly to Chapayev the data of the research on Potemkin, he wil find
himself in an extremely difficult position.
"Fotmulas" will not work,
And either one must accept formulas '\rvith grave doubts,"
or. . .deny the fact that Capayev - is filled with pathos.
Both of these ale incorrect.
And the secret here is that Capayev is built on the principle of a
second opposition, through which the principle of patos construction,
the same in both cases, is operating.
For such a perfect work as Capayevwe truly should expect inside it a
lkey" scene, where one of the decisive inner technical and stylistic
conditions definitely "bursts through" into the action, or into the
dialogue, or into the siruation.
This will be certainly most true for a fil.m remembered for its most
"characteristic" scene or phrase.
In such a scene the key to the basis of the theme must necessarily
emerge, the key that, at the same time, will be able to function as the key
*

See "On the Stnrcture of Things" p. 3.

Directed by Vasilyev brothers, Mosfin Studios, 1934.

Once again on the strnctule of -higs

209

to a correct understanding of composition as the

embodiment of a given
theme.

It is in this

aspect that the "odessa steps" sequence in pofemkn

is
h spot of the film's drama, it turned. out to
sages of the composition, providing

"secref' and leading them

the

right up to
revealing the method itself.
. I think ttrat ttre episode that is /east dramatic will be characteristic of
the "method" of chapayev in at the richess
of its d.ramatic effect.
This is, without any doubt, the episode ,,\Mhere
Should the Com_
mander Be?"
For

tris is the episod.e that

introduced into soviet

firm practce
something new in principle, style, and quality.
Actually one of the most signincant fatures
of. pathos in chapayev
was that here te heo was not raised. onto
a pedestal.
That
the human milieu, not
standin
of other people.
Here
of his class; inside it;
with it;

iffiil ,

As it were, ar ',ecstaric,, imase of the ordin*,3.::ii

is a pLace in the ranks, who as a hero forged
ahead..
Equary "ecstatic" is the image of the hero who
trrough ,'by rank,, has
a place ahead of the ranks, is shown inside
the ranks, flesh of their flesh
and they, like him.

!-ft"r the hero is presented. so th rt you feer that he is us;

that he - is
each one of us, rank and file; that h _ is ,!ou
and I.,,
This is achieved not by a lowering of the heo
rhis shows that the rnks that su" birrh i; nor Uy a leveling of him.
on
level with the hero.
"
By this the whore nation that gave birth
to him raises the hero to a
certain level.
There is a remarkable scene in iVapoleon
of Abel Gance.l3
Napoleon - although still onry Gnerar
Bonaparte, is nevertheless
already Napoleon.

i;ilJ'iIo*

after a certain battle in ltaly.

a private, a former friend of Napoleon,s
). He brags among his neighbors of his
He wilt prove it: He w.ill break dis:ipline,
he w'r take one step forward
from the ranks and nothing will hapien to
trim.
He takes this step forward.
On a galoping horse Bonaparte approaches.
Bonaparte sees the transgressor.
The horse stops as if petrified.

III.

Once again

s 1" sg1rcture

of things

210

Bonaparte recognizes lhe transgressor.

A dead pause.
A harsh command.
And. ..the whole row of soldiers take a step forward.
sparing his friend's self-esteem, Bonaparte did not force him to take a
step back into the ranks, but ordered the ranks to take a step forward
toward him.
The horse turns sharply. Napoleon gaeps q.
Colin falls in a faint into the arms of his comrades. . .
And the treatnent that foces chapayev to appea-r to step baclarards,
to go back into a single row with the others is, essentially, a step by
which he forces everyone to heroically resound in key equaly with him.
For in chapayev there is no division between the generals and the
ranks.

In him
socialism.

- is a unity that can be found only in the army of conquering

We did not find the key scene of the drama in a dramatic scene.
Ad the fact that what is characteristic of the drama about chapayev
is not a situation dramatic in action is notable in itself from the point of
view of those suppositions we stated about the "reverse" solution of the
pathos effect in this fiIm.
Let us look at this situation at greater length. In order to do this, let us

look at the same episode.

The argument is about where the commander must be. Everything is
based on the fact that the place of the commander is ahead, witl saber
drawn.
Brx Chapayels military wisdom alone says it is nor always like this,
that there is a case when the corrmander is to be behind so that at the
moment of pursuit of the enemy, however, he will again forge ahead.
This is the lesson of the dialectics of battle.
And researchers into the effect of. pathos, who would like to
mechanically disseminate tleses on patos, as they ae revealed in
Potemkin and in chapayev, could be given the same lesson on questions
of the dialectics of composition by the ln Chapayev itself.
Under certain conditions of the unfolding pictue of battle, the
commander, who should be ahead must be behind. And both these
contrasts in his location, penetrating each other in his actions, equally
form into a unity - into the perfect behavior of a commander in battle.
In exactly the same way under certain condtions of the inner content
of the theme, the structure of patos also must not '.rush ahead with
saber drawn," but'take his place behind," that is not going through the
opposite revealed in the case of Potemkin, but by way of a reverse
contrast.

Once again onthe structure

ofthings

217

In addition, both, while peneuating each other, merge

into a un'ty of
that general method of pathos compsition, which
we revealed. in the
preceding part of the work and whichremains
true, no matteiuy wnicrr or

tt'tro possible opposites the patos construction

of one

will

move.

thingir

another

in a suitable prace w: brought in earier exampres of

the
behavior of a person in ecstasy, a person seized
by patos.
we spoke of eyes, from which ieas flowed. we spoke
of silence,
broken by a shout. We spoke of immobiliry, thrust
i"i uppfurr..
we spoke of common prose unexpecteaty passing i'"i
irrto tn"
Actually,

stucture of poetry.
But wont the reyese piawe of
same formula of ..being beside on
dy. The patoxysm of shouts, su
suddenly stopping. Totally
beginning to sound. ..Iike
But is this not the unexrpected effect of the Russian
femare name on the
pages of novels used to names such as
Eloise, Clarissa, etina, fauhne,
and Selina:
Her sister was named Tatiana.

For the fist -'me with such a name

Do we willingly sauctify
The tender pages of a novel. . . *

]-lr".9 is basicalty, of course, no analogy here whatsoever.

The discussion is about something historicalry quite
different.
In regard to the best examptes of tlre tust typ dn * oiptor,
vou
cannot say that our cinema acted
like Tatiana,s mother;

.Hernamewas paulinapraskovya
.And she spoke in a sing-song voice. . .
..

It would have been just as untu ) and insulting to our

cinema to say
that with the arrival of Chapayevour cinematography
. . .began to call
The former Aku]ka Selina.

However, if one removes the ironic "seli'a,, from

the poetic language
of our cinema, and from its 10fty pro.se the humiliating ,'Akulka,.,
then
we are

coming close to what took place in Chapayev.

in chapayev what is conventionaily spoken in the
or-Actu.ny,
a hymn, elevated speech, or vese was said-iniimpte
'o.ucture
coiiesatonal
speech.

* fPushkin's verse.novel:
Eugene Onegin _ HM.l

III.

Once again on the suuctrrre of things

2L2

The heroic quality of the subject seems "in itself' already to resound
with kettledrums; but the composition demands an exposition of this
subject, from forms of "Iofty writing" that a-re totally narural and
appropriate, to be incessantly transported into a new and unexpected

quality - into the construction of everyday prose.

Engels popularized the memory of Monsieur Jourd.ain,ra who men_
tioned that he did not know that he was conversing in prose.
One might say of the subject of. Chapayevthat, without knowing it, "by
nature" it speaks in verse.
verse for such an exciting subject is just as colmon and ordinary as
the prose construction of speech for an unexcited person.
And th
expected exaltation of style into
conscious
Leap from quality to quality, as te
leap from
measured speech - in the opposite
case.,.
The style of the patos effect of conquering october was reflected in
the compositioned structure of Chapayev.
And the method of construction of the patos effect of potemkin and.
chapayev are just as identical as the methods of the victories of
Bolshevism up to October and after.
we have almost exhausted the material that we were interested in; but
as they say, "something remains to be noted.',
That is, even chapayev, which was "basically" mad.e in the second.
pathos "manner," solves its problems at three crucia-l points by the direct
method ot pathos.
This is the attack of the Kappelevtsev.*
This is the scene with tlre shooting of Chapayev in the ga_rret.
And this is the explosion at the end of the film.
constructed according to the first method, they prove to be those
places that directly correspond in composition to potemkin, atthough
strict parros composition is not observed in them everywhere to the same
degree as in the Battteship.
However, another interesting thing occurs at these three points: the
fact of the ieap of pathos composition into composition of opposites,
which is basic and characteristic of the entire fiLm.
For here there is a leap from one opposite to another within the very
method of pathos composition, arraaged according to these opposites.
This then, is the second method, by which Chapayev enriches the
experience of pathos composition and its available images.
AII this as a whole reflects the fact that the method of pathos
compositionr as we discovered above, is unified in its opposites and
equally tnJe, no mattFJ from which opposite we might take up mastering
this unified method.
" [The White Guard forces thar were opposing the Red Army and Chapayev _ HM.]

Once again on tb.e sguctrre of things

2r3

In addition, however, it is necessary again to firmly remind you that

the chosen opposite - is not the autho/s whim. It is always historically
conditioned, produced by the epoch, by the moment.
At one time I was very much abused because I divided the fifteen years
of Soviet film into three "stylistic five-year periods,', having d.istinct
features and physiognomies quite different from each other.ls
\4lhether I am correct or incorrect, ofcourse, only a detailed analysis of
the history of our cinema will decide.
But the unity of the stylistic principles for a whol.e group of films,
which were "progressive" for a certain period, is undoubted and evident
even now.
So it is aLso with those indications of patos composition we have just
analyzed in two articles.
Strikg Potemkin, Mother, Arsenal, etc. - are films of the first type of
pathos.
Chapayev, the trilogy about Maxr'm, the Deputy of the Baltic- are clear
examples of the other opposite type of. pathos composition,
In addition it is interesting to note to what degree these or other films
are connected to one or tlte other method of composition.
Thus, for example, the lovely Deputy of the Baltic, as soon as ir tries to
go beyond the limits of the manner of patos composition characteristic
of it - immediately tutns out to be compositionally weak.
Thus, the end of the fiIm - leaving for the font - which is not solved by
the "second method," turns out to be incomparably inferior to the whole

rest of the film.

The same thing can be discovered in l4le from Kronstadt.* Here the
same thing occurred in the scene of the sea landing, so well conceived in
the scenaio, which was not capable of risng to the necessary power of
pathos composition of the 'Tirst type."
However, one would like to say of this fiIm as a whole that, paradoxically, according to the scenario, it undoubtedly belongs to the first
method, whereas according to the directot's sympathies it undoubtedly
is closer to the second.
In connection with all these considerations, it is extremely curious to
note that the fourth five-year period of our film (193s-40), which inirially
produced fine examples of patos composition of the second type in
Lenin in october and Lenin in 1918r also returns to the rich experience of
te first type of pathos composition.
Then appear Afexander Nevs (1938) and Slc.hors (lgg9), which are
undoubtedly connected with the new aspect of the trad.ition of pathos
writing of the pre-Clr apayev epoch of the Battleship and Asena.l (lg2.+
*

[Directed

t [Both, in

cutting out
r

[Directed

s,

193

HM.]

as a falsication of history and reedited,

III.

Once again on the structure of rhlngs

214

Once again

This kind of historical "regularitt'' of "pulsating" changes perhaps

will one day be deciphered or solved.
But the historically determined stylistic originality of both tlese films,
as such, is now already clear.

ethe sfucture ofthings

215

then---rn any-case, fo-lr illusu-ation

That brilliant uplift

in one,s
memory, is inextricably connected with the heroic battle on Lake
Hasan.*
This flaming militant pathos, enveloping all the peoples of the ussR
in 1938-39, was what determined the methodological bent in which the
pathos composition of both films was embodied.

And where does one seek such illustrations if not in the epoch of the
French Revolution, when patos, in the word.s of Man, seemed to have
flooded into all the secluded corners of everyday life.r
And so it was.
Ard the sought-for expression of the past was found by the united
forces of two ecstatics in the word,s and speeches of one bf thu gr""t
figures 9f patos of the French Revolution: [Saint-Just].r7
Jauresrs-and
Rollandle - the vehicles and masters of patos found similar idea in
his words.
In the epilogue to Robespr'erre, in te article ',History has a word,,,
Romain Rolland on January l, lggg, writes about Saint_ust*:

type, but an "apparent" return to the preceding one, in accordance with a

He was inspired by the enthusiastic consciousness of his identity

with the powe of things, which leads us, perhaps, to results of- which we
would not deam. His identity with the laws, guiding t},e history of humaniry.t
with his wonderfrI insight he was moved by a profound feeiing for nature,
which faures noted in his speech of 23 Ventuse (March tZ, tiV+) _ by a

Both these pictr:res, i

coincide with the great

uction,

genuine dialectic progressive movement and development, without

losing in their progressive movement anythins that could enrich this
movement with experience, wisdom, and progressiveness
- in the
interests of the workers of the whole world.

romanticism of intuition, which tore like lighuring through his therwise

lackluster speech...
*

How curious! - the same day I finished the first section of this wor
a separate articre
was printed under the name "on rhe stucrure of rhings,, in the journal
.Ii xusilo xnoene

Art of Filn), No. 6,

1

1939.

Tlrese are the words of saint-Just. see Romain Rolland, The

Theater
I(hudozh. Lir., Moscow, 1939, p. 30.

I think I fist

must do a detailed analysis of the methodology and

practice of patos composition.

This is understandable.

kl
our Red Army, emerging victorious and leading nations ut of world
massacre, wilt be able to master scientically all the secrets of the
structure of things - for which the positions developed in this work are
first attempts - then we have a right to seach into the materia_l of the
past' if not for a methodological development of this feeling_ot'nitEef
*

[On the Soviet-Chinese border, against the fapanese

HM.]

of

the Revorution.

(: II A I'T

The music of landscape. . .

2t7

D II.

IV
Nonindifll'rent naturc

And this also was a peculiar form of '.being beside itself,,, an escape
into another dimension. The p.astjc at of silent film also had to produce
sound.

The musical course of a scene in those days was decided by the

structure and montage of representation.
out of montage pieces, not only was the course of a scene composed

but its music as well.

Just as a silent figure "spoke" from the screen, so representation
"sounded" from the screen.

The music of landscape and the fate of montage counterpoint

at a new stage
And by the graveyard's gateway
young let life play unconned,
awhile indifferent nature
with eternal beauty shines ! *
- Pushkin

In the preceding article,l we treated in detail the majority of cases where

the elements of Potemkin, as a construction of pathost'\rere beside
themselves."

There is another area of "being beside oneself" by which, in general,

Potemkin, with a light hand, came into fashion, although not always into
methodology.
This is the passage of representation into music.
This is that inner "plastic music" that, in the vaious stages of silent
fiLm, bore within itself the actual plastic composition of film. This task
fell most to the lot of landscape. And a similar emotional. landscape,

something
I think
strengthen

a priori, and taken for granted in film?"

clear.

It is not so much a question

gh to a great extent, it is), as

inexpressible by other means.

in

of

emotion_

aily expressing what is

The interelationship between representation and music here can
probably be chaacterized by the same words that wagner found. when
comparing spoken speech and tonal speech:
"Tonal speech as the purest organ of feering, expresses onry what
spoken speech is not able to express, tlat is, essentially _ the
inexpressible."*

Anotler composer, Arnold Schnberg,2 writes thq same thing on the

pages of the collection Der Blaue Rejtert about the songs of Schubert:

functioning in the film as a musical component, is what I call

"nonindifferent nature."
The following pages will be devoted to an analysis of this phenomenon and various phases of its development. This theme passes
naturall.y into general questions of plastic sound, into problems of the
development of these principles with the arival of sound ald. audiovisual. cinematography, and finally it studies the claification of general
changes within the theory and practice of montage at a new stage, twenty
years later, after they had been established in this form in potenkin.
Thus, silent fiIm. wrote music for itself.
Plastic music.
* [My translation

276

- HM.]

clung to the surface of the actual verbal id.eas."

Saint-Sans uses the same expressions when he writes:3
Music begins where the word ends; it expresses the unutterable; it forces us to

find in ouselves unknown depths;

which

it

conveys mood.s and ',states of the soul,'

music
in cert
comes secondary and almost rutnecessaly,

ng that this is why dramatic

even worse, The point is that
resses anything; tlre text be-

Wa_g1er,
: ll.hltd
Qyen i Drama, Vol. IV, p. 218 [Russian anstation].
' The Blaue Reiter Alnanaq published Munich, fff Z, p. Sf .

IV. Nonindifrerent iiature

218

on the various paths approaching the embodiment of this sphere of

pure emotionality from all the elements of plastic art, as
we have said.
above, Iandscape es crosest to music. Given the conditions
of silent
film, it is landscape that has the problem of expressing emotionalry what
only music is able to express completely.

This was realized by the interweaving of "randscape sequences', into

the general course of the film, where they acted axactly the way the
printed title did in a more compressed forrr of what aipeared
to be
spoken text, inscribed between the moving lips of ctose_ups.
Here was also a attempt to make the continuity of such musical
"passages," inevitable in silent fiLn, approach the teeing of synchronic
simultaneity with the remaining pa:ts of the lm.
Most often this was achieved by an introductory musical-radscape
"prelude" that, after having created the necessary emotional
state and
mood, by its rhythmic elements slips into the fu:ther course of the
same
scene, thematically resounding in the same key: The introductory part
revealed this sound in pure form, and in tlle couse of au the scenes,
built
according to the same rhythmic and aud.iomelod.ic structure, this inner
music continued to resound in the feelings of the
"p""t"tor.
In this connection Potemkin was destined to include
one of the most
polished and deveroped models of the musical sorution of rand.scape,
in
spite of the fact that at the time it was one of the flrst fitms that had
solved musical problems plastically.
Much later we see more trran a few abuses in this d.irection, even, for
example, among the masters of the so-caed French avant-gare who, in
the works of Man Ray or cavalcanti, after having t",,roo"dth" concrete
tend of emotionsa ftom the landscape symphonis, inevitably dissolved
the possibility of their definite effect into a purely impressioni sttc ptay
of abstract, hazy experiences.
The fate of landscape in soviet cinematography was different.
rf. Potemkin somewhat surpassed. other filmi in the metrod of
organically including the emotional landscape, nevertheless it basically

the music of landscape.

219

in the slow motion of the heavy mist ov rr re water, in the black

silhouettes of the
ships jutting out of the mist, a feeling of stillness and.
anxiety is born, and in the
shots where the sun's rays begin to penetrate through
the shroud oi th" ,rri., _
expectation and hope.
In Mote te episode of the muder in the tavern ended with
a shot _ where
the weeping willows with lightly rustling silver leaves
ae translucenr in the soft
moming sun. Thus the emotionar "resorution" of the tagic
scene is conveyed by

landscape.
And this same prison arternated with "shots of spring.,'
The bright sunshine of
spring brooks and littre light crouds in the s ae d.isionant
wi the gloom of
the prison, ad this conast hetped expless th" ,t"t"
of the hero.
etersburg is presented to us visually. The landscape
in. as separate shots, no _ the action of the filn

chaacterizedtheepoch.'"*,it1,ilff

:*1li':r1'.,l;fi

l'""

j;:H"Hi'

Later Golovnya writes:

. . .I think that in tlre contemporay artistic
film the landscape functions more in
a literary than in a pictorial way.
sometimes the landscape is edited into the fllm as an
insert, sometimes - as
the intoduction to one episode or other but mostly
it is included in the direct
development of the acdon, turfilring simultaneousry
function uottr piaoriar ano
drematic.
This "literar/'eahent of landscape i-n the composition of
a fil.m _ is one of
tlre stylistic maks of Soviet film. . .

Here, of course' we a'e somewhat surprised that with

the menti.on of
the "litera4y'' tteatnent of landscape and its dramatic role
there is still no
mention first of a]l of its musical function, which is acnra[y
the basic

means of soluing the problems mentioned

this is really not accid.ental, because tle musica,l l,ine of

landscape begun by potemkin was cerrainry not contin""J
v ir sovier
cinematography, having rimited the musical rine in irs best
exampres to
only the emotional landscape.*
our research wil concern itserf with the musicar randscape
Moreover,

expressed a general direction that became characteristic around 192s for

the major part of ou cinematography as a whole.
The cameraman Golovnyas writes correctly about this in one of his
articles:

particular.

ln 1925-26 three lms appeared almost simultaneously: Te Battleship

mourning over the body of vakulinchuk

- the symphony of tire mist in the

port of Odessa.
This scene is by no mea.ns the only one concemed with prastic
music.
The "night full of anxiety'' in exfectation of the encounter
with the
squadron is arso structured in this way. carrying within it
trr"-irign poirrt
of development and growth of the theme of the murdered
vakur"inchuk,

body of vakulinchu the celebrated

* See below on
the difference between the two.

Potemkin, Mother,6 and Tle Ovecoat.7

In tlese pictues the landscape functioned in a completely new way. It was
included as an expressive component into the damatic ompsition of the fiLn,
and the picturtal form of the landscape became something different, something
cinematographic:
In re Battleship Potemkin before the culminating scene, mourning over tle

'lnisf'

was inserted

a series of shts where

in

rn Potemki.n I have in mind the introductory part of the episode

of the

fV. Ngnin{fisent nature

220

it comesponds - both plastically and rhythmically - to the scenes of

mourning over Vakulinchuk.
The increasing dramatic effect forces the gray mist of dawn in the
Odessa port to thicken here to the blackness of trnrilight and night. The
gray silver surface of the water in the mist scenes here become black
with reflections of strong highlights abruptly scattered tlrough it. The
gray seems to divide into a black surface and a white gleam. The
silhouettes of the details of the port ftom the misty scenes become first
statuary figures of sailors freezing on the watch, only to come to life, at
the approach of the admiraL's squadron, as numerous separate actions,
into which preparation of the battleship for battle was broken down, connecting separate parts of the battleship (gangways, cannonsf machines),
as well as the people, into one whole surge to battle. The built-up energy
is released here also as an explosion, but not as the expected thunder of
weapons but as the shout "Brothers !" and the flight of tle sailors' caps
into the air, catching up the theme of the protest meeting over the body
and its culminating point - the raising of the red flag over the battleship.
In a very different type of stucrure - and, I would say, in a different
type of orchestration - othe scenes are solved; for example, the sootrng
on the odessa steps, built on the basic theme of the drumoll of feet and
the salvos of the soldiers shooting t]:e peacefuI inhabitants of odessa, of
the symphony of machines at meeting the squadron, whose plastic
thunder and rhythmic pulsation seem to lead in an opposite direction
that same theme of the "soldiers' feet" from the preceding scene.
However, in both scenes the situations are fist of alt loaded with the
dramatic effect of the unwinding events, ard therefore, for the sake of
analysis, it would be better to look closely at an exmple of a musical
mood created purely by means of landscape.
Therefore, we will select the scene at dawn at the Odessa port f.or
analysis.
The tradition of similar compositional solutions in general has
certainly not been curtailed with the deparnrre of silent film from the
screen; on the contrary, in its progressve beginnings, tle audiovisual
film broadned immeasurably simila stylistic and expressive possibili.
ties, synthesizing all the means of expression avail.abLe to it.
And, therefore, one should concentrate on this episode not as if it were
a relic of the past, but as a definite stage of the development of a completely distinct area of expression of the film in general.
The "Odessa Mist" is like a connestins link between pure painting
and the music of audiovisual combinations of the new cinematography.
The suite of the mist is still painting, but a distinct type of painting
that through montage already perceives the rhythrrr of the chage of ea,l
spans of time and the tangible sequence of repetitions in time, that is, the
elements of what in pure form is only accessible to music.

The music of landscape.

227

This is a tle of .ostpainting', passing inro a distinctive type

of
"prernusic (protomusic)."
Therefore it is quite norrral and reasonabre at this point to
look at
taditions or rhe past of a similar styristic manner ',music for the eyes,, _
before drawing the path arong which the development
of this manner and
method moves ahead within the richest possibilities of audiovisual
film.
The 'Ynusic of the eye"* frouished tutty in the art of the Far
East - in
China and fapan.
And very richly in landscape painting.
we should not be surprised that we can find the most polished
moders
of this in China.
For it is in china trat even in riterature this phenomenon
exists not as
the loetry of sound, but the poety of graphics alonel
"The character of
chinese language, which rcpresents a pheno_the
menon unique of its kind, forces one to distinguish po"try uttered.
aroud
from written poetry, word.s, composing a poetic work, irom the
signs
which represent them. Everyone should be made aware that in calli_
graphy, drawn signs, corresponding to a certain word, do
not have any
relationship to the sounds composing this word..,'f
Hans Bethe writes evenmore powerfurly about this aspect of poetry
n
an epilogue to the cor.ection of transrations of chinese tyrics.i
chinese prosody is exbemely complicated. From a combination
of the most
complicated pictorial features of chinese calligraphy and of the particular
sound
system of chinese speech a parricurar rhhm is created, which
dictates both the
pictorial ad musical standads to an equal degree.
_ There is notring in common here witl' European poey if you do not consider
the exterior sign of the presence of rhyme,
"Here everything abides by a profoundly d.everoped para[elism of great
refinement, which in the forrn of an antithesis rests, not only on words,
thoughts
or verbal images, but arso penetates into refined details oi syntactic'consuc_
tions and spreads further into the innermost features, into the so tastefuly
developed omamental expressiveness of the designs of calligraphy.
And alr this
is interwoven very tightly wi e conce rt of chinese po"try. rni,
appeals
ioetry
equalty to both the ear and the eye...,if

But the matter is even broader.

In Chinese poetry there is no blank verse, and all poetry is built on
rhyme. The odes coilected and published by confucius,r'are
rike an
"encyclopedia of rhymes." Any words shown rhyming in
this collection
designer pietro Gonzago.g
I-Verlag, Leipzig, 1919.
erlag, Leipzig, 1919.
I this at the.end of the ninereenrh cenrury in
n Marinerri,e rhe dadaists (Tristan Tzari,,u

V. Nonindifrerent nature

222

ca be used in a rhyrne wherever convenient, but it is impossible

other words or other rhymes. As a resurt, a[ trre gro"'pr- to use
possible
rhymes came to 10. Moreover it is understand.ut"
trrut words that
rhymed around 500 years before re birth of christ,
ir *rry cases no
longer being pronounced as they were pronounced
earlie rost this
feature of rhyming harrrony rong ago. evertheres",
orrry'ah" orr""estabrished set of rhymes was anowed ro be used,
as
uerre. rr. e.
;usi
Gilles, who introduces these interesting data in his tittle
bookchina and
the chinese*, illustrates the ratter poritioo by an anarogous
exampre
from Chaucer.12
Two lines from the Canterbury Tales, read as they are pronounced
today, do not rhyme at aLl:
When that April with his showers sweet,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root.

he music of landscape.

223

The imprint of the ,,child,s stage,,

of poetry undoubtedly lies
similarty undifferentiated prosody,
in
fri"n
rs the mark of the infantile
stage.

Today it would not occur to any one to rhlme:

"sweet'' and "root." But the main thing is that in chauce/s
time the

words were pronounced different y

rhymed.

and ,,soote,, and "roote,, were

is a literar application to the aea of riterature of what occurs

- This
in
the
plastic "rh1'ming" of visuar depiction and rines in
a
drawing or
painting.
The words ("sweet and root'') are ,ritten quite differentry
from the way
they were rhymed in ancient pronounciation
..soote_.oot",,).-'
Here this.is unexpected and unusuaL.

In the art of plastic composition this occllls ar every step.

Actually, two objects different in form in terms f ..irasuc
pronunciation" - that is, according to the graphic manner of their
design

appearing as rines corresponding and repeating each other,

ae found in
conditions of what could be called ,'elastjc thyme.,,
Thus the line of a mountain avalanche repeats the line
of the bent back
of an old mn.
the hem of a dress repeats the lines of the flow of a river
or scattered curls - the flight of clouds, etc.
it is
such a "rh1.ming" of rines that is so chaacteristic of
^.1"d andiust
Chinese
Japanese drawing.
As we can see, the devices rying ua'trn oral literarureand
the devices
withn painting are combined by interesting features fom the
area rying
between them, uryitten li.terature, that diverges from spoken
literatue and
that applies mote to the stand.ad.s of plistc visuai depiction.
The distincrive character of chineie writing, and specialry
- of
Chinese prosody, strikes us by thei unusua_l nature.
We think this is all very distant from us, and we supposedly
have
nothing simila in ou artistic practice.
'

Cambridge University press, New yorl 1902.

If such

are the forms- of edifying entertainment

for riftre children, then
order ch'dei
. ., bv'""*rlinere
rhe

*"-*,,r"d

H:t.iift::T#:

nation of

%i,it:
The most popurar form of the
rebus is the comic rebus, which
is
on a phonetic change of two

bu't

words that do not coincide

orthographicalty.
"or.""prri.rg
(In poe*y this device-is quite
frequent and adds a certain
sharpness to
the language of rh1me.)
Pogodi, tovariS Gofman
Ne dovol'no li stiliihov :n.
Net li zdes'u vas lzyestT.
Oen' khoetsja proesf.
...Ne dumal, ne gada_I,
Cob mogla, kakV. Kahalov,

Deklamiovaf voda...

Kirsanov,

Wait,

Verse
Don't

n.

re'

we'd
guessed, never rhought
that
,..I
19v9r
I could,
like V.

Kachalov _
be reciting water. . .

(Moya imeninnaya)
* [Abnorrnal
rhymes italicized; my Fanslation _
HM.j

Kisanov
(My name day)

IV. Nonindifferent nature

An example of a comic rebus is this witty sign, apparently

The music of landscape.

a

billboard:

225

capital were hanging onto with all t.eir strength. The letters crawled out
of the word "evropeis [European]," turning it into the word "eweis"
fiewish] and adding a new meaning to the saying on the postcard.
An analogous exa:rrple of the play of representation and meaning of
letters, used this time in a advertisement, appeared in the journal Die

Reklame for September 7925.

Here the figure of a little person with head aached was made out of
the letters of the word WIER [who]. This is the trademark of one of the

According to the conception of the anonymous author of the rebus,

it

means:

"Doroga razdvoyaetsa" (doroga raz-dva-yaitsa) [The road divides (a

road one-two-eggs).1
This exampLe immediately brings to mind sxamples where an independent, concrete visual interpretation is added to the silhouette ofthe
visual design of letters.
We know that both the earlier, purely pictographic hierogllphl3 as
well as the earlier, purely representational letters proceeded from
schematic pictures.
This is why the return of these former representational silhouettes into
representations inside pictures functions so powerfully, and often
comically.
This occus quite often, of course, in the East, where the hieroglyph
lost its tie with its representational past to a much lesser degree than the
design of letters in our alphabet.
Thus, there is an amusing moralizing print of Hokusaira appealing for
greater purity in a son's piety toward his parents. The little picture
depicts this directly: A cloud of small funny people diligently carves,
washes, and cLeans a huge hieroglyph meaning "child's respect for
parents."
I remember a similar play on words in another example:
in a very virulently anti-Semitic postcard, which was circulated in
1905 and directed against tlre consolidation of international Jewish
capital On the postcard were depicted the words "Union of European
States." To the letters "O" and "P" in the word "ewopeis" fEuropeanl
ropes were attached, which representatives of international Jewish

Frankfurt advertising firms.

Again, in each advertisement this figure functions both as a word in a
sentence composed of it with other words and as a comic personage,
whose action illustates the content of tle sentence ("wo thinks for
you," "wo will bring you a profit," "who will show you your mistakes,"
"wo will always hit the mar" etc.).
A very popular device from the field of athletics also applies here when letters or national emblems are formed from constructions made
out of masses of figures.
Sometimes more than a small share of unintentionaL irony s hidden in
such constuctions.
I remember how I was amused once in Mexico when I was filming,
from the top of tle freedom column, the emblem of liberated Mexico
composed of figures of pol.icemen, participating in the sports

parade...t...1
I hope that after all the above examples of the particular nature of
Chinese prosody,ls they have become significantly closer, more
comprehensible, and more perceptible to us.
But, if this is not enough, let them recall Tistam Shandyt at this

point; in this collection of ironic examples of literary writing, one of "my

Uncle Tobt's" tirades passes over into rhetorical gesture, and the author
introduces it not as verbal description but places on tlat same page after
tle colon - a graphic stroke of this very gesture!
It is also interesting that the variety of plastic motifs from which one
can compose a drawing or picture seems so limited in number, as if here,
there was also a similar canon, regulating thefu quantity and quality - a
canon simiLar to te cnon of Confucius' Ode for literature.
In any case, the number of elements of this set of representationaL
motifs, existing in all mutual combinations, is not very large.
Variety is achieved by a refinement of compositional methods rather
than by increasing the number of objects; they are usually confined to a
river, lake, cliffs, morrntain chains, waterfalls, trees of a certain type
thatched-roof cottages, and details of monasteries.
I will return to Chinese landscape again because I am interested not
only in rJre emotional effect of landscape but especially in its musica.l
efect, that is, that variety of "nonindifferent nature" when the emotional

IV. Nonindifferent nature

226

effect is achieved not only by a set of representationaL elements of nature

but especially and mainly by the musical development and. composition
of what is represented.
It is in this direction tlat the musicaL landscape of the period of silent
film is working; there is a direct development ftom this method into the
musical work at further stages of the development of film, and a single
is work is prcsened - fom sjlent film
ual cinematography.
matography into three such stages is

the music.of landscape.

227

just recall such background

of his lithographs, or let us

ckeraf s descriptionrI devoted

of the inorganic synchron'

ization of sound. and of repres;::thy
such, from a theoretical standpoint, is the ealier sound cinenra, but
from a practical standpoin! unfortunately, a large number of contemporary films. These fiIms ae characterized by the prevailing role of
sound of te basically verbal spoken type.
The nent stage of audiovisual cinematography is te cinematography
of the organic fusion of sound and representatlbn as coutmenslnate and
equivalent elements composing the fibn as a whole.
It is interesting that the main responsibility of the culminating creative act in respect to the film in all three stages moves further and futher
towad new phases at the endl
If in siler film the "montagd, (editing) phase is this parr, ad in
sound film - the "sound recording," then now in audiovisual film the
most complex work in 'vertical montage" occurs in the process of. . .rerecording.

It is interesting to note how organica-Ily the first and third stages

continue each other - in their tendencies toward the fusion of different
spheres of effect into one unity - and how opposing them is the middle
phase of fiIm, which is the least cinematographic, consisting mainly of
"dialogue," this is that same median stage for which (in order to achieve
the correct movement toward what was needed), I as well as pud,ovkin
and Alexandrov, recommended in Manifesto, lg2g,r7 a stong exp).osion,
divergence, and counterpoint opposition on the elements of sound. and
the elements of representation.
In respect of our basic theme, it is quite obvious that emotion can be
evoked not only by a musically structured landscape but often, of course,
by the concreteness of the landscape.
I have not spoken of blasted houses or smoking ruins, which have an
identical effect i the shots of a newsreel or in the lithographs of
Daumier (especially in the series of prints connected with the FrancoPrussian War), but every "desolate,, landscape of bae earth and a
solitary tree always has a chance on its own - by the compositional
arrangement of the objects - to evoke a gloomy mood and gloomy

at tlte Chinese use, one might add,

are

od to the symphony, for they are built out of

s of landscape shots, which silent film used

*_william Makepeace Thackeray,

"George cruikshank,,.June lg4o, in westminste Review,
Henry
Hooper, London, 1841.

IV. Nonindifferent nanrre

228

The latest methods of development of what was found in the "Odessa

Mist" lie beyond the limifs of silent film.
The audiovisual solutions in Alexander Nevsl<y contiue ther tradition in the same direction (the "dawn" before the "Battle of the lce")2o
and, to an even greater degree, separate scenes in fva the Tenible.
However, before turning to ttre pictorial past and'the audiovjsual
future of the "Odessa Mist"; let us try to discover briefly, how and with
what the impressionable performance has been stuctured.
Here the black mass of a buoy, like a massive chord of "Solidity,"
bursts out into the elemental water and calmly rolls on the silvery surface

of the sea.
And here the black mass of the hu-lks of ships swallows the whole
expanse of the screen and slowly floats past the camera. . .
The general combination of motifs moves from the airiness of the mist
through the ba-rely perceptible outline of objects - through the lead-gray
surface of the water and gray sails - the velvety black hulks of the ships
and the had rock of the embankment.
The dynamic combination of separate lines of these elements flows
together into a final static chord.
They merge together into a motionless shot, where the gray sail
becomes a tent, the black hulks of the ships - tJle creBe of the mourning
bow, the water - the teas of women's bowed heads, the mist - the
softness of the outlines of the - out of focus - shot, and the had rock
becomes tlre corpse lying prostrate on the paved, cobblestone embankment.
And now - almost inaudibly - the theme of fire enters.
It enters as the flickering candle in the hands of Vakulinchu so it
may grow into the flaming wrath of the meeting held over the corpse, and
it flares up with the scarlet flam,e of the red flag on the mast of the
mutinying battleship.
The movement goes from hazy, almost ethereal moods of sorrow and
mourning in general to a real victim, who perished for the cause of
freedom, from the gloomy surface of the sea to the ocean of human
sorrow, fom the trembling candle in the hands of the murdered fighter
through the mourning of the grieving masses to the uprising, seizing the
whole city.
Thus, interweaving, the separate lines of these "elements" move into
the opening part, now floating into the foreground, now giving place to
others and becoming lost in the depths of the background now
emphasizing each otler, now setting each other off, now opposing each

the music of landscape.

229

And on the contrary, before our eye the hard rock thickens and grows
heavier: At first this is a black haze merging with the mist, then it is the

bony skeletons of the masts and yard arrns or silhouettes of cranes,

resembling huge insects.
Later these bows and masts, jutting out of the shroud of the mist, grow
befoe our eyes into whoLe Launches and schooners.
The impact of the Vorschlagfi of the black buoy - and now rhe
massive hulks of large ships enter.
And the theme of the water turning silver passes into the white sail,
dreamily rolling on the sea's smooth surface. . .
I have touched here only on the murual play of concrete principles,
that is, the actual "elements" - water, air, and earth.
But they ae all also strictly echoed by the mutual play of purely ronal
and textual combinations: dull gray, the mellow atmosphre of the mist,
the silvery gray smoothness of the glittering surface of the water, the
velvety sides of the black masses of concrete details.
Atl this is rhythmically echoed by the measured ength of d.uration of
the pieces and the barely caught "melodic,, rocking of photographed
objects.
The sea gull in the air - seems to be part of the mist and s.
The sea gull, alighting down like a black silhouette on rhe buoy _ is an
element of solid earth:
And among them - as if the sea gull's wing grew enormously - the
whiteness of the sail of a yacht slumbering on the water.*
And it seems that the textures of the separate elements, just as the
elements mong themselves, form the same combination as an orchestra
does, unifying into the simultaneity and the sequence of the action the
-

winds and strings, wood and brass

will be convinced that the "mist', in

Potemkin continues the tradition of the most ancient examples of
chinese landscape painting, as china cultivated it, and whose trad.itions
were later adopted by Japan.
In the general discussion I will purposely use a comparison of quotations from various types of investigation so that the jdentjcal atue of
the principle is presented distinctly and objectively. I will rry ro inrroduce additional material only when other statements relevant to the
theme I am interested in are not at had.
one of the most ancient forms of visual depiction of landscape is the
Let us now look at the past ard we

other.

each line passes along its own path of movement.

the
mist
thins out fom shot to shot:
Thus
becomes
more and more tanspatent.
concreteness

In addition,

."":x:

V. Nsnindifrsrent nanre

230

chinese picture scroll - an endless ribbon (almost a fitm reell) of the

panorama of landscape unwinding horizontally.
"Panotama" in the narrow sense of the word, as cinema uses it in those
cases when the camera on tracks slides by the changing chain of events
and scenes.
And "panorama" also in the sense that the whole picture cannot be
grasped entirely by the eye all at oncq but in sequence, as if pouring out
of one independent subject into arother, out of one fragment into the
next; that is, it appears befoe the eye as a seam of sepa_rate depictions
(shots !) merging into one.
It seems that the landscape has been copied from the movement along
the river, from the deck of a junk, slowly floating along the shore.
And almost always the cal.m flow of the river leads the eye along the
changing curves of the unwinding Chinese picture.*
"Around 750 ao the emperor was seized with longing and the desire to
see tle surrounding aea of the river [Iselmtsan] Yangtze in the province
of Szechwan, and he sent Wu Ch'ao-ch'u23 to represent them in a picture.
Wu Ch'ao-ch'u retuned without a single drawing. lMhen the emperor
demanded al explanation, Wu answered: 'I have everhing drawn in
my heart.' Then he went to one of the chambers of the palace and in the
course of one day painted a hundred miles of landscapes." This is the
way H. A. Gil]es conveys tle ancient tale in An Intoduction to the
History of Chinese Pictoial Artl where the historica-l moment is given of
the transition from the old type of picture scroll - which is infom ational
and nanative above all - to a new typer poetic and muscal. CIhe origin
of the new type is connected witll the name Wu Ch'ao-ch'u.)
The lack of drawings and sketches, which so struck the emperor,
makes it quite clear that the painter was attracted above all by the
emotional resonance axtd change of moods of the river landscape and not
the docrrnentation of river banks.
In the same way the camera caught sepatate details of the misty
morning, penetrated by the faded sun in the Odessa portf in seach of a
mood that would harmonize with the theme of mourning, so as to weave
from them not a topographical presentation ofthe port stuctures ofthe
city of Odessa but the introductory part of the scene of mourning on its
shore.

What does a simila emotional landscape scroll represent?

Apparently there is not a single author who, while describing tlre
Chinese landscapes, would not resort to a musical interpretation of
them, to a musical reading of them, to musica-l terminology.
* This device of an actual lm panorama, floating
along the shore, was applied with great
talent by A. Dowhenko when, in the introductory part of rn (1932), he wanted to create a
distinctive film equivalent to the famous passage from Gogol's Tenible Vengeance: ',How
wonderful is the Dniepel in quiet weather. .."
t Kelloy and Walsh, Shanghai, 1905,

The music of landscape.

231

Ad in the transmission of the generar sensations trey

evoke.

Ad in the musical realization of their rhythmic and meldic structure.

And in a comparison with certain narnes of composers, witrr whose
works they would correspond..
And in a direct comparison of their horizontal and vertical divisions
with the classical form of a polyphonic score.
Curt Glase wrote*:
These pictures of pure mood fteed from anything concrete, ae difficurt
to interpret without resorting to concepts which Europeans have
only in other areas of
art - in lyric poeUy and music. . .
. . . This musical chaacter of the painting of Eastern Asia
is easy to discover, if
you open an arb'm of landscapes belonging to the brush of one
f the greatest
masters such as sessh.2a A very small number of invaably identical
motifs
and elements of form and constany repeated in them a hin of mountains,
a
clump of trees, e roof of a hut, a fisherman's boat. only the juxtaposition
of
economic dabs of the brush each time different, and each tior tn.i,
common
resonance gives a new note to one and the same basic mood,
one theme is

touched, and it goes through numer us variations. you ae unintentionally

forced to make a comparison with the fugue in music. . . .

(Fisher also compares Sessh's plastic fugue with Bach.) t

This is even more vivid in the group of what ae caled crolls.
. . . The old scroll, built on the principle of sequential phases
of a story, was more
representationa-l and iuformative. In the new one we experience
a changing
sequence of moods. And here the painting also proves 10 be a temporal
art, but
not according to a type of epic narration, but according to the princiiles
of music.
The unwinding sequence of elements of the landscape became a symphonic
sketch. steep cliffs change into expansive la-kes; a quier fishing viuag
huddres
on the shores of a ba and a little vilage swarming with people ign in
ttre
mountains; wide rice fields disappea in the mist, and in the distance stretch
erensive wallq whis enclose a monastery,
one is interwoven with the other. one theme quietens down and introduces
a
new one; the deep chord of the leit-motif of the mountain peaks is echoed
by the
tender melting tones of the mists, hovering over the watery expanse, from
which
in the distance emetges but a single sail.
sonorously the motif of the steep cli"ffs enters and with tiumphant chords the
mountain chain playfully iDtertwines with the business of the human ant-heap.
snowy mountain heights emerge from the depths, witr alternating sharp rises
and quick descents and a wonderful linea cadenza of depicted ues completes
the multi-voiced song of this landscape poem. . .
...4 later scroll of a river landscape anributed to Kuo Hsi2s (around 10g)

*-curt Glaser, Die Kunst

ostasiens. Der [Imkeis ihres Denkens und Gesta]tens, Inse!

Yerlag, Leipzig, 1922.

1 otto Fisher, chinesische
Landschafr.smarerei" vorwort von Alred sarmony,Neff, vienna,

t943.

fV. Nonindifrerent nature

232

already unites the mountai?: and valleys in whole compact masses of form, and
at the same rime as siu-jan2 (second half of the tenth century) was timited by
the
fact that the planes went deep into his picnrre like scenery wings, here conasts
of space dominate the compositions, here tlre foreground and increasing distance
are in opposition, the break of a ravine to the mounlain mass abrupy forging

lbe music of landscape. ..

. Rhythn is created
y grouping mateial; the
_
unification of motifs and elements or.".po"irrg melody through tre rinear
*
to each

other.

Hi"ii:"r-::*

ahead, and thus the former compositional limittiq of lines and planes are
replaced - by a new variety of play: the play of volume and space, all done
according to tose same basic rhhmic norms. ]ust as before thee was 2n
opposition between high and low or angular and smoot, in rhytbmic play the
nea and the fat ale now interwoven. ..
. . . Soon a new element appeared which takes tle place
of the former line of
movement. This is the pulsating growth and farl of elements of the range
of dak

tunes,

233

..

p:^u,::"ltg":.of

..

rand.scape as a whore, p etz

surface

we cannot capture in one glance the visual

depiction unwind.ing on the surfac
of
:roll picture), as we have become used
to
ssions of it, as far
time, like music,
st be subjected to

lc.

Two schemes applylng trris can clarify

what is being discussed. in a'
htr;;;;uve eye
of every lover of beauty.
Here is the schem of Siu_jan,s le ndscape.
Here ae severar variations of sim'a
motifs

..

these excerpts, a''d what cannot but

be caught by the

repeated

Ernst Dietz writes:

Here on the surface the same hamonization is achieved as in music
time, and in the same.*uY,
ana
arc its means...

t*

'

[see

through

wm' cohn, cinese painring, oxford university press, New york,

194g,

p. 4

And here is anoth

HM.]

* Einfuhrung t

d'e Kunsr des Osteng

are

e theme is introduced

ota
,,""*"

by the inctusion

the various

lg_[

that artemately

in a different tonality.

sounds of aspects of
the watet of the river

Hellerau, Wien, 1922.

JV. Nonindifrerent Dature

234

plays the theme of the landscape, then the river and clouds together,
now a mountain chain, then the combination of mountains, water, ald
mist, etc.

Cloud

Mountain

Tree

and
River

This is the nature of the aesthetic canons of the structure of chinese and

Japanese landscape.

canons grow out of the

precisely - grow out of

River

Here it might be interesting to note that, when the painting has the
task not only of a musical-emotional interpretation of a piecet sole
naturet but the solution of. a purely musical pioblem, then the ..score,,
type of composition inevitably arises.
In these "abstact'' cases it is even clearer, since under these conditions the author is not tied to any stict representational logic, ad is
completely free to perform a purely musical ptay of separate representational motifs.
The once-so-thundering chur\anis32 is particularly characteristic
here. Among his pictoriaL "sonatas,,, the '.allegro', from the sonata Ie
Pyramids is parricular\ i[usuative in this respect.
The
d. in various planes
and in
to give a picture of

those

235

al conceptions.
are connected historically to certain stages of development, are extremely helpful in clarifying
aesthetic problems connected to those epochs and. nations.
Thus we used ou basic philosophical and theoretica. premises the
nanrre of the properties of the dialectic in order to investigate- the
problems of the pathos effect.
one must seek philosophical premises, both as the basis of the particular features of chinese aestletic thought and of the canons proceeding therefrom.

Cloud Mountain Mountain

Trec Tee
River River

The music of landscape...

These principles are lepresented in different forms in different areas,

but the essence of their interaction remains identical.

towad which the

system of the composition of chinese landscapes m,ight have gone if

their authors had taken one step further, and in the name of music,

would have broken with the representational logic of their natural

Iandscapes.
The surprising abilityto combine real landscape representationwith a
musical and emotional interpretation of it through composition, and the
pungency of its musicality, which sury)asses the srmphonic abstractions
of churlyanis by many times - is one of the particularly stiking aspects
of the Chinese masters.
This becomes very obvious in a comparison of chinese landscapes,

with their mutual interweaving of clouds, mountains, and water

panses, with the "allegros" of Churlyanis ftom the sonata Chaos.

inner laws of the

arating naturally
rtain elements to
yin.

ex* The Chinese number

wood among these elements.

rV. Nonindifrerent natu.e

236

the fTowing of water is opposed to the immobitityof the shore,

the softness of the mist and the transparency of air -- to the .'rrrness of

the cliffs and mountains,

the bae surface of mountain slopes to tlre vegetation of trees and
the tickness of reeds, etc.
And A. salmony is correct when he closely connects the nature of the
play of similar elements in a landscape score and the principles of yin
and yaag:

The masters of the T'ang era had already created rules, lead.ing to a trpe of
language of forms, which showed howthe smarlestmotif
-no matter how small it
mig
again to embody rst principles (Grundprinzipi
those same ancient Taoist iymUotsp3 oi ttre
mal
whose mutual pene:atiou arises the whole
essence and all. the
world. In this play of principles
trough both the ima
te moistue perr"U.tes tt e ,oud,
an artery of water pe
ath. All of visible nate unrolls
before us in the forms of a riving organism. To capture and embody its
cha-racteristic features was tle inevitable task of the great masters of the
pasl. . . *

The famous waterfall attributed to wang wei was subjected to this

law:
In this landscape of the great master of the T'ang dynasty the sEuggle of the only
two primordial natural principles is capturcd flowing and hardening.
-

The music of landscape.

237

just because the chiming and tre reflection of

sound as echo also Iie at
the basis of direct externar impressions, which erp to form
into a
method the general rhythmic feer.ings (..beats") that rie
the basis of the
pulsating repetition, characteristic of the structure
of rhythm in generar.
using the term "chiming" instead. of the terrn ,'repetitn,,,we
in the actual nature of these terms the dynami premise if discover
a reatty
tangible phenomenon of nature a resonance thit, hardening
into a
device, becomes repetition,
In the methods of its composition, the chinese rand.scape is probabry
closer to the initial phenomenon the chime than to the
stage wtren
this phenomenon develops into a d,euice: chiming
_ into ,"puririon.
on the other hand, our common European types of composition are
qpical structures formed according to a repetition
of motifs- whereas
Chinese structures are perceived as the chiming of motifs.
I do not know how far one could differentiate, in more detail,
the difference by accumurating additionar arguments. I am afraid you
won,t be
able to manage here without the herp of a vivid and direct
sensual perception of the difference of both these tenris !
Here there is the same "abyss" of difference as between
the titre of the
play, vislrnyvy sad
cherry
orchard)
instead.
of
the origina.
\The
vshnyevy sad (The cherry
orchard) (just recalr trre descriprion of
chekhor/s excitement described in stanisravsrqt's book when,
after
changing the accent and the intonation in the name of the
titre, he
achieved complete harmony of this name with the actual
mood of the
play).3^

A similar

nuance of difference ries in whether we wil begin to read

and designate the structure of the chinese randscape u. u ."pntion
of a

motif or the chiming of motifs.

The different nature of these two methods is reveared most crearly

if

distinct examples of repetition

in

we compare the exampres of chiming in chinese randscape

with the mosr

and purery geometric ones as weII

the form we might encounter it, for example, in the weaving

of serrations,

shapes, angles, ad intersections typical of Moorish p"tl"rrrr.

In any case, this plastic phenomenon, which upp"a., to have been
_
born from the resonance of sound, is probably ror itris uuryi""ron,o

the feel.ing of the chiming of gongs, by various voices resounding in

answer to the basic sound.
I think the repetition of motifs can be read as an echo and as chiming,
* Die chinesisce r,andscaftsmaleei
mt einem vorwort von Allred saimon orbis
Pictus, Bd. 4, Neff, Vienna, 1943.

flexible, not only in the plastic transmission f sounds or in

its own
independent plastic resonance, but even in those cases when
it
is not
concerned with solving audiovisual problems.
The visual depiction born of music inevitabry strives to resound.
It is interesting that trre most "resonant'' examp.es of rand.scape turn
out to be landscapes connected to mist.
This is also chaacteristic of the pictures of chiming from a distant
monastery, discussed above, where the stillness and distant
chimes of
the gongs stre.m trrrough the prastic details, protruding
out of the misty

IV. Nonindifrerent nanrre

238

he music of landscape. ..

nonexistence of a monotone b_qckgr und; but this is

true as wen of the
misty symphonies of whistles who copied much from
the Japanese which are certainly appropriate to mentin here.
And the "mists" of. potemkinwith which, as a matter of fact,
the whole
conversation began.

And this is not accid.ental.

This is the most obvious case, and. most easily understood., for the
effect of a plastic transmission of sound here is stongty aided
by another
feature of sound caught by prastic mea.ns the washiri
of outrines
of certain elements of the depiction: This is rike u ,orrrr ueconaing
"*"y
lost in
the distance (Ausk)ang of sounds).
It is not in vain that by its own means the suite of ryrical mouming
of
the "eye" music of "potemkin mists" seeks that same thing, while
working within the possibilities of fiLn photography. Here a whole
set of
devices passes through the skillful hands of th crmeraman
Tisse:
The natural turle of rear mist is aided by tune and musr.in
firters
placed in front of the lens for wash mg away dpth, and
it is repeated. by
the optic washing away of the edges of visuar depicrion uy usg
a softfocus lens.

The concept of quatity plays essentia'y no rore

in the phitosophicar conceptions of the Chinese.
However, numbers as such hetd a passionate inlerest
for tre sages of Ancient

China...

...one of the basic featues of chinese thought is the unusual

respect for
numerical symbols at the same dme as a sdng
aisresarJ J qantitative
conceprs... (p. la9)

In China numerical crassification govems an details

of thought and life. By
the combination and interweaving* f them among
themselves, the Chinese
erected a whole vaded sysrem of numerical
conespondences... ip. 2al)

This engenders highly unusual principles of mathematics

mathematical operations.
But we are basically interested.

in something

and.

else here, namely,

the
supposition that this conception must inevitabry
al,
reect
the
principles of prastic composition, where the
chineie artist is dearing
with numbers and quantitative elements.
And actually, we see t! the mutual play of ,.odd_even,,
in plastic
composition is widespread., and. gives her
such a singulai effecr of
ut
"chiming" and the s.me sense of ortginar organics
as
simila cases, where stucture * t do*position arise in all the other
from the same
basic principle of yin and yang.
what I am writing here is not simply to renumerate
chinese and
Japanese methods of composition under itre ruuric of ,'curiosities.,,
Nor because this principle is found far beyond the bounds
of
composition in the East (more on trat rater), but
bove au ucause ttre
compositional structue of the odd
r in length, in
quantity of figures, in rhhm or
very mportant
slgnificnce ro j, the laws of
In a supplement to the articre on potemkin's structure,
which anaryzes
the principle of the_sequence^of editing pieces in the
scene
battleship meeting the yawls,% *" ."f"ir"d to trris ',gorden of the
rute,, of
alternating odd-even in groups, within the sequence
of cose-ups of this
scene.

However, before going furher, we must note one more compositionar

canon of the chinese and Japanese, which proceeds totally
om those
same ancient principres of raoism fom the principres of yi
and yang.
The point is that these principles govem not onthe
bot also the
basic first premises ofthe sciences. The system of chinese
"rtinumbering is
also partly subject to them. This system is based not on the fact
that one
number is larger than the one standing next to it in a single unit. For
the
chinese the essence of the difference between numbers slanding
next to
each other (unavoidably odd and even) is not at all in the fact tt.t
tt ey
are quantitatively different or that one can be divided into two without
anything left over, and the other cannot.
For the chinese, the decisive d.ifference between simila numbers is
that one of them belongs to one series or clan to tIrc familyof evens,
and
the other to the other clan or type to the tamity of ods.
And one of these crans is subject to the principre of yang, and the
other
type to the principle of yin, and the mutuar iterweaving tuottr through
each subsequent unit of the nonrral series of numbers uuitas the unityr
the whole series that here - as everywhere is maintained on that
same
principle of the mutual penetration of those
two opposite principlesl
Marcel Granet, in his magnificent boo* writes uout ttris interesting

repetition.

* Marcel Granet, La pensee

Chinoise, paris, 1934.

phenomenon:

239

we are very interested in the principre of odd-even because

it is one of
the most effective means used when purety land.scape puyr,"g,
grows
into what we may all a-'.huma landscap,,,that is, rvnen
human figures become the center of attenion in the picture.""g.oup of
TiIl that moment a group of people, spread through the tandscape,
are
completely subordinated to the generar principtes oiplastic
cniming ana
terally means combining them
.l

IV. Nonindifferent nature

240

At the same time, in a subject where thete are many figures, they are
distributed along the same lines of the score, as also a_re elements of
landscape.
This is because, just as in Eg1pt, there existed in the art of the Far East
a stage in which they were unable to place figures one behind the other.
And here, as in Egypt, they are placed instead on top of each other.
If in the landscape the analogy with a page of a musical score is based
on the elements placed there according to the height they are drawn i.n

nature (mountain ranges - above, rivers - below, trees ad cliffs between them)
then in combination of many figures this occurs as a result of the
necessity ofputting a row offigures over a row offigures, since they still
do not have the ability to put some figures behind others !
It is interesting in this respect to trace a certain evolution. Between the
period when they simply draw row over row in an almost "Egyptian-like"
way and the period when the distribution of groups behind each other jn
depth like 'kings" on a stage is reached, there is a long period when
figures remain distributed as rows over each other, but this distribution
attempts to find some motivation.
This can be noted to a certain extent in one of the oldest examples of
Chinese plastic art that has come down to us - in the bas relief of the
work of the second century R.o., from the tomb of Wu-kung-tse,37
depicting the famous Battle on the Bridge. In certain parts of this relief
the distribution of figures - in horizontal rows - is motivated by the fact
that some of the people and a chariot are moving along the bridge (that
is, above) and the other part of the people ae active on the river (this is,
below).

In the remaining portions, the horizontal arrangement of separate

"lines" of the details of battle no longer have any motivation, and it is
very fascinating, as one runs one's eye along them, to establish the
rhythmic repetition of isolated details along the different lines: Sometimes they are simply identical, sometimes they are presented in the form
of reverse "mirror image," sometimes in modifications and in variations
of one and the same motif, etc.
Stephen W. Bushell, in his book on Chinese art,* brings in examples
of similar relief depictions from Mt. Tse-Yun-chan belonging to the first
century s.c. The subject here is a .arge hunting expedition, but the type of
arrangement of the figures is exactly the same: the same rhhmic
repetitions of identical figures, interweaving with rhythmic repetitions of
others. It is interesting that these reliefs have not only been preserved but
the poetic descriptions of this hunt as well.
And in comparing the type of poetic description of this event with the
* L'Art Chinois, Laurens, Paris, 1910.

The music of landscape.

247

plastic composition of its graphic exposition, you will be struck by te

identical nature of the structure of both.
Iust as there are separate plastic depictions here, there the separate

verbal elements alternate repeatedly.

Our chaiots were heavy and stong

Our harness - well-coupled galloping horses.

Our chaiots gleamed and shone,

Our steeds flashing and powerful. . .

All the lines begin with the same word ("our").

The beginning of the first and third lines are relative,y identical ("our
chariots").
The beginning of the second and third are not identical but
thematically resemble each other and the other Lines ("harnesses,',
"horses," "chariots"),
The second Iine speaks of "galloping horses," In the fourth they are
called "steeds" (as if the same "horses" had been foreshortened).
In the second line they speak of "coupled,, (',steeds,').
In the three other lines we have two coupled designations in each
("heavy and strong," "gleamed and shone," ',flashing and powerful,,).
rvvhen we begia to examine a reproduction of rhe
Battle on the Bridge
from this point of view, we see that the repetitions and variations of
separate figures repeat the same verse harmony here, that is, the musical
movement as it occurs in the verse passage we have introduced.
In later examples, this primitive anner of distributing figures ',in
rows" on top of each other now becomes motivated by a specific type of
"perspective" (the axonometric type, that is, without a vanishing point

and a corresponding contraction of figures). This produces a very

remarkable impression of spatial "timelessness.,, The vanishing point

seems to be the goal of space rushing off somewhere. These spatial
compositions, without any vaaishing point, seem to be free of the bustle

of worldly goals and plunged into pure contemplation and timeless

existence. This is also assisted by the liberation ofthese depictions from

casual 'ransient" elements of chiaroscuro; and, in terms of color

relationship, they seem equally free of the eternal change of the worldly
vale, like the mind of a sage plunged into the contemplation of the
eternity of the basic principles of the universe. t. . l
When we are concerned with the usual type of scroll picture, but one
with human figures, then the compositional juxtaposition of such groups
of people echo precisely the same deplolrment we unfolded in the
analysis of landscape.
An example of this type is the thirteenth-cenrury painting depicting
Minister sugavarano Michi-tsan shooting a bow. Here is a particularly

fV. Nonindifferent nature

242

fascinating repetition of the "triads" - tlree seated figures at the lower

edge and their "chiming" with three figures placed at the top.
But the most fascinating, of course, is Te Moonlit Night in the
Emperor's Palace - this is a genuine "Moonlight sonata" of Eastern
painting. It belongs to the eleventh century, is attributed to the brush of
Fujiwara Takayoshi, and composes parrof a large number of painted
scrolls illustrating the classic novel of rhe Tale of Genji written by the
princess Murasaki Shikibu.
I only know a fragment of this picture found in propylaen Kunstgeschichte.* But even in this separate fiagment its striking ,,melodiousness"
is visible. It seems that the sound of the flute, on which one of the figures
is playing, streams along the slanting lines of the balcony rising toward
the moon. The rare verticals of the columns rhythmically intersect the
pale green strips ofthe diagonal ofthe carpets; the dark blankets, thrown
across the banisters, repeat the motif of the verticals in the soft folds;
groups of transparent lines of sitting figures contrast with the dry
imprint of the lines of the buildings; the silver shimmering of their
clothing (in the original they are strewn with silver dust, the so-called
mica), and dark spots of headdresses, inclining in different directions
taken all together create the amazing lyricar, but also plaintive,atmosphere of this perfect model of ,'eye music.,'
The analysis of how the principles of musical composition of pure
landscape develop into a similar composition of human groups and
figures is very relevant here, for we see the same thing occurring in the
scene of the mist in Potemkin where it begins with ,.nonindifferent
nature" in pure form and gradually passes into the silence of mourning
of city inhabitants who had come to visit the body of vakulinchuk, where
separate groups and separate close-ups are combined according to the
same musical principles by which the beginning of the scene was

be music of landscape.

243

feeling of arr apparent mutual penetation of two comprexes

betonging to
two opposite principles of phenomena.

ne
of

on.from even groups to odd is

ut is actua.ly felt as a ftansition

In terms of the actua-r type of picture scro

and. the peripateia

of its

development, it turns out that it is much more related toii.r-utography

than might be thought.

In this sense the

where, in the
process of shooting
into separate
shots and by the wi
into a whole
montage sequence, repeats completely this stage of the general evoutionary course of the history of painting.

constructed.
In the analysis of the scene mentioned above of the encounter between
the battleship and the yawls, we showed clearly that very ,,golden rule,' of

odd-even alternation as an example of genuine cinematographic

composition.

In this example of the yawls scene, more than just the interweaving of
numerical elements is apparent.
There we also traced the interaction of the rectangular and. circular, as
well as the type of movement of motifs within them.
However, the most important thing one must always keep in mind is
that it is not so much a matter of the alternation of odd and even as the
* otto Fischer, Die Kunst Indiens, chinas und
lapans, propylaen-Verlag, Berlin, vot. IV,
1928.

The picture f the i.nterweauing and correspondence of separate

plastic motifs and lines is just as graphic in this case.

fV. Nonindifferent nature

24

lbe music of landscape.

245

As we have noted above, norrrally separate pictues of usual views are

born from this type of picture by disintegration - the breakup of the
general flowing continuity into separate motifs, snatched out of the
general flow.
The continuous flow of glissando, characteristic ofvoice and strings,
is broken up in exactly the same way, passing, for example, into the
tempered construction of the piano.
But what is even more interesting is the other method of approaching
the canonized conventional type of rectangular picture.
A The ribbon of the scroll is
"swung around" into
is iwung
inio a recta_ngle!
rectangle! But it js
i,
not
swung
around
it
eff
as
ribbon
(on the
into
scroll;
but
on
on
ifs
its surface
surface(or
.4,
II flatnpsc of the nictrrrpl the wicttal rpnrp<nlatnn < ctntnn
X
cnttnil
picture)
flatness
of
the
the
visual
reprcsentation
is
swung
around.
fThe depiction on the ribbon of the scroll is "swurrg around" into a

rectangle

And this is not a metaphor, not a play of words, but a actual fact.
It turns out that there is an intermediate stage lying between the
canonical form of the picture scroll - where tlre lines of the plastic score
are very clearly run side by side - and those rectangular sheets, no less
canonical, where there is a strict score of interconnected separate motifs,
but where they no longer run side by side, but are placed on top of each
.I:.',',, ote. This endlessly complicates the possibility of "reading" and
,l "acing" the course of separate motifs, which no longer rush para,l/el to
i r ech other, but through each otlrer!
I ttre scheme of this transitional stage from makimono stretching
endlessly to the limitd rectangle - in the case of this "swingng around"
- suggests, ad looks. alnost like, a graphic "p.ay of words" with an
inherent ironic aftertaste.

l"F"t
I do not know whether one could find many similar examples, but I
have come across several similar cases.
One of them belongs to the brush of an anonymous artist of the eighth
(!) century. It is reproduced in Fischer (and, in addition, without any
commentary!) right next to and on a level with certain "normal" examples
of Chinese painting.

Figure 18. The Day of Death, woodcut by

|os Guad.alupe posad.a (1gs3- r911).

The other case refers a.rso to a certain earry variety. But this
time to an
early prenewspaper period. . .of journalism.

In the Eas
preceded

by

ballad, sing
purtishment

:::,1,:r"1?".i,
earthquake, murder,

also supplied with a linle engraving.

n in circulation in Mexico even until today
where newspapers ae normally in less

In Me
Venegas
long tim

n old lady _ the widow of the famous

of these 'boridos,, (tittte songs). For a
shop, searching for little priits of the

IV. Nonindifferent nature

I

century.

24

one of their most prolific

tetongs to the seventeenr

It is one of the few of the first sheets that have been preserved, and it is
devoted to the seige of the city of Osaka in 1lS.
I happened to see it in a certain book d.evoted to the history of
]apanese journalism, but in such a bad reproduction that it is impossible

to reproduce it here.

The music of landscape. ..

247

However, the .rst erample most consistent in principle remains the

most interesting, nd this is because more than 1,000 years later,
approaching tlle moment when painting, after having stiffened in the
rectangle of a frane, again leaps over to movement along a moving
ribbon - this time a real. running ribbon of film tape we will again find
an analogous ansitional stage, where elements of landscape re again
distributed in exactry the same way as in the eighth-"".rto.y unonymous
painter just mentioned.
Between painting and cinema, amid a huge legion of ,,_isms,,, there is
one that has given over all its qualities of visual depiction to the
embodiment of what cannot be captured on canvas, the bsic element of

art

movement.

Tis intermediate stage, tis very distinct connecting link between

painting and cinema - is futurism, in its initial, *rery rigioul experiments' which are grouped around the "six-Legged figues o1 people,' as
attempts to convry by such a method . . . the sensation of the dynamics
of
running, etc.
To the brush of our copaiot David Buriuka3 berong the painted
landscape ad a series of pen drawings where the norml fl.ow of the
subject depicted in the picture in one case is arranged along an
unwinding spiml, and in the other - just as in trre
eighth"ron!-o,r.
century painter - along all four sides of the rectangular
canvas.

And, therefore, I will limit myself to the scheme of the print depicted
on it.
marching soldiers. On
of the toops beseiging
behind tlre mountains
(and not descending out o
glance).
,,
\Mhat is also interesting
here is
aided by the rheme itself:
However, the seige, rike the theme, is broadly spread out and is in
unfolded makimono.
Thus there is no base for conclud.ing that the circular principle of
composition is derived only from the subject.

around it!

\4/hat was left was to "smash" the frame and ertend the elements
into a
row of divisions of a continuously running ribbon.

fV. Nenindseut nature

Then

The music of landscape.

249

- to cut this ribbon into separate subjects.

m Er m

E.

And then in rapid succession - subject after subject - they wouLd be

shown to the viewer, thus achieving not a static morphological unity of
the picture but a dynamic unity.
And this is exactly what cinema did as the igest stage of painting.
And as such, its features force it to come into unavoidable conflict with
the original stages of painting: as if again reproducing the form of the
early picture scroll on the screenf but this time in the form of the eal
movement of ribbon that really runs, divided not into separate frames of
sheets but growing out of sepa-rate rectangles - the visual depictions of
shots forming the actual reality of its couse.
At first this movement is born from the system of dynamic change of
frames that, in its coulse, engenders the basic cinematographic phenomenon of movement of visua-l representation so that from a simila
comparison of new magnitudes - no longer of frames, but of montage
el.ements - of shots - it will give birth to a whole variety of physical
phenomena - the tempo and psychophysical sensation of dynamics.
In regard to the actual. principle of continuous flow, here movies - as
the most perfect reptesentation of the at of mouing dynamics
_
unavoidably, as always at the highest stage of development, repeat in a
new quality the initial forms of the continuity of the flow of events, as it
occurred in the eaIiest stages of the development of any aea of narration

or story.
This does not only occur among the Chinese and Japanese.
The North American Indians expressed tleir naration in the same
pictorial manner, that is, in the form of semirepresentational writing.
Yielding to the East in the level of technique and possibilities available
to him, deprived of paper and ink Qraper was invented around 10S a.o.
by the Chinese minister Ts'ai- Lun), the Indian did not have the
possibility of creating his own type of makimono
However, despite this, even here the basic tendencl,remains the same
and
we can see that the notation of the Indian, who was timited by the
number of buffalo hides, nevertheless was a-Lso stretched consecutively
into one continuous line - into a pictographic story that, beginning in the
center, swings around in the form of a spiral.
A similar principle of continuity is seen in the old way of drawing
used by the ancient Greeks -the notorious bousbophdon, where the text
also flows continuously, passing from line to line; for this reason it goes

U+-+-J
(4
Y-

from line to line by alternating now from right to left, then from left to
right (the verT tenn preserved the memory of the original image, which
was the term for this type of writing - 'ollowing the ox furrou/').
The transition from examples of the arragement of visual representation to examples concerning the direction in writing systems is quite
appropriate: in the first place because they belong to a single evolutionary series (and in the orample of raw pictographic writing this is
clearly obvious); and second, because at the basis of both lies that same
tendency towad continuity*; and in the third place, finally, because the
process of breakdown in them is identical - into separate sentences and
lines in one case and into independent pictures in the other.
As an example of the "rebirth" of flowing continuity, with the rather
sharp effect of the paradoxical novelty of the "device," we can introduce
an example from one more area - not from the history of drawing but
from the history of. literary exposition.

Literature also has its '\empered' structure and division by para-

graphs and punctuation maks. A solid *floW'without division by sentences and punctuation marks is written only by illiterates (more than
once I have had to ead sucli writing aloud to my old domestic servant Auntie Pasha - from her relatives, who live in various vilages in the
Soviet Union).
However, an instarce of this rebirth can be seen as a lterary device
using this compact 'TloW' of wdting; this is tlre case of the famous last
chapter of ]amss Joyce's [Jlysses.4 This is the chapter in which Mrs.
Bloom, while falling asleep, remembers by a unique multivoice polyphony, the images of her former lovers as she awaits tlre arrival of her
legal spouse while lying on the maniage bed.
This chapter, as we know, is written without a single punctuation
mark, and reproduces very precisely the presleep flow of thoughts of
someone falling asleep.
One of te secrets of the effect of this chapter (and of the presence of
this device) is, of course, that here one of the profound aspects of the very
first stage of hrnan consciousness is captured: the undvided whole* The continuity of general flow is perhaps the simplest and most primitive method of the
ealization of the unity of the whole - the only means accessible in these early stages of
development.

fV. frf oindifrsent nature

250

ness and flow of undifferentiated representations of the stage preced_ing

the stage of consciousness that actively "makes division" highei
stages of its development.
However, tle correct combination of both tendencies: both the con-

For only here

and tendencies
which the other

futurism); more
tal results, but even with very brilliant realistic results.
Perhaps this is exactly the point where I should discuss why, in the
majority of my analyses concerning the elements and. natue of cinema
over so many years, I often intoduce a parallet analysis of the
characteristics of Fa Eastern art.

I will not discuss the historical and social conditions that a_ffected

these phenomena - this would lead us too far asay. But this very fact
thus gives us the possibility of looking at certain phases characteristic of
the early development of thought and art. These phases seem to be artificially preser',red in such "childish" and "adolescenf' stages that it is
possible to discover them in our afis only in oramples of the very archaic

and primitive.
In china and Japan we encounter examples of such achaic canons
side by side, but with thei richest elaboration in breath in alt the richness of means and possibilities provided by an epoch of higher
development.

The canon remains inviolable.

Thus, for example, in-_the incomparable mastery of acting and the
theater by Mei Lan-Fangas there has come to us in fure and untouched
form, the basic original principles of att early theater (of course, with a
correction of purely nationa,l elements).
In the majority of other cases, these principles have to be restored
almost by conjectures or intuitive means, worthy of Cuiveau!
Theater historians find an affinity between the theatrical consrructions of Mei Lan-Fang and early Greek forms of theater. This affinity is

The music of landscape. ..

251

not fortuitous, observing how the director Mei, in actual performance,

returns to the canon of continuity; we can observe in a vivid example how
the established and stable "canoD," can simultaneously be the source of
the most vivid pleasure i creatively overcoming it within the limits
oDce set. Let us recall the liturgical canonic quallty of the medieval
spectacles and miracle plays,aT canonized conventions of the d.rama and
performance of pre-Shakespearean Elizabethan theater - and how ai,l
tis was given new life by the genius of Shakespeare. Living examples of
this period have long ago disappeared in the West, and we can imagine
only by hints (and even then not very concretely) what this was all like.
Where ancient e:ramples have remained as survivals, they usually
remain in such a primitive fonn that it would be very difficult to discover
directly from them the embryo of future, more perfectly evolved forms.
fut e:Kmple is the theatrical presentations of the Basques, who in the
Iittle villages in the Pyrenees preserved features of the earliest theater in
its purest form (I lsrow of this only from the Literature: Etudes su ,le
Thtre Basque, La Reprsentation des pabtorales su.'ets tragiques by
Georges Hrelle, Pais, 1923).
Another erample is the religious festival presentations of the
Mexicans.

I had occasion to see an example of the latter spectacle myself.

And in order to decipher the striking features of these "embryos" of
theatrical form,s, one must have, of course, more than a small experience
of examples more richly developed in breat.
And such are tlre o<amples of Chinese culture.
And no matter what area of culture we might touch on here - whether it
be tle principles of writing or early pictography, the structure of the
Ianguage and rhetorical uopes o the technique of theater, the principle
of the composition of painting or the system of counting and numeration,
etc., etc. - everywhere we will see the principles worked out with great
richness, with great variety and in great detail, which is peculiar to the
initial pases of the development of sepante branches of culture in
genera.

And now it happens that it is to our lot, the lot of Soviet film directors,
that the task has fallen not only of making fiIms, but also of realizing,
constucting, and forming t.e very first principLes of film culture and
aesthetics in general. *
* The pioneers in this direction, who were rsl of all pioneer-practitioneers, were, of course,
- and especially D. W. Gifth; however, even they have written that with the
appeannce of Soviet films "a new era of fiIm aesthetics has begun," which absorbed the
experience of everling that had been done earlier, and wee the fist to formulate rhe distinctive principles of film art and composition (see Lewis Jacobs, Te Rise of the American
FiIm, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1939, p. 312; and my anicle, "Dickens, Grifth and Us,"
FiIm Form,I. Leyda, ed. and trans., Harcourt, Brace and World, New York, 1949, p. 195.

the Americans

fV. Nonindifferent nature

252

This art is young, having been born before our very eyes, but it is
closely tied to the cultural traditions of all the separate arts, which seem
to have merged into a whole within it.
The main problem was the clarication of the specific nature of the
essence of this young art, that is, an essence that would be free of slavish
borrowing and copflng of examples ad featues of the other ats that
cinematography synthetically unites within it.
And in this instance, of course, an acquaintance with those beginning
phases through which all tlre other arrs have passed does help, for in the
history of the development of its particular distinctive quality, cinema
aesthetics inevitably must pass through those same phases lhat stage by
stage, the development of the other ats had passed through.
The cultue of the East is particularly valuable at tlis point.

And especially the most ancient culture and cultural traditions

fron China.
\^Ihat is also characteristic in this respect is that in my personal
research during the couse of all these years I moved from the more
coming

superficial and mechanica.l conceptions, characteristic of r}.e fapanese

treatment of a heritage received from china, to the organic essence of the
conceptions of the Chinese themselves.
This is a very natural process in the investigation of an object, inevitably going from appearance to essence, from sgn to pn'ncIq from
deuice to metrod.
This method passed from the more popula and simplified sphere of
Eastern culture - from the Japanese - to the profound feeling for principles of China. From the "Romans" of the East - the Japanese - to the
Eastern "Hellenism" of Ancient China,

We saw that the principles of construction of the musical, emotional,

"nonindifferent" landscape of the Chinese corresponds in a very particular way to those methods bywhich the landscape of the ,.mist suite" of
Potemkin was built, as described above.
Can one speak here of stylization or borrowing or direct influence?
Knowing the autfior of. Potemkin fairly well, I can assert that this had
no place here at all: I became interested in the nanrre of the composition
of Chinese landscape much Later. Before becoming interested in Eastern
art in general, the East attracted me in other ways, partialy by the hieroglyphic writing that at certain initial stages helped me form concepts
about the principles of montage.
I became interested in Chinese landscape much later - in the period
when I was analyzing how landscape is used in my picnrres, and not the
other way around.
In general, landscape plays a very large role in all my films: the city
night landscape of Petrograd in October, the fou_r seasons of the Russian

The music of landscape.

253

landscape in Te OId and tJae New, and Que Viva MexicoJ - unwound
completely on tJre landscapes of Mexico, etc. In addition, everywhere the
role of landscape is above all invariably musical and emotional.
However, we a.re limited here onlyto an analysis of the "founder" of the
genre of "nonindifferent nature" - Potemkin.
The ladscape suite of Potemkin was born youthfully and directly
from the means available to the youthful art of cinema and, naturally,
overflowed into 'YouthfuI forrns" of expression, for the tangibility of the
counterpoint stucture in my view is one of the typical forms of a simiar
youth.
At a more mature age such thick knittng of the texture and motjfs
occnrs ttrat the direa tangibility of them is lost.
And I think that for this very reason of the "feeling of youth" the
invariable effect of eternaly popular forms. . . rough homespun rugs and
fabrics (for example, English homespun)...are so uitalizing, On the

general background of other fabrics, which increasingly lose the

tangibility of the couse of the theads and fibers composing them, they

always act and impress one by their freshness; at a time when the charm
of other fabrics is no longer based on this, but on the perfection of the
play of the modulations of tlre even and smooth surface of the material.
The limits in this respect yvere reached by fabrics made out of . . . glass

threads

t...1

fabrics that have penetrated American Iife more ad more.

The pattem of the fabrics is formed here no longer out of the natura/
course of the threads composing it but passes over as a pattern on the
smooth surtace composing it. This is somewhat like what occurred with
re picnrre scrolls described above, where a moment occurs in the
history of their development when not only is the ribbon of scroll snrung
and turned around but the rcpresentation itse,lf is swrng around on the
surface of the,scroll (and from a continuous ribbon it becomes a selfcontained rectangle).
Something of the sort also occurs in ceramics, and it is especially evident, for ercample, in Peru. Here in the early periods there is not yet a
division of the functions of fomt into utiltaian and aftistic. Here the
fonn still serves both functions inseparably.
The vessel by designation is first of aII utilitaian.

This determines its forrr.

However, this form at the same time is a rudiment of visual representaton because this earliest primitive also reflects the original "leading"
image - man - as all aspects of art will do in the course of the entire
history.

Of course, this ealiest "portrait'' of ma "reflects" only one feature of

the original - his ability to contain food and liquid.
This connection between the vessel and the human stomach was

lV.

Nonindifrerent nature

retained for a long time in language:

If the Middle Ages ca_ll man

2V

The music of landscape. ..

,,the

In terms of structural elements, we experienced a certain reductio ad

absudum of this phenomenon in constructivism.
But we have experienced this same feeling of vivid counterpoint when
observing the peripeteia of the exciting course of van Gogh's brushstroke
or when looking at the rough surface of figures, for example, in a series of
Michelangelo's works.
The sculptural group "Youth Conquering Otd Age ("The Conqueror"),"
for example, is like this, or the head of his "Brutus," where all traces of
the chisel of his creation have been preserved.

vessel of sin," then until this very day we talk about ,otbellied" stoves

and bottles.
Therefore in the first stages tle vessel was formed like a man by the
crudest primitive, when the form of the pot captures only the image of the

stomach, before the vessel begins to take shape in the forrr of a

potbellied man.
But very soon the problem of putting in liquidand the problem of depicting a man became separated.
The vessel (at least in the Peruvian example) was topped no longer by
a face or the head of a m:n or animal but by the whole figure of aman,
of people, or animals: They "crawl out'' in the form of independent
sculptural representations on the top of the vessel, ard the function of
the form of the vessel is now only purely utIitarian, now freed from the
function of reflection, representation, and depiction.
In other cases the representational line is not captured and continued
by sculptured figures on top (usualy an a:nazing work), but by a .flat
reprcsentati.on on the walls of the vessel.
In this way the very fi.rst "hollord' sculptured "porEait" of a person is
distinguished from the utilitaian form of the vessel ard becomes an
independent representation.
Here it seems to "become differentiated" into two reas of the
conventional view ofthe representational arts: into sculpture (the figures
above) ad into flat painring (the drawing on te walls).
As we cn see, the reflection of man in artwas rearized significantly
earlier than the representation of him appeared in art!
samples of all these subsequent stages can be easily taced in
Peruvian ceramics.
strictly speaking, the ea-rly Peruvian continued. to perceive the unity of
vessel and figure in indivisible form even al?er this division. After the
actial unity,.they are now found in a "hierogllphic'unity, that is, while
standing side by side, they ae still read as one whole. In chinese
hieroglyphics as well, "sack" and ..man,' srnd nerft to each other, and
this means '\^oman" ("man with womb"). Besides, this is also preserved
in the English language, where 'boman,, is '\pomb * mar,,, that is, it
literally designates the same thing.
The same process also occurs repeatedly on the surface where
patterns subsequently are formed from the interweaving of separate
elements of pure representation.
And the tangible vitality of the constrtrctive "supports" ae based on
the tangibility of te course of the stuctaal line or the bnssaoke in
painting, which corresponds to the perceptibility of the unpolished u:ace
of the course of he chisel in sculpure or the '\rnnoticed" cou-rse of the
brush on the canvas of a picture.

And

255

it is the "nonsmearing"

canvases

one of the

course of the brush on van Gogh's

particular\ refined charms of the art of its author -

that explains the seemingly strange accusation against him that Herbert
Read mentions:

It has been said in depreciation of van Gogh that he remained all his life a
draughtsman - that he painted his pictures as other men draw their sketches,

that bis ideas were only black-and-white ideas.*(!)

We have allowed ourselves to dwell in greater detail on

these

examples intentionally. Later we will have to anae the questions of

what courses the evoluti.on of forms of montage took, and all these
considerations and oramples will help us solve this problem.
We should note one more thing, that we can find an interesting
analogy to tlre rample concerning Peruvian ceramics in Chinese and
Japnese theater.
Here in re theater it is often not necessary to give the form of a man to
a vessel, but to form the man himself into the image of something else into something often exuemely fantastic. Among the stage characters of
China and Japan one encounters "spirits," for example: the spirit of a
frog, the spirit of a bat, tlre spirit of an oyster, and even the spirit. . . of a
stone.
Here in stage make up we encounter literally the same thing according
to the method employed.
A small caved inage sits on the upper part of the Peruvian vessel or
there is a drawing on its walls, and this "means" that the vessel as a
whole r's exactly what the carved image depicts.
A Chinese or Japanese proceeds in exactly the same way with makeup;
he daws a bat or fold of an oyster on his face, and this means that the
whole person i's the spint of the oyster, the bat, or the frog.
One should also not forget that many Chinese clothes and the kimonos
of the Japanese are usually representational.: white herons, rose-colored
bran-ches of blossoming cherries, or green needles of ancient pines,
cypresses rising upward like waterfalls, or a sunset.
* Herbert Read, The Meaning of,4rt, Fabet & Faber, London, 1931, p. 187, 203.

lV. Nonindifferent natute

256

Il in the area of makeup, knowing the key to the conventions, we can

catch the intention hidden in it, we can no longer consciously keep up
with it in the depths of the earliest pantheistic fusion of ma ad nature
through the magic of representational clothes, andwhat remains for us is
only to admire them. And perhaps in this admiration we participate, even
if only partially, in the experiences of what completely dominated the
thoughts and feelings of those who fist put the patterns of real nature
and landscape onto clothes.
And it seems that here before us is the third phaseof t]:e general theme
of "man within the landscape:"
here he is - lirang and undepictable materially invested in clothes
in-wrought wit landscapes;

The music of landscape. ..

not eve
able of

outline

257

blossoming petals are in themselves cap_

lyric visions and representations, vaguely
c they are, the less ae they grounded in

actua
And how is this "metaphoric" theme drawn in the consciousness and
poetics of the Greek?
ovid brought to us tlre Greeks' Iegacy of the mutual embod.iment of
man and nanrre in each other. And here there are no longer any nuances
or hints.
There ae no sokes or transcience.
No lyrical ouq)ourings, guiding over the chaaging scares or semiconcrete metaphors.

Here there ate no lyrical stances, but romantic stories.

Here, in this "third phase," a similar enumeration of such apparently

irrelevant "elements of nature" are at the same time allegories about the
beloved, who often bears a simita metaphor or simile in the form of her
name (this even applies to Puccini,s Madame Butterfty)ae.
Perhaps this is why chnese poety is so lyricat, for it speaks by means
of landscape about the beloved, and vivid, trembling humal feelings that
penetrate every eI
rn oflyric
poetry or into the
on silk or
drawing paper; it
by poetic

allegory through

Such an "anthropomorphization" of nature, essentially an allegory

about man by means of the elements of .nature, is chaacteristic of the
poetry of any nation.
And in this respect what is exnemely interesting is not the fact itself,
but those "individual" nuances by which the poetry of d.ifferent nations
solve the same problem, proceeding from the distinctive aspects of their
worldview or world perception.
At this point it would be interesting to compare tle chinese, whose
images and themes are fulI of unuttered, flowing, flickering nuaces and
modulations with the clean-cut efficiency of tle Gree practical and
concrete in spite of his icism, his mhopaeicism and his mysticism
of Pythagorean numbers.so
To the chinese, a strong puff is sufficient: In the branch of a cherry
tree or flower, he captures the breathing of his beloved's image; he d.oes

able in itself.
And it seems that in these "fairy stories," tlere is a premonition of the
future clear representation of "the origin of the species,, (which no doubt
subconsciously always nourishes a similar species of poetry, as d.oes the
teaching about the 'transmigration of souls"), which is more than a
piration.
t similarity of a
h. And he is not
limited to contemplating the fact that one of them would engender a
vaguely experienced image of the other, so that one would signify the
other in a poetic allegory ad at the mention of one you would think of

the other.

No. The Greek will conceive a story where one is concretely Tvrned into
the other.
And in his own words, in the Metamorphoses ovid also resurrects
before us the scene of how tlre god and the young man compete in
throwing the discus.
He illuminates in detail the situation where the young Hyacinth is
wounded and killed by the force of the ,'ricochet.,'
He has Phoebus mournfully moan and sob over the body of his partner
killed so tragically.
And finally he establishes in detail and very precisely the decisive
sign of the similarity of the perishing youth with the sad flower, inro
which the despairing god turned him - the crimson wound. across the
lily-white figure that had turned pale:

fV. Ncinlndiffeent nature

258

...The blood that fiiled the gfttsses at his feer

Turned to a brighter dye than Tyrian purple,
Ad fom its lips tlere came a lily flower,
And yet, unlike the silver-white of lilies,
Its colour was a tinted, pinkish blue.*
In this case the "thematic" interpretation of the sange black designs
of the pattem on the white petals of the hyacinth will not be forgotten:
. . .Nor was this miacle enough for phoebus;

He wote re words ',Ai, 4,, actoss its petals,

The sign of his own grief, his signature.l

In other cases the description wil be given as a reproduction in documentary detail of the "process of reincamation," which any .'naturalist,,

would envy! Thus, for o<ampre, in the case when ttre punisnment
of
Phoebe comes down upon the witd Edonian women tea-ring
apart
Orpheus:

. . . Lyaeus could not let the kiling of Orpheus

Pass without revenge on his mad muderers.

The

ics

of the chinese and the lyricism of ovid's tares ae

301.

,h
th

fth act of potemkrn, by

:''i#:,ili:"j

right out of the womb of the classical tradition of the chase.

In exactly the same way - for the "pretty word." and in the form of a
well-made metaphor - only one other critic (I no Longer remember where)
in passing dropped the remark that the "odessa Steps" is essentially the
uaditional tiarrgle, raised here into mass action.
The "Steps" rush towad "The Battleship.,'But barring the way is the
villain - "The Feet of the Tsaist So.diers."
It is interesting to note in passing that here is a completely conaccidentally found emorg my otd notes one relating to a work

At that time, I wanted to make an epic about the First Cavalry. I

And in the notes relating to the proposed dramatic structure of this
fiIm, I find this observation: 'to build the fates and interaction of the
collectives and social groups according to the type of peripateia inside...a Eiangle!"
The CavaJry was never realized.

"q,ruity

ovid, the Metamorphoses, H. Gregory, uans., viking press, New york, 19sg, p.
lbid., p. 280.

Book XI, 9-84, p.

much man and his emotions, which are veiled only in images of the
lyrical landscape.
It is interesting that here the film as a whole - which made such a
-protagonists
in a canonic
ory, a monu-

But the structue, their character and method, as we can see, are
profoundly different, although each is lovely in its own way.
And above all because they both equa[y grow out ofthe ntionar and
cultural distinctiveness of their nations.
Is there an equivalent to this in the composition of. potemkin?
There is! And most interesting is that here this does not
concern so
1

259

conceived between Ske and Potemkn.

They grow out of identica-l premises.

And they embody simila aspirations.

sciously preconceived sequence.

Angered by loss, he captured Thracan women

Who saw him die, Eussed them witl roots,.
And thrust their feet, toes downwad, into earth.
As birds are apped by clever fowlers in a ner,
Then fluner to get free, drawing the net still tighter
Round wings and claws, so each woman fought,
Held by quick rcots entangling feet and ngers,
Toenails in earth, she felt bark creeping up her legs,
And when she tried to slap her thighs, her hands sutrck oak;
Her neck, her shoulders, breasts were oak-wood canring;
You'd think her arms were braches you,re not ,ronj.t
-

poetic.

The music of landscape.

2g0,

but the method slipped over into Potemkin.

And probably the 'humanitt'' of this film, without any human
individual protagonists, is maintained to a great efient by the fact that
vivid human prototypes with their vital peripateias live under the

collective images.
In the sme way the beating of the Potemk's engines is interpreted
almost everywhere both as the beating of the arxious collective heart of
re battleship and of the living salor collective.
It is interesting that this same imprint lies on all my "personless,,

lms.

rn oaober this same interel.ationship is presented. between the

leading center and the workers' distict. In the episode of the |uly days of
the 'villain" - the Provisional Government - they become disconnected;
* Apparently

it was the young Asquithst in the joumal Film Classic.

I fBased on Isaac Babel's book HM,l
-

fV. Nonindifferent Dane

this is presented in the picture concretely by the raising of the Giat
Palace Bridge. The episodes of october 25 begin with the closing of the
bridge, along which the masses are moving into the victorious storming
of the Winter Palace.
(There is also a parody episode when a comic procession of old men
led by the city Mayor Schreider move along the tiny Bankovs (!) Bridge

"to the aid of the Winter Palace.")

And if you "unveil" The OId and the New according to this principle,
then here the structure goes far beyond the fra-me of a "lyric" treatment of
the '\riangle" - in many cases in generalized forms reaching such a
degree of naked eroticism that on the "personal level" would. be worthy of
more than a few pages of Zola's Earth or Les Liaisons Dangereusesls2
However, returning to the problem of counterpoint, one must say tlat
not only does the tangibilry of counterpoint, arise in the stages of youth
- but secondarily, also in the epoch of decay and witlering away.
"Ends" and "beginnings" resemble each other octernally.
In the morning glow of the dawn of the arts, colored spots of separate
tesserae of mosaics run together into a general picnrre with a tendency to
grow together into one whole; in the sunset of the at of central Europe
on the eve of its fall - the flatness of the picture again bursts into flame
with colored spots, but this time these spots - ae the precursors of a
fall: The repeated "mosaic" of pointilisms3 signifies the beginning of
disintegration.
Several years more and te body of painting will break d.own into a
variety of "-isms" from which each will carry a certain component aspect
of painting as a whole - and will raise this cozrponent into an end in
itself - will put down the part in place of the whole.
For cinematography this encounter of te counterpoint of breakd.own
and the counterpoint of rcbirth is particularly interesting: what serves as
a sign of extinction for the "preceding,' arts passes directly into the
originating forms of a new kind of art - cinema!
Perhaps it would be interesting to illustate the beginning of these nuo
counterpoints - at the beginning phase and at the closing phase - with
an example from the history of literature in the period of its stormiest
development during the nineteenth century with the rise of realism.
. At the threshold of the new realistic literature in the eighteenth century
, stands the epistoLary counterpoint of the novel of choderlos de Laclos.
Laclos having used the dry traditional form of written exchange of discourse, was aIe to gscern the posn

ry
He poured new life

and pulsating dynamics into this scholastic form

and achieved incomparable success. criticized and misunderstood by
contemporaries, he paved the road, however, for the great masters of tlle
nineteenth century - Stendahl, Dostoyevs.

The music of landscape.

261

In the preface to Zes Liaisons Dangereuses* A. Efros writes:

is constructed, is remarkable. These leitmotifs of manner and turn of speech,

accompanying the letters of each of Laclos's heroes, are exciting in their vividness and precision even until this every day. They lose nothing of their

significance even after half a century of cultivated experiences of the same sort,
even after Poor FoJJr' of our Dostoyevs...
. . . Early contemporaries of Laclos saw in this polyphonic writing manner only
"un grand defaut''(a great failing).

Count de Tilly - one of the brilliat corrupters of morals, whom Laclos

might have taken and, perhaps, did take as the prototype of Valmont,
says in his Memo's:

It is a great failing

- to try to give each person his own style. As a result we encounter side by side with a page written brilliantly, unnecessary navet or\
unpardonable caelessness, whicb seem to be not so much contrasts, as spots.t

Later these original distindive and independent currents within the

counterpoint knit into a single compact mass of minutely interknit fabric

of literary materiaL.
The course of the characteristic drawing of the tread is preserved in
it, but this is now a combination of. drawings of separate threads, and not
a clearly tangible tie between the teads themselves as independent
elements of construcfion.
The heroes of Balzac or Dostoyevs, Gogol or Stendahl., their ties and
relationships among themselves are no Less comp.ex or sophisticated
tha the actions of Choderlos de Laclos's heroes, but the tangible
course of the epistolary counterpoint long gave place to a much more
rgfinsd tijeraglieelBre,(Iet us not forget tat it is the young DyGi
of. INhite.lVrts who is epistolary. And when mature - as in the complex
fugue of Brothers Kaamazov - such is the complexity of the plaited
fabric of interconnections, that only with great difficulty can one break it
down into its simplest "constituent parts").
But with the publication of the monumental literature of high realism
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we again encounter the most
interesting examples of what we have called "contrapuntal decay."
Typical, for example, is the tour de force of Lee Masterse in his Spoon
River Anthohory ot in Faulkne/sss structure of novels and tales, which is
mJry times more cOmplex.
In Lee Masters, people do not exchange letters, but - gravestone
* Russian edition, Izd Academia, Leningrad-Moscow, 1932.
r flext translated from the Russian as it appears in Eisenstein's lext. This count himself
(Johan Tserclass) was Flemish - HM.l

f-(

-. l\r *r-i

the music of landscape.

: ins.criPti.ols. Here epistles are renlacer hy enitenhs! And how characo\",

tfl;
' -n,J
i*'
lgnstic this is for a poe contemplating the aownfalf a whole worl of
l"it'
illusions and concepts, nourished by the stage ofcapitaristic prosperity
of America following the end of the civil war, the battle of the
\
orur and
the south!
Here the subject is the history of a city and its inhabitants which
grows out of the interweaving of short epitaphs decorating the gravestones of the dead inhabitants of a smail American town.

263

In the first chapter couins discusses tre nature

of this method:
As the Judge might once have heard it, so the
Reader shalr hear it now.

No

inning to the end of the disclosure,

the writer of these inuoductory lines

more closely connected than othels

'"":i:'i,i,:1.",i1,i*i
speak to rhe cicumstances unde ,'oo."

"
o

It"utli?ii;tff::,T:,'::
!

,foe

same objea in both cases, ro present rhe

them.
"

tllan one pen, as the story

*r* ur*"r, *1.otir;iii:::

inte[igible aspecu and to trace the course

making the persons who have been most

successive stage, relate their own
Let Walter Hartright, teacher o

ol

fist.*

. This style of exposition is maintained in the course of the whore nover.

And it is interesting to note that the n
Its bare application, calcurated for a tangibre and noticeably perceptible etrect as such, departs from the high rad of ,.d.emonsEative"
signs
of the works of the epoch.

T-he tangible effect of

\ ,., 1

\t\\
\

simila consuctions must be sought either in

compositionat marvets
Intfvels u"
as tloy_Oi"*Ay
JutODy-UlCk y
,,--:: "ry1yagant
3:g
1i:::y*" uvurPurrLrvudr'
ing far ahead into the
^-^^:e^
specic
aea of the literary
White of Wilkie Collinssz
vrvrryr, wrruse tile woQnstQne rs consrcLerecl one of the cornerstones of
the history of the detective gente.
Hee we are not only "shaken" by the subject but ar.so by the very
method of exposition of this wor which resorts to the most unexpected.
forms of "instrunents" in the orchestration of the exposition of this
such striking
-*--;'Y

subject.

It is just in this
ay, on the principle of polyphony _ according to
'polyphonic storFerling,"
- that the exposition i l th"
of his
The Woman in White (tBO) is built.
"u"ot,

en tlte late
near her own gravestone _ pieces of convers
in volume, and because of this naturally qui
actual vehicles of the story suddenry ueiin to
be modified: It is no ronger
narrators,

but "evidence" and documents that figure in ttre;fu.

After the ritle on p. 673:
"The Story Continued. in Several Narratives,, _
there follows:
"1. The Narrative of Heste pinhorn, cook in the
Service of count
Fosco. [Taken down from her own statment.],,
.rd one-half pages of text concerning the conditions of the
- -Fro-"
death
ofLady
Clyde, signed with a cross (apparently becaure
ortt eliieracy of
Ms. Pinhorn).
"2. The Narrative of the Doctor."
Seven lines according to all the rules of
a composed and signed
cetificate on the death_of Lady Glyde on Thursd.av,
1"" z,'iasO.
"3. The Narrative of Jane Guld.;,
Twelve lines signed by her on how she was
invited to prepare the body
of the late lady.
"4. The Narrative of the Tombstone (!),,
Five lines of the grave epitaph of Lady Ctyde.

ir$:i:ft1tts'

The Moonstone and

re woman in white, Modern Library, New york,

JV. Nonindifrerent natue

264

"5. The Narrative of Walte Hartight.,'

Five pages of the concruding part of the subject of the second

section
of the novel witr a coup de thtre [theatical effect] of trre last line
in
yhich' according to ail te data introduced.-tlre de"a tuay
before
Walter Hartright, ,,looking at me over the grave,, (p. gf). "au',,
In this case it is important to emphasize not onry the fact that the
action unfords by a grouping ofthe "evidence" of separate
charafiers -

the eavesdropping on dre evidence (an indispeos"bl" atibute

inside
any detective nover), but in this work this occurs within
the narration,
that is, not in forms of bare polyphony, as it takes place here,
Here it is interesting that the principres of potyphony ad
cornterpoint are intoduced into the structure of this *o.k .,
a whore.
we also focused on this orample in such detail because hee in
literature, in extensive "pieces" of the subject and event, we can
see that serne
principle of a "many-pointed" exposition
-'yrom differe"t poi"t. of view,,
- that is, what in the art of firm later became one of the basic methods of
montage shooting (of the objects, milieu, performance,
a:rd damatic
scenes as a whole).
Moreover, riterature arso has a sufficient number of fine
examptes of
th.i trce of montage cinematic change of points of descripion,
even
within the limits of a scene taken separatety.
Let us just reca such a detail of rearism from Torstoyan
descriptions
such as in rhe scene of vronsrq/s suicide where the objes
are dLscrbed
from below, that is, from the point of view of the fallen
man!
on the other hand, the type of riterary story teling described
above is
also encountered in fiIm thus this device reso'ndd with paradoxicat
freshness and novelty, for exampre, in trre beautifur firn
or
welles,s citizen Kane, where wtrote faqments of the hinoranhr orson
nr rl,o
hero are
ess of
also grew out of the fact that thee
"pointers" were presented not in successive chronorogicar order,
but
were shuffled among themselves. Because of this Kaire
appeared
in
- -rr-a
different scenes not in the form of ho
man,s
biography, but old before young
chieved
by the fact that the stylistics of
in each
story were treated according to the chaacter of the nanator (to
what
degree this actually occurred and. to what degree it was
the fruit of my
own "creative conjecture" is difficult to say; I saw the picture
quite a
while ago, but in any case, if this did. occur, it would have
been
completely consistent and wourd have responded to the styristics
of the
ancestor of this type of structure choderros de Laclos
mentioned
-

The music of landscape.

with the episodes entangred in their sequence from the

rife of Kapelmeister
Keisler.

ing," ',fugue,, _ have

urse of our ana.ysis,

the montage form

it of such features,

And it is natua to ask oneserf at this point on

what is built the
ataction (not in the sense of "prett to look at" but
in the sense of ,,the
ability to attract and have an effect") of these methods,
methods related
to the repetirron of motifs, to the purr uit of it
through other motifs, to the
interweauing and unweaving of diffe."rrt voices,
wrhng as a branching
out of a single whole?
I think counterpoint at a high (or the highest?)
stage in its basic features
repears two instinctive principres, lyrng at
the veryniti"i;g"

;f

activity.

human

Here they generate for man two gr( at spheres

of at - attrough art that
is still not trury'Tine" but
wrrouy pracricar, ,rr"-pi"a
-""''*riil"
But, tlerefore, both rhese ars in terms of their
i"r;;;;-ed ""r.
are
accessible not only to man but also to his
early forebearers.
I have in mind two very early activities of _"'' _ tfr" ""rrp"tion
of
hunting and the ability to weave baskets, of
which the ratter prcedes by
fa the ability to weave fibers into fabric (that
is, into an er.astic basket
clothing a bodyl) - and is arso accessibe to
birds who know how ro
'\^eave" their nests.*
In respect to hunting, who in tle animal kingdom
did not hunt for
someone or who was not saved in flight? !
The atnadion of counterpoint constructions is und.oubtedly
based. on
the fact they seem to resunect those instincts
deepry set in us ,,a, acting
on them, they therefore achieve such a profoun
io*"..
one of them defines ard nouishes e atnaction
of the weaving of
sepamte motifs into one whore, the other the hunt
for rines oir"p"r","
motifs through the tjcket of voices interweaving into
one.
in his book Die Arxange derKunst, lg94 writes about how
woven baskets
ed in time even such an ancient objed of houseware
as the ciai por,
or is rhe usurper rhar occupied both re place

It is

convenient to use this circumstace

above.)

In general in its structure citizen Kane s probabty croser to Kate

Mu* of. E. T. A. Hofnan,se where the reflections of the wise cat alternate

265

seen now not

in weryday surrouldings, but

";J,h;"*;';r

i,, ,ou"n

fV. Nonindilferentnature

266

There is something just as "eternal" in this as in tl'e eternal charm

of
weaving and unweaving riddles.
It is interesting that one of the most inflamed enthusiasts and con-

sistent theoreticians of
tion - Wiltiam
expresses his suppositi
calls te prtnciple of weauing (intricacy).

Hosarth

ins
ine
ali

The music of landscape.

267

. . .If the seies of catastophes there did nothing else, it taught me one thing that somehow, somewhele, ftom perhaps a half-civilized ancestor who wore a

sheepskin garment and tailed his food or his prey, I have in me the instinct of the
chase. Were I a man I should be a happer of criminals, ailing them as relent-

:iJ,ff;

Iessly as no doubt my sheepskin ancestor did his wild boar.r

what he

And this leads us directly to the fact that the shanering success of
detective novels built on pursuit and chase appeals, of course, to those
same vestiges of the hunting instinct about which Ms. Rinehart writes,

This principle is given more accurately and in fuil context in the fifth
chapter of his The AnaJysis of Beauty
CFIAPTER V: OF INTRICACY

and labor become sport and recreation.

conforming to the morals of her heroine. This is confirmed also by a

fact that is probably not sufficiently known, that novels about a hunt
by detectives for criminals to a great extent are indebted by its origin and
genre construction to novels about genuine pathfinders, pursuing wild
beasts in virgin forests, novels belonging to the pen of the greatest
master of this type of literature - Fenimore Cooper.r
Balzac refers to Cooper in Te Glitter and Poverty of a Courtesan
where tJle theme of the pursuit of the police after Carlos Herrera occupies
the central part of the work.
On tlr'e first pages of The Mysteries of Paris, Eugne Sue writes about
Cooper:
Everyone has read those excellent pages in which Cooper, this American Walter

Scott, reproduced the cruel morals of tle savagesf their figurative and poetic
language, thousands of statagems which helped them pursue or evade the
enemy. . .We will ty to suggest to the reader several episodes from the life of
other babaiensr also existing outside ofcivilization, such as the wild people so
wondertully described by Cooper. . .
Victor Hugo also writes about this.
And Paul Faral62 and Dumas3 continue this line of tansferring the morals of
the virgin forests into the setting of the criminality of te labyrinths of large
cities.
connected thread of a plan or novel, which ever increases as the plot thickens,
and ends most pleased, when that is most distinctly unavelled !
The

ad

a-ll

princip
Intricacy in form, therefore, I shall dene to be that peculiarity in the lines,
which compose it, that leads tlne eye a wanton kind. of case, and from the
pleasure that gives the mind, intitles it to the name of beautiful... t

of
th

attracted. ..by the pursuit of crminals:

"i,ffi:lisi;
0g) _ an old maid

* Soviet publication by Academia,

Moscow-Leningrad, 1975.
t
Hogarth, The.Analysis of Beauty,Done atihe silverItus shop, pinseld, Mass.,
-william
1909, pp. 49-50.

In this connection it is interesting to note that the "hunf is attractive from

botl ends ! If there is the romance of the hunter, then, as it turns out, there is the
romance of escaping from the hunter! If there is the romance of pursuit along a
zigzag line of nacks left behind, then there is the romance of sketching similar
zigzags and, while escaping, to cover up one's tacks.
In conast to the French, the hero of one of our Russian novelists - V.V.
Krestovs - speaks eloquently about tlrise:

Many times I scurried all over Siberia practically every spring, you might say.
Once I reached Tomsk and once Perm, and now in my old age the Lord has
allowed me to coure to the place of white-stones; Yes, to rot with you in
Petersburg. Damned be Peter! It seems that I did my best to hide, and yet they
* This is the closest passage I could nd to match the Russian translation
- HM.
r About this, see Regis Messac, Le detective novel et l'influence de Ia pensee scientifique,
Champion, Paris, 1929.

fV. Nonindi.fferent

Dature

268

caught the big beast, the gray experienced wolf! That's how it is, blothers!...
"why did the devil push you to run off like that? you could have lived quietly
in the labor camp!" said Kuzma Oblako with sympathy.
"well, dear man, how can I tell you what I dont know myself!" he shrugged
his shoulders, "all my life, you might say, is on the run, because I love it. . .love it
to death - the hunger, the cold, ad the fear, too, that tley will catch me at the
wrong time, and then with cunning, iust like a fox, I'll wag my tail I just like it,

ad thafs all."

This seems to be a second, higher stage of the use of instinctive grounds

with the aim of influencing the fomr of the work.
It is interesting that such a general genre d.evelopment in the art of
writing is often repeated in the cycles of individuar biographies of
different writers.
The idea of a similar "phaselike natu-re" between cleverly woven
intrigue and strictly structured form can be read into one of the
profoundly tmthful notes of Sherwood And.erson:s

.s
i-l

From the time of sherwood Anderson, American Dterature has moved

The music of landscape.

269

It is understandable that a simila manner of composition, so distinct

from rhe
old obvious method, a-ccessibre to every eye, often eludes tre critics,
and they

often do not discover eil the most refined. threads, concea_led

and often invisibre,

which ae used by severar contemporary writers instead of

the fored, singre
thread whose neme is: intigue..,

At this point, of course, it is impossbre not to mention pictures

that

were very popular in their time, and that were also created
uy tne flight of

a single natat tbead - the line of a stoke.

For orample, I saw the rnounted. figure of count Garvez (r7g6)drawn
in a simila way in one of the Mexican museums. This is the result
of rhe
joint work of two monks Father pabro de xesus, who
d.rew the count,s
face and hads rearisticalry, and Father San xeronimo, who
with one
stroke ad one continuous rine ca[igraphicaily depicte the
horse and
the figure mounted on it.
In the museum of the city of Alenon (which for good reason
is the
center of the at of French race weaving) I saw ..r,
similarry caili_
graphically depicted.
"
Finally, tlere is a very famous, seventeenth-century, engraving
of
claude Mellan in which the representation or tne tace of
ti-i-rt on the
veil of saint veronica is achieved by the fact rhar, arong u
.,inoor*
spiral, revolving out of the center of the face, the nuances-and.
shades of
the modered image arise by means of pressures arong this
uninterrupted
line.
This, probably, is the creaest exampre of how interest in the
actual
course and flight of the continuous line disappears, and the
interest
shifts to the drawing depicting its course.
we have arready seen this in the case of the course of the thread
_
inside
the fabric, yielding to the d.rawing on its surface.
Here that sme process seems to serve as a graphic ilustration
of that
evolution in literature that I noted in the examfte of Maupassant
and
Sherwood Andeson.

It is interesting to focus on another instinctive

extemal peripet

Maupassant,

in the same way

and the refined

* sherwood Anderson, A story

Teilers story, viking press, New york, 1922, p.3s2.

,
e

incr.ination mentioned

above, namely: the incrination for weaving and unweaving,

which has
florirished no less richly and even in pure form througn ie
course ot
centuries. Let us poiil to two examples.
This "passion" in Dret'e has been noted byhis biographerwaetzoldt: *
The souces of Dre1s passionate inclination for line drawing
must be sought
even deeper: they are an ancient Gennanic heritage. In this
inclination the later
Gothic variation was again rebom of the initial satisfaction which
Nordic man
experienced in the play of the interweaving and mutual devouring
of forms, of the
* Wilhelm Waetzoldt,
Dre und seine Zeit, phaidon_Verlag, Vienna, 1935.

fV. Nonindifrerent nantre

270

the music of landscape.

277

winding and unwinding of ribbons, and of the etema-l melody of freely moving

lines...(p. 283).

In this excerpt one thing only is unclear: why this incl.ination and this
bent was interpreted as the exclusive prerogative of "Nordic man." On
that very same page, the author points out that the prints lanown under
the name "Six Knots" ae made in imitation of the famous woven patterns

of Leonardo da Vinci (engraved emblems larown under the name

Academia Leonadi Vinc.

Does this not speak of the fact that simila inclinations ae characteristic of the "Italian man of the South"?
And we have even more eloquent proof of the presence of simila
inclinations in the "American branch of the Anglo-Saxon race.,'
fn 1941, the following book was published in America: The Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work by Graumont and Hensel (Cornell
Maritime Press, New York). The American Institute of Graphic Arts
included it on the list lhe Fifty Best Books Publ.ished in 194l.In it on
332 pages are3,524 (!) depictions of existing varieties of knots, with a
detailed catalogue and explanation of each lsrot.
The publication of such a book in general (and still so expensive - five

dollars!) clearly shows it is tead by a fairly solid cicle of readers,

attracted by questions of weaving and unweaving of atful designs in
their most simple "rope" forms, no way less attractive than another
contingent of readers interested i the same iog, but at the stage of and
in the form of the mystery novel!
However - the imprint of this sign does not only lie in pure examples
of the genre of the "mystery novel."
In the construction of any novel, where the technique applied is not of
a consecutive tale, that is, one progressing chronologically, we are
dealing essentially with both these sanre instincts.
Moreover - here we seem to be deal.ing with the fusion of the two.
Here "to overtake" means - to arrange in one staight progressive line
those events of the story, which in it are not given in order.
But in the given case this is at the same time also. . .the unaveling of
a knot. For actually, if one daws graphicat the path of a narration,
which does not move consecutively, then this path, full of twists and
turns, produces a line that, having become a cord, seems to constitute a
"potential" knot.
I will call this track line a "potential knot'' because it becomes a knot
when you pull at both ends of a cord arranged in this way.
I will explain everhing by diagrams.

tz

rl

I
v

Let us imagine this rine. . . as a cord, and we wil see

that the ,.pretzel,,
that results is actualry one of the simprest amangements
of a cord, which
provides the possibility of pulling it inro a knot.

on the other hand, the pulled knot is always the .,potential,, course
of
the arrfu[y woven rine ofttre cord dawn tighf into oni point.
Thar is, the

knot, while unraveling, is what provides the compr.ei course

of intercrossing and interweaving that demands a comprex process
in order to
pull the cord into one suaight line _ to ,'untie the knot.,,
If we add that in order to purl an artfur-ty arranged .,Ioop,,into
knot, it
rs necessary to apply, to its ends, two forces moving in ad.ireent
directions,
then we will see that the harmress, almost verbar metaphor
in the trm
"dramatic knot'' is absolutely precise in alr its interpreiations. -

IV. Nonindifrerent

Dature

272

The music of landscape.

273

A truly dramatic knot is fraught with the possibilities of a complicated

ravel.ing and unraveling of the path of artfuIly woven action.

But Joseph ConradT3 is particularly interesting in this respect. He

consciously resurrects this method of narration at the end of the epoch of

The more tightly the knot is tied, the more intense the conflicting

the Victorian novel.*

A colleague of Conrad, Ford, writes about this in the name of Conrad
and in his own name (see Ford Madox Ford, /oseph Conrad: A Personal

forces

within it

act.

And, with the exception of Gordian means - of cutting the knotTo - it is

only possible to unravel it by a complicated process.
Most often this is achieved by the intervention of a "third force,"
overcoming the direction of the two basic forces.
Such a necessary '\hird force" in the subject can be exEemely varied.
This can be literal intervention from outside.
An example of this is a device not unfamilia to us, the "deus ex
machina" of Greek uagedy.
Here the intervention of a divinity who solves the unravelable knot of
conflict is simultaneously the most literal embodiment both of the "knof'
and the "hand untying the knot."
But the third force can just as well be an external event or situation.
In this case, due to constitutive circumstances, it can purely mechanica.lly force the people to act, in spite of the airns and goals chosen by
them!
And this is the way the knot of relationships, otherwise tied "unto
death," is unraveled (the unconEolled nerves of Lady Macbeth and of
Macbeth himself in conflict with the apparitions of fate: Birnam Wood
and the very unusual details of the birth of Macduff, or Boris* in conflict
with the tale of the patriarch about the murder of Dmitry).
But, of course, the most interesting case is when a similar external
phenomenon (a situation) forces the heroes themselves to change
inwardly the direction of the course of their character, and in this way the
mortal loop of the knot of human conflicts is unraveled.
(The regeneration of ScroogeTl in Dickens or a hint of the possibility of
a satisfactory unrave.ing of the knots in the second act of The Deluge.72)
The example of our knot, of course, is the simplest.
But let us not forget that the American book mentioned above
has...3,524 vaieties of knots.
And let us also not forget that we were concemed with "one cord" with one line of action, and it is easy to imagine what a boundless
quantity of possibilities arise here from the moment when the lines
themselves are rrany!
The classic Russia examples of such a discontinuous story might be
Pushkin's e Sot, beginning the story in the middle, or Bunin's Gentle
Breath, and a numerous quantity of other sxarnples.
Tristram Sandy general.Iy remains the classic sampL, where in one
of the chapters Steme draws a diagram of the threads being knotted, with
which he weaves the action of the novel.
* fTsar Boris Godunov in Pushkin's playl.

Remembrance):

For it became very early evident to us that what was the matter with the novel, and
the British novel in parficular, was that it went suaight forward, whereas in your
gradual making acquaintanceship with your fellows you never do go staght
forward. You meet an English gentleman at your golf club. He is beefy, full of
health, e morale of the boy from an English Public School of the finest type. You
discover, gradually, rat he is hopelessly neurasenic, dishonest in mattes of
sal ge, but unexpectedly self-sacrificing, a dreadful liar but a most

painfully caeful student of lepidoptera and, finally, from the public prints, a
bigams1 who was once, under another name, hammered on the Stock
Exchange...Still, there he is, the beefy, full-fed fellow, morale of an English
Public School product. To get suc a man in fiaion you could not begin at his
beginning and work his life chronol.ogically to the end. You mus fist get him in
with a stong impression, and then wok backrad.s and fotwads over his
past...That theory at least we gradually evolved.t
And here is a short paraphrase of the order of events of the first half as
they unwind in the novel lord /rn2 t. . .l
The story begins when Jim is working in various Eastern ports after the
conflict ad trial. Then the story returns to a description of Jim's life from
the beginning to the moment of the conflict. In the fourth chapter we are
present at the trial of officers of the Patna for having abandoned the
vessel, where Malowe becomes acquainted with Jim. Then the description is given in the words of Marlowe, of the view that these dishonorable
officers had at their first appearance in the port where they were being
tried, and of the meeting he had much earlier with the German skipper
before the deparnrre of tJ:e Patna for sailing. Later we return again to the
court scene and prepare for a future scene of the suicide of Braiery, tlte
president of tle court. Then in the course of several. chapters Jim begins
to teII Malowe about what had occurred on the Patna, and after this
MarLowe's answer follows about his conversation with the French
Iieutenant who took the vessel by boarding it after the conflict,. etc., etc.

t...1

However, the most interesting thing in this is that this Conrad-Ford

method is calculated apparently mainly to overcome the boring grayness
of the eternally boring and gray English novels, that is, the apparently
* In addition he also writes this with the narrative manner coming from different persons,
which alongside of Wilkie Collins makes him one of the direct precurors of Citizen Kane.
t Ford Madox Ford, ,fosep Conrad, Duckworth, London, 1924, p. 729.

IV. Nonindifferent nanrre

274

purely "formal" intention, which is at the

same time an extremely
realistic ')ustified', device as well.
In this same book of reminiscences Ford speaks also
of this:

the music of landscape.

275

it is not surprising _ this author is...Dante.

And his statement is ne trtut
titrt grance is a dak passage out of
hts Conuivio.T6 It concerns the "t
origin of the word ,,author.,,
And

In exactly the same-spiit of the

nli."tiu."-"ssociative-,,physiognomic,,
manner of the Middle Ages, whir
had just U""n oui.,ole, Dante

o'igi" i'ol
;::'r"ii: J#L "*orosict

tr," rouo*i.,e'r" se.ie. or

one of these roots " ' is a word

''
almost compretely out of usage
in
Latin and meaning 'to tie.words
.-o-n"*serves,

looks

witr

great

at this ira

ayeio. And whoever

in its iniriat form w'r be

_anention
convinced that it clear
revears io
meaning, for this word is
composed of nothing but the connections
""iq""
among
words, that is,
vowers that are the sour and
couplingl"ria" each word. And it the five
from them in such a wav that i
t.i"" i" to m or- m,:i;.,is formed
having
begun with ,A', it is repeated in ,U,,*
and then goes directly through ,E,to
'I', from whence it returns back
,O,,
again ao
,irraa it really represents a
the word'".r,Jl,
.produced .n Jr""s rrom
rrstandable only by poets,
who connect t

ffi:,:il'o.*

In the first case, the events are arranged in the ord.er A, B, C, for
an
extremely dramatic effect.

what remains is only to render homage to an author whose statement

led me to think of combining the instinct of the hunt and the raveling
of
knots in one phenomenon - in the method of nonsequential naration
in
novels.

*o.0. uy
the art of music . . .
It is possible, of couse,. to etymologically
dispute this picture of the
origin of the word "authori' u"t ii
i"iff"ult
to
argue uurri,-rr"'u"aury of
the image by which the method oi
,rr" o"a'r a*ivity is drawn here.
I was even moe surprisd uv ,o-ir,iir;^;i;;
in this
o"*ii"
What basis did Dante have for
saying that the path from rrA,,
to ,rU,,, _
"returns,,' it runs ,,straight,,
uguin ria iU,, to ,,I,,, and from ..I,,
,,o,,
to
it
again "returns back',?
In addition it is these-very passages
back and forward that form
the
bowrie' which is arso a ptastic
im"g oi arr" tying of sounds by
means of
music that, according to Dante,
is"the
Apparentrv, Danteias i"iiii"nfe of certain poets.
standard sequence in which
in
succes'il" """'o'i'g-to-,,"ture"
(or
i:trfrirlJ.1;:"n"a
In Western European languages there
is the custom of arranging the
vowels in the Order ,.A," .'E,;, ,.-,' ,,O,;, i,,
rhis is definiteiy ,,o, ,rr o.". Du.,t"
has in mind. rn this
_":#:.,
ng out, a knot is not the
result. Mo
among them Proceed.
according
,'backwaid
from ,,U,,

to "I,'

Alighieri's

"#:

instructions

goes

hich is contrary

irl"*""nt "V" in rhe noun "aveio" is here considered as being converred

to

inro rhe

JV. Nonindifferent Dature

The music of landscape. ..

276

In order to clarify what is going on here, one thing remained - to find

such a sequence of arranging these five letters that, in proceeding along
the path shown by Dante, a simila knot or bowtie is actually the result.
The order "I," "E," "4," "O," "lf" proves to b such n arrangement.
Actually, in this arrangement of vowels the path of the sequence
pointed out by Dante gives us a graphic image of the knot he writes

277

We know about the masters of the Renaissance, that they also drew the
curved domes by eye and "by instinct," proceeding from the position that
the most organically beautiful under the given conventions of line proves

to be the most nonnal in terms of construction.

The domes of BramanteTT and MichelangeloTs are typi.cal, and much
later mathematical verification of their curvature confirmed their absolute constructive faultlessness.
Now we can see that the sharpness of hearing among great Italians in
no way yielded to the sharpness of sight.
And the ea of Dante Atighieri could systemize the harmonious
organic sequence of the sound of vowels even without resorting to
acoustic measuring insEuments.
something of this longig of each knot to be unraveled., correspond.ing
to te yearning to tie knots, as we have seen, sits deeply in the psyche of

about:

man,

Thus, what is considered the orga'ic sequence of the vowels

according to Dante is the order: "I," '.Er" ,,l{,,, "9,', ,,g.,'
what is so remarkable here? And why is this order more organic than
"4," "E," "I," "O," "IJ," accepted as the order of the sequence of vowels in
all Western European languages?
And here, of course, is the most stiking thing in'the musical

sensitivity of Dante.
If we take a table of the frequency of waves corresponding to each
separate vowel, then it tums out that the sequence of vowels according to
this sign proves to be just what Dante had in mind.
Let us, for example, just look at the table on p. 17 of Liddell's book"
and we will be convinced of this.
Vowel
oo

Pronunciation
gloom

no

aw

raw

fatler

eY

()

Frequenca
326

4l
732

900

l,w

mat
pet
they

2,Ml

be

3,100

1,959

Thus, it turns out that the sequence Dante drew "by instinct" as being
normal and natural - actually turns out to be normal and orgaaic
according to the precise data of physical science.
* Mark H. Liddell, Physical chatacteristics of speech sound purdue
university, Lafayette,

Ind.1924-7.

And the course along elements of a shuffled sequence, just so we can

then recreate a Eue order from their parts, is therefore constant and gives

us satisfaction.
It is all the same, whether it occurs in the graphic knots of Leonardo
and Dtuer,
in the frequencies of vibrations of vowels that wind into the phonetic
knots of Dante,
or in the peripeteias of the arrangement of the sequence of scenes that
atuact equally Pushkin, Joseph Conrad, ad Orson Welles!
Finally, in order to end with examples on the theme of the attraction of

This is the invariable attraction of te music hall number in which

the actor of this particuLar genre is tied with ropes and chains, from
which he breaks est alrnesl instantaneously.
The king of this genre was the now-deceased great master of this art,
Houdini.
Now it seems that there was not a single variation of chaining and
imprisonment that was not included in the progmm of his wonderful

self-liberations.
They hung him upside down in a straitjacket from a sscraper over
New York City.
chained in shackles, they put him into a coffin ad buried. the coffin at
the bottom of a swimming pool.
They locked him, entangled in chains, into chambers and cells in
apparently all the prisons of the world - including the Russian tsarist
prisons, of which he has the nastiest memories which appear in his
-

memoitsr* etc., etc.

* see Haold KelIocI Houd.ini,

His Life srory, Harcoun Brace, New york, 192g.

IV. Nonindifferentnature

278

He liberates himself from all these improbable incarcerations witlr

a
greater or lesser degree of ease.
And in the same way from the most intricate system of roops and knots
by which they bound him hand and foot.
And, actually, his very effective and entertaining number is really only
a more complicated form of that same basic situation of a man untying
the knors by which he is fettered.

And the president of the American Association of Jugglers

and

Magicians, walter B. Gibson, in his book on Houdini, wriieJout ttre

mastery of Houdini in unraveling knots:
. . . Houdini could untie the most intricate knots with his hands,
ordinary knots
with his teeth, and some knots with his feet...*

I think what is attractive about Houd.in's raveling and unraveling for

the public applies directly to what we have been speaking of here.
Here the case is only a more intense identification witn tir"
than
in those cases when "knots" have a figurative sense, and the ,.hopeless"rto,
ness of the position" is created by the psychological elements of the plot,
and not by the bag or box where the actor is locked in, after having first
been bound hand and foot either by shackles or chainslf
However, one thing is certain, and this is that in both these '.instinctive" inclinations for weaving and for tle hunt there is also
preserved the age-long attraction of the fugue whether it be spatial
in
the etchings of, let us say, Giovanni Battista piranesi, or musicl in the
works of |ohann Sebastian Bach.
The very etr/mology of the term ,hlgue,' is chaacteristic, coming from
the Latin 'Tuga, fugere": flight, to run away, to be saved. from pursuit.
In this respect what is very characteristic - in connection with
Piranesi's staircases in the cycle of his Dungeons is the fact that
in
English the staircase is often called ,.a flight of stairs.,'
we also sometimes speak of stairs "racing upwand," butwith us this is
rather - although trite - still a semigurative expression, while with the
English this early became simply a concrete tenn.
\4rhat can be a more appropriate term than the term ..fugue" for a
staircase in Piranesi's prints - eternally ,.racing" upward, into the

i'."J::i
-

tirerally

,,unravel

in German' "family" is called

The attraction o
original myth abou
explained in the same way. ro subject
cannot be done here. I only note them for

thes

s and corridors

ttt6t'it,tli

oflaughter, as well as the

iiiffiTi"t"T""dii

The music of landscape.

279

depths, to the side - eternally varying and repeating itself! They are
repeated by columns, arches, and stairwels. Combining with each other,
these achitectural elements engender that inexhaustible stream of the
"flight" of architectural forms into the depths of the etching, which serves
as the object of the continuous chase and pursuit of a bewitched eye!

However, the fugue and the principle of polyphony, as we have

understood them here, both strive to give the most complete expression
to one of the main basic principles lying at the basis of the phenomena of

reality in general.
They try (as, moreover, the entie basis of the aesthetics of manypointed montage) to reaLize in .a work of art that principle of unity in
variety that in nature pemreates not only phenomena of the same order
but also connects all the variety of phenomena in general among
themselves.

In terms of the refinement with which this principle premeates the

realm of aesthetics, it is frequently presented there in such a filigree
fashion that at first glance it is sometimes difficult ro guess that we are
dealing with that same basic principle.
In tle light of our considerations about the increasingly refined fabric
of the constuction of the elements of potyphony, what is particularly
interesting, for example, is the position mentioned by Guyau:8o ,,. . . Every
figurative style essentially belongs to a style made rhhmic, for the
verbal image by its very nature is the repetition of a basic idea in another
form and each time in new material . . . and each repetition is attractive
because it embodies unity in variety.. ."*
At first glance it might not occur to one to extend the features of
repetition, so characteristic of rhhm, to the area of the verbal image as
well. Howeve what Guyau is saying here is certainly correct. And
moreover - the feeling of this single principle in different areas - in the
given case in the aeas of rhythm and image - in itself has its charm for
this position is a particular case of the application of that very same
principle of unity in variety!
We could pull another example of this tle from the thick of the
production practices of. Ivan the Tenible.
This is the unity of the developing figure of the tsar as he passes
through the picture as a whole.
Here there are two sep:uate areas of work. The concrete the prescreen
development of the g9re of the tsar in the great mastery of the makeup

artist V. V. Gorrnov.8r
And the lighting - that is, the screen interpretation of this figure from
shot to shot in the magical hands of the cameraman, A. N. Moskvin.s2
*

Jean M. Guyau, Problmes Esthtiques Contemporaines, th ed., Lacan, paris, 1921.

fV. Nonindifferent Dature

280

The music of landscape.

Acosta, or Judas, we caught the outline of nostrils, the break

contour of the nose, and the contour of the skull.

281

in the

Above we cited the words of saint-sans on the relationshp of music

and the word, and how music tonally expresses what is inexpiessible in

words.

changing gure of Ivan is expressed tonally

play of the actor's contour, the framing of the
y the miracle of tonal photography of rhe
To depart
But no on

Here on a higher level the very same thing is repeated.

.Ivan, 1885, depicrs the psychological

For a long time a penetrating formula of light for rhe figure was
sought; a certain persistent shadow in the eye socket from which the
pupil' caught by the light, begins to burn; somewhere the emphasized.
line of the skull; somewhere fiIted in and somewhere brought out rhe
asymm,try of the eyes; the highlight of a protruding angle of the brow;
the white of the neck softened by light filters.
But that is not all! The main thing lies ahead.
For into this basic light gamma - I would d.ene it as "modeling with
light" - from scene to scene we no longer just made "Iight corrections,,
relative to the changing appearance of the personage, but mainly
introduced all those nuances of light that must echo, from episode to
episode, both the emotional mood of a scene and the emotional state of
the tsar-protagonist.
Here it is not sculptured modeling of an image with light that is
demanded, not only the changing pictorial interpretation o it under
conditions of a changing situation and environment (night, day,
semidarkness, flat background, or depth), but the most refined tonaJ
nuances of what I would call ntonations of light, which Andrey Moskvin
controls with such perfection.
Here is the same very refined musical quality of light in a portrait as in
the most refined lyric of a landscape of Eduard risse whether it be in
-

Sculptor of world renown _ HM.l

John the Baptisr on either side, often

ln Alacander Nevs,

priate.

arenone)or

:liJii

was like in

talent, and sel.fless devotion of the work of V. V.

artist, helped us very much to overcome these
Sometime, perhaps,
what associations this
been able to make its

cing how ad from

a tradition that has

M.l

* In lvan the suitable camera angles include about 75olo

of the natural figure of Cherkasov.
we arranged only 25c/o, and it turns out just thse that were nor
suitable to Tsar lvan!

fV. Nonirdifferent nature

282

the mist of Potemkin, in the city night ensembre of petrograd (october),

or in the whiteness of the icy expanses of Nevs ,rrr.. " ,"u"."

hanging vault of the ominous cloud.s.

Above we cited the words of Hogarth on the instinctive prerequisites

of

the attraction of the fugue and polyphonic writing.

But, of course, certain "instinctive" prerequisites would still be
insufficient to explain the power of the effect o the means of counrerpoint and the fugue.
And one must add that the greatest intersocial changes proceeding in
phases are also reflected here, in these structues.
In addition, it is interesting that these are tle phenomena and norms
thar are invariably repeated both n the early sta.gs of the birth of society
and on the highest stages of its development.
And this is because these norms are chaacteristic of every aspect of
development in general.
I think in the given case borh the principle and alt separate srylistic
fluctuations within it repeat precisely in phases, and reflct fulty within
the basic histoical stages, the interrelationships between society and
the individual, between the collective and the perionality, now devouring
and dissolving the single in the whole, now providing te possibility
for
the particular to trample the general with their feet.
The aesthetics of alt systems of art, of variations within it, and of the
separate phases inside these separate variations, inevitably passes
through those same stages of development, invariabry refleting the
course of the social formations undergoing modification.
This is typical, for exampre, of the nondifferentiated quarity of art
passing into separate independent aspects in the early stage of
its

development.

or, on the contrary, the complete isolation of the vaieties of certain

arts from each other. The denial of their commensurability. Moreover, the
individualization of separate elements of art in a systm of separate
l'-isms," idolizing a separate particularity.

or the attempt, arising periodicaily, io unify the arts in a certain

synthesis.

(And the Greeks, the theories of Diderot and wagner, the prewar
aesthetics of the soviet land, and audiovisual film, eic. in different
ways and at different times, and with a differing degree of
success!)
In another place - in a wok investigating the histry of the c,lose-up
understood filmically through the past history of the arts I was
interested in the historical process of the transition fom .'individualization" to "individualism."
Here I am attracted by the reverse now before our eyes is the crearry
developing stage of the unity and hatmony of expressir"
I do not know if this is occurring in the other ..ti, bnt in the
^"^n".
aesthetics

The music of landscape.

283

of montage we, apparently, are standing today at the threshhold of a

third phase of the history of its development.
The fi'st stage of this development was the amorphous undifferentiated stage of "prehistorical" montage: the cinematography of shooting
frorn one setup (this stage was repeated and is often repeated very
"magnificentlf' even today by the first stage of sound film!).
Then came the stage of the constantly increasing tendency to greater
and greater separation of separate elements banging their heads together
in montage (almost under the aegis of Anatole France: "Make the
epithets bang their heads together").
On the various stages of the deve.opment of sound film, this also
resounded in our manifesto of 1928* where, on the path to futute
counterpoint, we called for sharp divergence and opposition of sound
and uisual image.
At this stage of silent fim, which directly preceded sound, the
subsequent application of this principle led to such excesses of montage
filmmaking as the combination of unrelated pieces, which in tei
combination gave the illusion of fused action or movemen't. October
(7927) is full of examples of this, but the first experience in a similar
direction again belongs to Potemkn - and to those same roaring lions
from the staircase of the Vorontsov Palace in Alupkat (1925).
Here three independent phases of movement presented in three
independent figures of three mable lions were combined, creating the

illusion of one jumping lion [. ..]

About this time, several years earlier, I dreamt of composing
consecutive phases of the gestures of the immortal French actor
Frdrick Lemate from te hundred and one poses on the hundred and
one pages of the adventures of Robert Macaire. He [Lematre] played
Macaire on the stage in the famous play L'Auberge des,4.drets lThe Inn
n Adretsf, and the inimitable nature of his perfornance was imprinted
on the hundred and one lithographs of Honor Daumier - the series
Caricaturana (Les Robert Macaire) (183).
Such is the recent past of the montage form, of montage efforts, and
montage quests.
In contrast, the new stage of audiovisual montager I believe, entered
with the sign of an increasing fusion and harmony of montage and
polyphony. +
This type of new "harmonious" counterpoint

beyond any paradoxes

* Signed by m and Pudovkin and Alexandrov.

t [A
alace built at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the Crimea near yalta by

Count Voontsov.

-I

HM.]

It is the "Suawberry Hill" of Russia, full of Gothic and Orienral feature

Perhaps the evolutionary change was realized hee that occurred in the history of music
when harmonic composition replaced the principles of polyphony?

fV. Nonindifferentnatue

2U

- I think most fully expresses the picture of the activity of

separate individuals inside the collective.
and excesses

when a single social problem is taken up by the whole host of

separate units, composing this society,

when each unit within it knows its personal ind,ependent path inside

the solution of the general problem,

when tese paths cross and recross, combine and. interweave and
move ahead all together to the re
ected..
From where did the vivid tang
picture
come from? \iVhere and when did
simila
picture in action?

The music of landscape.

285

And therefore not so much Beethoven as Bach.

one way or the other, it is clear, that the course of my passion was not
a picture of the clash of two inner harmonious collectives in an
aggressive assault on each other but more likely the solidifying of a
united collective for the fulfillment of certain constructive tasks.
And so it was.
And I remember this impression as if it had just occurred.
The Izhor Station.
The Neva River...
The year 1917.
The School of Ensigns of the Engineer Corps.
The camp.
Studies.

Probably for that reason tlte spectacle of one form of contest called
"catch-as-catch-can" is so repulsive, in which any blow and. any device
are allowed: that particular combat when four men come from all four
corners of the ring to fight simultaneously.
But here - not as in dominoes or in otler games two against two
but eaclr against eac, and the task is to beat all the other three, Leavingthe single victor in the ring.
And so we see that suddenly not just two but three hul themselves
onto one and, having overthrown him, begin to throw themselves on each
other, and as two are finishing off the
urth,
regaining consciousness, knocks them
onef
saved by this maneuver, hurls himself,
who

just saved him!

This gladiatorial spectacle of each against each and all against all
not only without white gloves but even without leather glovs to softenthe blows of bony fists - is no doubt so repulsive because it offends to
the very depths what can be called social instinct.
However, my interest in counterpoint as not bom from the vivid
impressions of soccer. In favor of which the circumstances give evidence
that the imprint of a bifurcated equal-sid.ed struggle hardly ever lies on
my style of fims.
More often than not there is a strengthening unity under the bl.ows of
external assault - be they the strides of tsaist soldiers down the odessa
steps, the gallop of the German knights' cava wedge, or the serried.
ranks of the boyar opposition, rushing into battle against the works of
Ivan tlre Terrible.
And stemming therefrom not so much a struggle of equal powers as an
active conflict of contradictions within a single theme.
has

The pontoon bridgel

I remember the heat as if it were right now.
The fresh air.
The sandy shore of the river.
The anthill of newly recruited young men!
They move with measured steps.
with rehearsed steps and coordinated movements they construct the
constantly growing bridge, eagerly crossing the river.
Somewhere amid the lt heap I also am moving.
On my shoulders ale sque leather pillows.
The edges of planking rest on the square pillows.
And in the leading machine fleeting figures,
approaching pontoons,
from pontoon to pontoon heavy transverse beams

or light railings, sprouting ropes,

are carried easily and cheerfully like a '.perpetuum mobile"
from the shore left behind to ttre end of the ever-receding bridge!
The strictly set time of constuction is divided, into seconds of separate

operations,

slow and fast, weaving and unweaving,

and, linked to them, delineated running lines of imprints in space, as
it were, of their rhythmic flight in time.
These separate operations merge into a single general production,
and taken all together, are combined in an amazing orchestra
counterpoint experience of the process of collective work and creation.
And the bridge grows and grows.
Eagerly it presses the river down beneath it.
It stretches to the opposite shore.
People scur4r.
Pontoons scurry.

Commands ring out.

The second hand is running.

fV. Nonindllerent nanre

Damn

286

it, how wonderfirl it is!

never meet.

out of the sandy shores into the boundrevealed to me for tlre first time all the
h has never left me.
Here it was presented to me for the first time n forms that engendered.
my enthusiasm fo mise-en-scne.*
Mise-en-scne even to this very day was to remain my favorite
expressive means in the theater,
And mise-en-scne is also the first clea and perceptible example of

atial-temporal cornterpoint !
out of it, out of its initial combination of the play of space, ti:ne, and
sound - which later became more complex grow all the principles of
audiovisual montage.
A gesture becomes tlte shot, and the intonation of a word. sound and
music.
In general the charm of conEapuntal composition is a_lso based on the
fact that,
to relive
This i
ness has been left behind.
A perio
aration and isolation
of each di
hoon a-^^-,
sp

(rhese

rePeated

'i::iii:i-i:t*

Thus, agnosticism
corresponds to the first, no matter in which epoch or in what form it
arosef which is a denial of differentiated cognition, and what corresponds to the second - can be Kant's metaphysics, in its own way
repeating more ancient analogous theoretical positions.)
Thus mo
fascinating
stages have

recreated o
* n America called blocking the planning
of rhe stage movements of chaacters in
theatrical performance - HM.l

lbe music of landscape.

287

connections and interactions of separate parts, and appears as an

excited perception of the fullness of the world perceived synthetically.
Just as in a mature person the fist "discoveries" on the paths of his
biography ae imbued with particular warmth, with special enthusiasm
and excitement - the first time he conquered a printed text (I can read !),
the first aousal of emotions (I can love!), the first philosophical data
available that helped him perceive the system of other worlds (I can
know!),
in the sirme way we are invariably most excited in art by those
constuctions that, in their features, repeat the traits of the various stages
of the evolution of our consciousness.
Thus, in the system of the tangible contrapuntal principle, living
feeling has been preserved of the stage when consciousness - whether
it be of nations achieving a definite level of development, or of a child
who in the course of his development repeats those same stages - for
the first time establishes the interrelationship between separate phenomena of reality simultaneously with the sensation of it as one great
whole.
This, of course, is the guarantee of the excitement of polyphony and
counterpoint, and the inevitable intensity of their characteristic features
in the stages of youth.
The youth of any kind.
The youth of a social formation or class - and then they become the
basic style of a particular epoch.
The youth of the most diverse forms of art, and then, beneath their
symbols, it folrrulates the basic starting positions of its methodology for
the fuhrre.
The youth of an author - then this inevitably arises in the manner and
style of his writing and dominates his creativity.
In tlre period of the creation of Potemkn all three '!ouths" coincided.
The young (eight-year-old) Soviet power.
The young (thirteen-year-old) art of film, feverishly seeking the
principles of its own self-determination.
The young (twenty-seven-year-old) author who, after a short five-year
running startf was now caught up for the first time by a large theme.
And this totality could not but determine the structure of Potemkn as
being contrapuntal above all.
But in its application to film (and especially in its application to silenr
fitm) the means of realizing counterpoint and polyphony was montage.
And thus Potemkin cannot but become the standard bearer of the
montage-counterpoint principle in artistic cinematography.
The pulsation of the life of the montage form within art is the index of its
vital energy. I wrote about this in the preface to the English edition of my

IV. Nonindifferent

Dature

book Film sensg published

America in 7942.

288

in

1943

in England after it

came out in

The preface never reached the book because of the blockad.e, ard it did
will introduce the necessa_ry excerpt from

not reach England; therefore I

it

here:

The music of landscape. . .

289

soviet art, as the custodian of the achievements of soviet culture and scientific
thought - has been presewed,

* * *
Before our eyes the gigaatic snow mountains rest against the blue s.
Behind these chains are others - on the other side of the border in china.
-

The mountains ate ur:trged for meditation.

chinese sages have been gazing for centuies at our mountain chains from the

Pnrec To rlIE ENcusH Epruox

Exactly a yea-r ago in the middle of October, aound
instructions to pack. During this night the Germans for
reason did not bomb Moscow. Each of us was able to

otler side,

The mountains a-re .utanged for reflection.

And involuntarily, looking at the eternal snow of the mountains, one's thought

peacefully.

arises out of the everyday chaos of madness and bloodshed to what will be on the

In the moming we were at the railway statioD.

Twelve days - like a neu Noa-h's ak- ou cariage floated. through the storm of
the raging war.
we - meaing the basic group of moviemakers evacuated out of Moscow at the
moment of the German attack on the capital of the soviet government in late
autumn of.794L.
The Gerrnans were repulsed.
We were left to work in the hean of Cenal Asia.
Pass your firiger from India going upward.
You will find tle intersection of this line with the Southern Asia border of the
Soviet Union.
Stop your finger on the point having the fantastic name of Alma_Ata.
This is where we :rre now.
* * *
It would have been unthinkable to Live.
It would have been impossible to exist.
It would have been shameful and insulting to create and work at such a
distant rea font if we had not known that two things had been entusted to us:
fist of all, to discharge film
issile, with
which to beat the Germans just
plane,
second of all, to preserve the
hirlwind of
destruction with which tle fascist* intenentionists were passing along the broad
field of our Homeland.
In Pskov and Novgorod inimitable frescoes of the thiteenth and fouteenth
centuries perished.

morrow after these years' madness of wa.

You will think about the tomorrow of culture and the ats.
The horrible shock of wold wa I turned the world upside down: out of its
chaos was bom such an unprecedented phenomenon as the soviet union.
what will bring us hunded times more inconceivable cataclysm into which
todafs world is crashing to desurction?
paths of art, along which humanity
death ofthese years, washed by the
ghters against fascist dakness.

Along with a new social era, the end of World War

unprecedented rise and blossoming of cultue.

And the culhe of the most advanced of the ats

brought

new

cinematography.

segment of the universal history of art between both world wars

undoubtedly the era sf s u'irrmph of cinema.

is

ottrer ats iD this interar of time move feverishly along the path of

dlsintegration and collapse.

Expressionism. Suprematism. Dadaism. Surrealism.

The collapse of form, image, thought.
An elemental flight back to the prirnitive.
Apparently the latter achievements lock themselves in a mortal ring rogether
with the fi.rst steps of culture and a:t.
The snake of the well-known emblem forever swallowing its own tail.
Frozen iqts immsility. .
No period in the history of the arts had such an impasse of an as that
beginning this epoch of wars.
.

Reaching the highest point of development, art suddenly was dissipated into

nothing.
Dam.l

cinema as an industry, cinema as cades of people, as a great uadition of

of the

id any
erican

cinema alone, in its best e:Kmples, stood its ground before this whirlwind of
collapse.
And because it was the youngest - it began from the point au the other arts
eached in thei collapse.
* * *
Art - is tlre most sensitive seismograph.
And the tragic impasse of it in the last years reflected only the degree of
tension into which the world has been ptunged by its lacerating contradictions.
These conuadictions exploded into world slaughter on an unprecedented
scale.

IV. Nonindifferent nature

290

Neither the para

ening, neither the scale of what has
already happened,
at awaits the world to experience can be grasped by
We know firmly - ahead there will be victory .orer dakness.
Ahead - there is light.
But we ae still not able to assimilate its rays, 9 gamis tle new life in these
ted by them.
foreboding of it.
fuly apocalyptic madness in

face.

Ad as the
s inaccessible to our conjectures, so tlte
future form of
inevitably escape any assumptions ard
deductions, w
it to be.
Three things ae in store fo usl
to wait,
to hurry,
to be prepared.
To await this new era.
To hasten its approach, giving one's full suength, whole life, any sacrifices for
hastening its arival.
And to be iady, fully armed with the experience of the past, to prove to be
worthy of perceiving and moving ahead that which tlris unprecedented futue will
bring us.

There is something exciting in this expectation of the futue fertilieation of the

art of the new zones and pages of life.

In the consciousness of one's torpor until tle moment of its arrival.

Thus in rorpor young brides await the moment of yielding tlemselves to the
Iove of an uknown groom, and thus in torpor tlre earth, sprawling, lies in
trembling expectation of the fertilization of spring shoots.
There is something intoxicating, not only in the consciousness of the freedom

movement of the universe,

of fe

in tlre
torical

291

lit

w
t,e cultue of ou

time.

To sum up what has passed in

be pure and ready fo that moment

the new word of life.
work for the front, is our stern duty to

the nterests of what wilr come

the duties on tle front of the theory of our filn
art.
"Dont touch my circles !" ue must cry out together
with

trris is one of

Achimedes in the

the fruits of the thought and work of a

the future.
umanity is

And there are no words to describe the sacrificiat heroism wirh which it is
doing this.
we will not debase the gure of this funrre by quick guesses, we will not
belittle the greatness of it, bom out of the blood of miliqs of human lives, we
will not give ourselves airs in an attempt to reconstnct the features of its futule

of th
jusr
deve

The music of landscape.

lm

stylistics.

atography.
t, in the full height of watime activity,
ad forecasts in such a special branch
ways has been the backbone ofsoviet

For the last few years this line has subsided and gone
out of use in soviet
films. Histocally, this is probably not accidental.
In this collection of a:ticres, I wanted to intoduce the
idea that montage _ is
an organic featue of any a.rt.
And, in tacing the history of the rises and fa-s of the
intensification of the
montage method during the history of art, one concrudes
that, in the epocn of
social stabilization, when afi has the task of reftecting
reality, tt p-i.r"o." or
the montage method and composition will invariabty
diminish."
And, on the contrary, in period.s of active intervention
in the breaking,
constructing, and recutting of reality, in periods
of the acdve teconstruction of
life, montage as a method of art grws with ever-increasing
intensity [.,.].
_.-

This was written in distant Alma_Ata in October

1942.
Today, when I cite trris, in the rays of finar victory,
the great May of
1945 rejoices outside my windows.
The premonition of new form
developent oiitr prio"iples, have

,li:
has

war

years.

We perceive new featues

the

in it.
This is something new, no ronger the prewar impasse
of a subsid.ing
montage form.
Ad this is no ronger the patiative of outrived traditions
of the
"naked" ad "obvious" montaje of silent
Im, artificiatty stuct into
sound filn.
From the two or three attempts at such a
restoration arready made
durins the war exudes somethins terribrv
;*;;;;
i"r"'.
persistently feels fhat theitage oi,'r"k.d,,rrrorr,ug"
-intoOl"history.
p"rud over

fV. Nonindifrerent

Danre

292

But this does not mean a denial of method, not carelessness, not a
lapidary primitivism of the cinema of the premontage era.
Now the Soviet country is stronger than it has ever been before, both in
military power, world prestige, unfading glory, and the results of the
actions of its all-shattering Red Army.
Art - is the most sensitive seismograph.
And stylistic changes under the conditions of these most powerful
social events is inevitable.
In terms of our countqr, this is not a "change," presupposing basically
qualitative modification - as was te social "change" in the epoch of the
Civil Wa.
Todafs power of the Soviet land - is only the natural growth and
consolidation, at the level of greatest luster, of all those social forces that
Soviet power cherished and nourished in the years of the Five Yea Plan.
Now, passing through the fies of war, the Soviet land has achieved
that degree of monolithic fusion that had been tielessly forged through
all the years of Soviet rule. Is this at the expense of the oppression of one
part of the country by the other? Is this at the orpense of the interest of
certain individuals in the name of the interest of others? Was something
independent forfeited in this fusion?
No, no, and a thousand times no.
The striking quality of the structure of Soviet power - in terms of the
problem of personality - has a-Lso been preserved in this surprising
harmony of the.single and the general, the collective and the individual,
the distinctively national and the socialist.
I think that to presuppose the reflection of such features within the
stylistics of the cinema of the war years is quite natual.
And if one looks at the most characteristic stystic sign of cinema - at
its defining nerve - at montagq then, at least in one picture, made by us
during the war, one can clearly discover within its montage counterpoint
this tendency toward knitting together into a more compact fabric.
I repeat, cinly to a shortsighted observer may it appear as a rejection of
the culture achieved by "obvious montage" and "perceptible counterpoint," and to whom the acnal method might seem to be a return to the
bosom of premontage cinematography.
This is a distinct step forward along the line of development of
montage aesthetics, and, if someone cannot distinguish ordinary
regression from this notorious "appalent reversion," in whose forms,
developing in the usual wan phenomena move to new stages of
development, then, God knows, the fault here lies n the misfomne of the
"obseryers" and certaily not in the "pichrres" themselves.
The fiIm I have in mind is, of course, Ivan the TenibIe. Ivan the
Tenible, which, by the method of its contapuntal montage composition
continuing the original traditions of Potemkin, is not only distinguished

The music of landscape.

293

from them but, in its audiovisual structure, is already the next step of
development in reltion to Alexander Nevs as well (whose audiovisual
montage is analyzed in detail in my aticles on vertical montage in the
journal The Art of Film).*
However, why has the analysis of how lvan the Terible functions been
put into a collection devoted to Potemkin,sa and not into an article or
monograph concerning the film about the first Russian tsar?
And it is just because, in the consecutive triad of films, it is natural to
assume a stylistic and methodological similarity between the 1ist and
tr'rd member, for in their development montage forms also move along
the paths of the negation of the negation.
And, if the hoofbeats of the knights' attack in /Vevs grew directly out
of the dumming of the soldiers' feet on the Odessa steps, then much of
what has been done by the "audiovisual" method in Te Terjble does
not so much continue what was done in fVevs as seizes what had been
projected in its own time in The Banlesh and, using sound, brings it to
its essential culmination.
And this is just that part of. Potemkin, which until the arrival of sound
in film worked as "hidden sound" - as the music of landscape, that is
just what we have been analyzing in tlis work.
And it is in the scene of the mist that we have an example, not of naked
construction, but of the "fused" structure of contrapunta currents in
contrast to the "exposed nerve" of montage in other "accented" scenes of
the film.
The montage structure of such "accenting" scenes is so obvious and
clear, and it created first of all tlre fashion that until this very day is
called "Russian cutting" or "Russischer Schnitt."
And if one believes what E. V. and M. M. Robson write in the book Te
FiIm Answers Back (London, 1939), that "Battleship Potemkin for ils
time, but only for its time, registered an immense advance in film
technique and content" (p. 150), then this ifluence turned out to be the
montage of just these "accented" scenes (for example; "The Odessa
Steps"). And this is understandable: The structure of the montage of
soldiers' feet above all bore the elements of the fertilization of montage
methods of silent film.
The principles of the scenes "Mourning for Vakulinchuk" and "The
Odessa Mist" did not have to so much determine the methodology of
silent montage as to develop fully in audiouisual montage.
And therefore it is natural to finish the analysis of the problem of
musical landscape and plastic counterpoint by a short description of
how, twenty years later, those same principles, enriched by the possibility of sound and music, continue the traditions of the polyphonic
* [See Film Fom, op. cit., Pp. 150 and 178 - HM.]

JV. Nonindifferent uature

294

The music of landscape. ..

295

montage of.The Banleship Potemkin in a new quality in Ivan the Terrible.

In terms of this, the montage composition of rhe Terrible corresponds

in a curious way to what occurred in the psychological drawing

of
characters in the plays. . . of Chekhov in the rheater.
The cu.tivation of the refined and profound musical nuances of the
mood of the action in chekhor/s plays created the impression of the
disappearance of the theatri.cal principle in what was presented on stage.
The lines of nuances were woven into such a finely inter-woven fabric
that it seemed the perceptible theatrical efect was lost because of it.
And naturally, in opposition to Chekhor/s theater, as a form of a
protest
The

like

percep

Figure 19. The "Odessa Mist'' sequence fom Eisenstein's film Battlesh
Potemkin (1925).

of the action of separate characters, in contrast to the btending

polyphony of the nuances of the Chekhovian heroes.
In terms of the history of theater in general, it is interesting to note that
the process of the submersion of bared "foundations" and "abutments,.
of the very material into complex patterns and drawings on the surface of
the fabric occurs here, in theater, in exactly the same way as it occurred.
on the paths of the development of Chinese painting.
An increasing number of voices, an increasing number of nuances
enter into the primitive polyphonic scheme, and. planal interrelationships are replaced by interrelationships of chiaroscuro.
And the comedy of masks has d
y in the
theater of Molire or Marivaux,s6
edov.
For if one "scrapes" Skalozub,
all the
richness of the everyday domestic and social features of the epoch, the
basic outlines of the stage figures come through distinctly the captain,
Pantalone, ad Esmeralda.
The Italian comedy of masks in this sense is very unique, and it is
take ir up. Here the
had all been given
erved only by newer
siness and lazziss between these masks of chaacters who had been established once and
for all.
It is interesting how this limitation on the very choicejtselfforces us to
recall china with its quantitative limitations on motifs no marter
whether they be representational elements in painting or the 10 groups
of permissible rhymes in poetry!
Just as tangible is perceived the "eternalized" choice of traditional
* [In Griboyedor/s Vlzir Woks Woe

HM.]

IV. Nonindifferert

natu.re

296

theater masks (they a-re "etemaL" because in them the images of reality
most pregnant with stage possibilities were consolidated in most
comp.ete perfection), and even among the heroes of such an "everyday
life" dramatist as A. N. Ostrovs! Glumov is Harlequin, Mamaev and
Krutits - the typical Old Man, Gorodulin - a new aspect of tlre Captain
(they speak of the "captains of industrt''!),* etc., etc.
However, the traits of tangibility become more and more refined, and
the nuances of Chekhovian characters and moods leap into other stages
of development of stage counterpoint, where it is now more difficult to

feel the skeleton of conventional theatrical uadition.

It is very amusing that something similar is occurring now around the
unexpected stylistics of the montage composition of. Ivan the Terible.
Here montage, after the stage of ')umping montage" of the naked

montage form, passes into forms of blended polyphonic means of

expression.

And it is surprising that just as in its time they shouted that tle theater
of Chekhov was not theater, now there are voices that shout that the
montage of. Ivan is actually not montage (!), and the film itself is notcinema.
We know well enough that Chekovian theater in the end'\urned out to
be" and nevertheless remained theater.
And we will also certainly continue to assume that the montage of. Ivan
is nevertleless montage - true, in a new phase of development, and
therefore an analysis is necessary of what was done in The Terrible,
particularly in the light of what was done in its time in the Banleship.
Of course, for me, having just come from the ultatheaticaL "Ieft"
theater - from its circus wing - it is particularly amusing now to hea in
respect to the montage of. Ivan the same accusations, which had been
expressed because of the absence of "theatricality" in Chekhovian
theater ! I even had to hear one opinion on how the montage of fvan wiped
out all I had done to confirm the montage method in general (!), when
what was done in fvan grows completely out of ald develops from what
was done in Potemkin.
Thus, an explanation is evidently called for here! Ad that is what we
will concern ourselves with !

In order to do this, for purely academic reasons, we must first recall what
is the basis or, more precisely, on what psychological phenomenon is
based the possibility of an equal combination of audiovisual elements elements of audiovisual polyphony?
' "In all European

countries, especially in England, a class of commanders and captains

has to a certain degree already formed over people that may be recognized as the germ of a
new real, and not imagined, aristocracy: they ale captains of industry." ffhomas Carlyle,
1841.8e Eisenstein quotes from the Russian anthology Marx & Engels on.4 Moscow,
Iskusstvo, 1937, p.288 - HM.l

The music of landscape.

297

Of course, everhing is based on that same sFtaestetics that is, on

the ability to gather into one aII the variety of feeling brought from

di.fferent areas by different organs of sensation. I have already more than

bored the reader with the description of this phenomenon in my articles

on vertical montage and in the description of the elements of the

"chiming" Chinese landscape.

e more amusing and fascinating

limited myself, of course, only to
references, and I would not have

given examples and descriptions of it once more.

But unfortunately into my hands fell the second volume of. La Mouche
causeuse lrhe TaJkative Flyl of Eugne sueeo it is a continuation of his

two-volume The Cockoac), where, in the story pysiologie d,,un

appartementlPhysiology of an Apartmentl, excerpts are brought in from
an imaginary book su Ia musique applique gastrcnomie lon Music
App lied to Gastronomyf:

'..If I had thought of deepening the great increase in the influence of

intoxication or, more precisely, the poety of pon poeEy tlat is pensive, serious
dined alone, and tlere would not be anything except
a let of boa or middle-age deer, in this way achieving
of solid food with rhe spirit of wie, for if the djs _ is
the body of intoxication, hen the wine - is its sprrit, and one must observe tJ,e
most perfect correspondence between these two principles...[can it be that
1,000 years later tle chinese of the eighth century are not recalled here? !
sEl...And the light that would illuminate me would have to be pale and(douteuse) vague; and the music that would be played to me (r will nol think of
di.nnerwithout r.usic, wirhout qrcellent music), would have had a character both
gloomy and imposing: it woutd have consisted of several pages of Don
Juan this powerful and terrible epic of Mozarf s - or from the grandiose oratorio Moses.
spirit of mine, intoxicated by the triple
I would achieve the highest spheres of
But then I would think of surrendering to the lulring carefreeness and mad
poey of cool champagne, I would suck atoms out of any roasted delicate and

If one compaes this healthy and carnivorous synaesthetic polyphony

of the beginning of the age with an example of what it d.egenerated into
in the epoch at the end of the century, decadence, then - next to this
cheerful organic whole on the pages of sue - the famous stylized "black
dinners" from a selection of certain black plates (caviar, truffles, etc.),
black in themselves, for their sake and for the sake of a'-general picture,"

fV. Nonindifierent nature

298

the music of landecape...

299

down to the candles of black wax and the Negro woman servant then
these "black dinners" of Des Esseintes - the heo of Huysman,s noveler
seems justifiably typical...."formalism," that is, an articially con-

ceived and totally inorganic combination, imposed only as a purely

external formal sign !
Thus, the audiovisual polyphony of the increasingly profound
blended composition is possible only under the strictest "synesthetization" of separate areas of visua-L and audial o<pressive effects.
The paradoxical conception of the "montage of attractions,,' which
twenty-odd years ago seemed merely eccentric ticks - a boutad,e in the
theater - now turns out to be not only nota "shocking,'device but, und.er
the conditions of the unlimited possibilities of audiovisual polyphony,
an absolutely basic and necessary prerequisitee2 for the construction of
even the smallest seriously conceived and compositionaly planned

audiovisual scene.
I have in mind the introductory part of the "Declaration', of. 1923
concerning "The Montage of Attractions" (IEF, no. g, lg2g). As a
attempt to make all various areas of the theater commensurable,
proceeding from their basic principle - the effect on the viewer this
declaration of the slmaesthetic principle has preserved its significance
even today.

The spectator himself constitutes the basic material of the theaue; the objective
of every utilitarian theabe (agit, poster, health education, etc.) is to guide the
spectator in the desired diection (frame of mind). The means of achieving this
ae all the component parts of the theatrical appaftttus: Ostyzhefs* "chatte/, no
more than the color of the prima donna's tights, a soke on the kettledrum as
much as a soliloquy of Romeo, the cricket on the hea:tht no less tha a salvo
under the seats of the spectators. In all their heterogeneity, all the component
palts of the theatrical appatatus ae reduced to a single unit - thereby justifying
their presence - by being attractions.+

This systematic unity - observed independently of the aea of the

effect, only from the point of view of its possibility - was cal.led an

"attraction."
Of course there never was nor is any real basis for disputing such a
thesis. My montage of attractions underwent "persecution" in its time
because, in broadening this principle, I said that effective compositions
are possibLe also outside of a unified plot, and the plot itself I considered
* Alexande Ostyzhev was a well-known actor of the period who appeared as Romeo,
Othello, and in many other classic roles.
r A refeence to the dramatization of Dickens's he Cricket on the Hearth, presented by the
First Studio of rhe MAT in 1915.
r ffranslated by Prof. D. Gerould in The Drama Review, March 1974, p. 78 HM.l
-

:rit;,?:;i:i;:#:.ties

or the unitv or effect that is bv no

means

This assertion *1: really more guide,that

a
is, transient, personally
srytistic and not obligatory ro.
*voilIn tenns of the principr t*iir"t""
.t the basis of rhe structure
of things' this question is one"r
its essential meaning even now.
"f;;;;;i;ethod and, of course, preserves
The approach to or deparnrre
from the principre of synaesthetics
different periods of.the dverd;;;i;r;rt
in
is different,
depends on
the"specific sociat form of r";;;;,itating
rhe sryle"rrd
and. form of irs
Besides, flre natue of. how this principle
's undestood and. appried
different, in different epochs.
is
Thus, r''e emphasis t the principles
of synaesthetics has equal place
in the epoch of romanticr"*
ounoo of the
impressionism. But the major "nJ'ir,
of
diff;.;;;; undersrandingdomination
and applying
these principres in trr"ru
on"t"trt ira."a epochs is quite obvious.
\^Ihat cinema does is just
di;i;; from both of them, given its
it and",its ea,h.strc orientaon inusjng
it.
terested in analyzing
in acing retrospec_
is
derived in method
from what had been done in porcmkin.
Therefore' it is natura! in the
i"t"."rt, of this examination, to choose
scenes that ae inwardly simila
l o
In both there is a scene over a dead nms.
body.
oo* they are grieving onu. rri-oi- Jrro
peristred in the barre for
,ojl
a
"
In both there is mourning.

frS.lis};;iffi:.:.'lins

to the principte or vin and yans.

A sailor.
Here someone poisoned:
A tsaritsa,
There the collectiv

Hereani,,-i-ii"'ff:ii'n:'::;i#":"1""1"
supported him in battle.
In the first case the-theme of mourning
is unforded into differenarcd
aa-s o! separate

peopl3 from the

the masses.
pollphony of co:
".o*,_
";;
participate
the singing blind merr,
women,- and groups of two,
three,
four, and five faces: sad, a
iti"t
(in order to give nuance to
all shades of grief of the ottre. faces) 1"f".",
of the young and old,
workers and intellecnrals, women
children and grwn-ups.

:
Lt

"nrn".r,

IV. Nonindifferent nature

300

Figure 20. The "Mourning for Vakulinchuk" sequence from Batt.leship Potemkin.

The:music of landscape. .

Caption to Figure

2O

(cont.)

IV. Nonindifferent nature

302

The music of landscape.

In the second place, in Ivan, the theme of mourning is gathered in one

person (this person justifiably incarnates the government of a huge and
multitudinous country):
But the polyphony of despair and grief is played here ',by voices,,: now
by the moan of the tsar, now a whisper, now the thump of a crucifix and a
the pedestal; now the white spot of his

now the head thrown back and forth;

es rising from behind the chiseled tomb
and a barely audible whisper: "Am I right?!,'
Here, in ths case, a whole variety of 'voices" are played by one and the
same figure of the same character-protagonist:
now down on his knees, now lying prostrate, now slowly walking
around the catafalque, now in an attack of rage, toppling over heavy
candles and breaking the solemn silence of the cathedral with a furious
cry; "You lie! The Muscovite tsar has not yet been overthrown!"
In this respect, it is characteristic that different positions of one and
the same tsar are presented from different points of view around the
coffin outside the transition from one position to another, that is, almost
as if a series of separate, independent characters had been depicted,
chosen by the camera not as a sign of physical and spatial coexistence,
but to the degree of a single cunent of growing emotion.
Thus the increasing grief is constructed through changing close-ups
of different people over the body of Vakulinchuk.
And thus different shots of Ivan replace each other in the increasing
pathos of position and camera angle.
The figure of Ivan passes through a strict sequential composition of
positions: beginning with the knee-bending position at the foot of the
catafalque (when he appears ar the beginning of the episode at the end of
the initial pan from above down) - through a position sprawling flat on
the floor after the words "Is this not Divine punishment?" - to the figure
stretched upward, with his head tossed as far back as possible (after the
news about Kurbs's betrayal - in the words of pimen: ,.Defamation
ravaged my heart, and I am exhausted.").
As we can see, here the polyphony is built on the changes and
interweaving of different positions of one and the same figure.
But not through this alone: There is also interwoven into this
polyphony the separate play of separate elements of the same figure;
these elements seem to be independent and to merge by their own whim
into a new, higher unity through consecutive actions - into a new, higher
emotional unity, in contrast to that amorphous unity to which they
belong from a purely physical point of view.
This perception of the figure mainly as a distlnctive orchestra of parts
independently composlng it by no means is foreign to our figurative
representation in general; and if it may sound unexpected in the plastic

Figure 21' The "Ivan atthe coffin

of Anastasia,,sequence from Eisenstein,s
Iuan the Terribte, part r (retes; 19]:"'-""
firm

IV. Nonindifferent nature

3@

Tte music of landscape.

305

:liii1i'"]."::!,'ff: i:

imaserv
urragery we have become
,ll"-l:l:l:erbar
s-uch expressions as ,,the
:t"o.
righrh;;'""
oo::
uucs
not rnow
nor
nand
hand lo
know what
is doing,"
whar the
ooi"s,;;t
rhe lefr
that rhe legs
r"." nr
a -..-,--, ,o
of a
;k;.;'"split
rl,'t
"
"man
rrrdrl ran so
asunder," or that a
dsunqer,"
r" quicklv
tnat nis
"itit that
sh:rn,^,,.,-^
,luY"
his shadow *"" --*'v
arely

(as

."y

able to keep up

iastl.,,

i.r trr
with him
_they
HOWeVef., th
n^ccil-rt:*. of
the possibility
^ a vrrurqr prayrul
and ptastic
plastic consrrucion
demands that
construction
rar a iinql
sinqle
p rin cip re penetrate
p
of allL'separate erem-entr
,.1," r*"
the srruoure:
. i.u.,r,",
""
"t So
"r

.._.^",*llTlr,":lottl,
;;i"'.*9 -.;;itto'"
"ou.'";i,:ii:::i".111
that
rhe acrion and the shor wh;^r.
.of .complex potyphony.
. :':::
ji:"i"?i"i,*:"';.;i:ji,_:;:;:iYri:ff
j'.i;t,
^:_:ry
it,
"sins" harmoniousty,
it
necessary
thar those il;^;;;irches
1t_
be
put
composition or
in the spatial
of the
itre action
.ctio.r .on.,."|,o
concrrr^i ;;;i:.,:;ril
.-. -:tttt
!iilo".to"
;TJ
r

r,:

.are

(aption to Figrrre

2l

1conr.)

:i1

again coming into conflict

with

IV. Nonindifferent nature

Here, on the one hand, is an apparent similarity to romantic principles

in the unexpected characteristics of English parks that, with its garden
aesthetic, overturned the vigorous aesthetic ofthe tradition ofversailles
and the parks of Le otre.e3
., But, on the other hand, under this apparent fteedom beats that same
' strictly pulsating organizing law of rhe same principles of yin and yang.

who taughr the elegance of artificially created garderis and park

, But
Tandscapes
to these masters of antiquity ?
.'
. rvho in the final account is the everyday and immutably great teacher,

.
'

be music of landscape.

306

even in areas of the most intricate compositional and stylized methods?

Of course, always and especially - nature herself.

once in his Journal Delaroixe apparentry compared nature to an

307

untouched nature, you begin to worship

even more the great artist whose

greatness lies in humility: not

i
it, and whose charm lies in the

such purity of soul and heart the

But perhaps only the ,'madman
Then et us rook at another exampre,
and let us turn our glance from
the West to the East.

\rvhat courd perhaps be further from

the photographic imprint of
rhan the rrasite refinemenr r rin.rv
ityrizea
;';3,Xr,jij.J?*re

ut perspective and foe_

ilhouettes of tees of an
severely drawn, repeated

ornaments.

Billy goats cut in two by color: black in

front, white in back,
alt the way ,o lni or lran.
It is enough to go to smarkand and Andizhen,
One need not go

to suddenry
nents of the charm of miniatur.. ur

as well.

This documentary "naturalism," of what we consider to be the most

refined stylization, first struck me in Holland.
canary-yellow bridges, raised in the azure blue of the s from the
poison green shroud of the meadows, always seemed to me in their
paette like the coloed frenzy of van Gogh. Known to me only by his
canvases, they seemed to be the fruit of a fantastic palette distillation of
the colors of his imagination, colors that in themselves are probably just
as normal and restrained n nature as in our bridges, streams, and

meadows.

The shrillness of color of van Gogh's landscapes arways seemed. to me

like purified spirits passing through the brain, eyes, and feelings of a
man who, by the strength of his emotional perception, surpasses all the
facets of reality available to nature.
And suddenly, wandering along the cobblestone roads of the Netherlands, which have been saved by God under the protection of the Kings
whilhelm, time after time you come upon a chain of invariable
quotations from van Gogh: here point by point is that same yellow
bridge, here a field, here the wall of the little house painted in such pure
tones - Iight blue, orange, yellow, green, cherry so they seem like the
little bricks of watercolors, set between the walls of enamel boxes that we
had as gifts in childhood, and involuntarily you search along the
thresholds of these little houses.. .for a set of brushes.
The little houses painted in the purest colors burn like topazes,
emeralds, or rubies. They burn like van Gogh's palette, burn like the rays
of the sun shattered by the glass facets of a prism.
And suddenly, simultaneously with the worship of representation of

step.

ilr:;;;:"T;n::"

do not intersect each other composirionaly,

as

Pruned crowns of mulberry

with their defomed runks un
seem to be running with ornam

Andrey Belyes (in

wind from the caucasus) noticed the similarity

of
the cracked mountainfis:"::r
trre unilueness of the broken-up
violerro
brown strokes with which Vrubel,s
Oirion"* were painted.
A traveler in the area
hours' is invariably
amazed at the picture
backsround or ti

r.,"

*[
at

"ilJl"#,i

:i:

a,s greatest artists who painted

in the syrnbolist manner

i;ff,"#:TF.;n;,:""i3',"J"."_"'*;tj:jj:;
bea

utiful peacock wings

coue.in

j"i.' _

rin.

fV. Nonindifferent nature

308

yesterday evening? The question is barely formuLated in your mind

when, suddenly, way up high in the s - at a height of inconceivable
proportions overhanging the trees, your eyes catch sight of a mountain
chain with those same "brush-stroked" foothills that we saw a hundred
times in chinese prints and paintings, where this purest "phenomenon
.'of nature" captivates us as an artistically found pictorial device. The
mountain chains and foothills around AIma-Ata lead us again to china.
..1
And the many seemingly "stylized" visions of the chinese landscape
, are no more than the wonder of the chinese landscape itse$, multiplied
by the no less wonderful abiLity of the Chinese eye to see and be
intoxicated by what living natule offers.
i Here is the obvious cradle of repeating motifs of mountain chains
arranged in "planes," becoming dimmer as they recede into the distance;
here are the sources, apparently, of single mountain peaks arbitrarily
stylized into kinds of granite columns; here, in the flow breaking and
intemrptions of the contour smoothness of separate knolls - is the
undoubted key to the system of canonized types of graphic strokes, by
which it is acceptable to paint mountain slopes in contrast to waterfalls
and contours of ravines rather than silhouettes of old tree trunks.
The Chinese graphic artist has several types of brushstrokes that, in
the strictest way possible, are connected with elements of land.scape,
allowing their application only in very precisely designated cases.
The unquestionable influence of this corner of real nature on the
conventional painting canons of china has been preserved in a legend
about a painter who, hundreds of years ago, climbed these mountains
and recorded the landscapes that excited him. The success of these
landscapes was so great that it began to be considered proper to paint in
this style landscapes whose form did not even resemble this striking
mountain symphony.
Thus, a vivid impression lies at tJ:e basis of a whole canonically
developed aesthetic system.
Real landscape teaches the creation of an artificial landscape - a
garden or park.
And both garden and park in their turn influence the painting canon,
conquering the surface of silk and drawing paper.
Thus, the similarity of method is interesting, whereby an occurrence or
action, object and space, event and landscape, before one's eyes, is
organized and arranged by the drawing paper and brush of the Chinese
artist, in exactly the same way as these same elements are constructed by
the will of the director facing the complex system of the audiovisual

camera!

An amusing example of a "correspondence" to this can be found in

the music of landscape.

309

the branch of literatue concened

with
rn rerati; d "rron.e v qhL,^..^,_$;
::3tu:arion or the pror
I,:iiT;?:::h"""
ji"ily:_;i#;:i:liiJ'ti,::i::.::1:
(t?.?:,
l;"t1?-llere witr sooJ r"""#;::
.

LlT'.r.",. plots ror rhe

- -- -"
'#":ffii'"i'"Ti;,T::""::;"'lT:::"i"Ji:":j:jli:;l:
events"
:iH,elJ','":"#"J:'jff":i_1i:l:iTffi
::il:""iJ"":?
court
so that afterward h" ;"t;;,"f,^'rvwocs ur oDlective
,4,1d
Andwoetothatwritorurha
woe to that writer who, n^+r__:_ on pages of description.
h""g
rrtd, rries to *rii" *ifrout ""i
".-{r Deforeobjectivety existing
seeino
,^^-ll11,Ts
lSement Of Clients ,,

Ila,o,-^

^-,1_

1,.1Tl,1,i,:1ili;"=.ii,i,.:ffff ii:ii,i?

"-^
him the reality of
what he expounds on paper!
How manv- ,ot-n
urgry pages'
pages, Iines,
lines, and whole
articles of Lev
iev Tolstoy-or
Tol-st.rv
rtn_r^,
t.-^__r
____vf n
v G".u,
vvry ;;fi':"i""
wourq-r seem to be written
him!
specially for
s as a_curiosity here _
where

this

ory of the writer is included

into

y calling to life
to write about.,,

,s

"The Club of

is sent to Cuba riit oter

artrul
im.of their activity _ ao
,""n".
polttical scandals and
interna-

Remington is bored. He
wants to go home.

il+

t',.

IV, Nonindifferent natule

310

The music of landscape.

He telegraphs the "boss":

Everhing is quiet. There is no toubre here. There

return.

wil

be no wi.

I wish

to

I'll fumish tre

311

*J'#i;liffi:"t"t"h ';;;;;."""r the concrete meanins or the

psalm seem to comment
emodonauy on rhe meanins
ft"il:Jl*"
"t

the "boss" answers briefly, imposingly, and decisively:

Remington. Havana.
Please remain. You fumish the pictures and
'

By the text, thev s_een to

continue each other.

Remington.

stasia.

wa.

W. R. Heast.*

supporters of Hearst try in every way to convince everyone that these

telegrams are apocryphal, but in two lines they state so precisely the
essence of his efforts and attempts that, like many
that are
"pocryptra
part of history, they arc more truthfuI as "huma-n"
documents than
numerous historical documents.
Later the earthshaking phantasmagoria of Hearst,s role in the cuban
war follows, and the grandiose growth of the kingdom of this uncrowned
king of the press.f
Thus, recalling everything that has been said above about polyphony
and counterpoint, let us disclose the principles of the compositional
canvas of the scene at the catafa_lque of the poisoned Tsaritsa Anastasia
from tlre film .[van the Terible.
The basic theme is lvan's despair.
In spite of the fact that Ivan is a progressive man of the sixteenth
century, looking far ahead, he is still a man tied to his own time to the
beliefs and prejudices, to the superstitions accompanying the religious
fanaticism of the epoch, to the concepts that are an integral part of the
Russian Middle Ages, which is deveroping into the Russian Renaissance.
And therefore lvan's despair creates doubt - and the theme of d.espair
grows into the theme of doubt:,,,4m I right in what I am doing? Am I
right? Is this not the chastisement of God?"
Interwoven into this basic tleme is: the reading of the psalms of King
David by the Metropolitan pimen and the reading by Malyuta of the
dispatches on the boyars' misuse of "the right of departure," their escape
beyond the borders of the Muscovite state and crossing over to the side of
the foreign enemies of the tsar.
These two readings proceed as a distinct antithesis in two voices.
By the tone and rhythm of the reading they are similar.
I1 tlohn winkler, william

should also add rhat

Randolph Hears, Jonathan cape, London , 1928, p.144

it

was here,

in tis fuss made around the cutan war,

screaming headlines in large script were applied in newspapers for the rst time.
I cite John K. Winkter, William Randolph Heast.

HM.l
that

.n::,

almost exactly the same way

lost in the dakness of unreachable

It was in Camidgs.
In 1930.

at the moment, I was

of the materialistic
p. L. Kapitsaror _
then

nevertheless this was. . . a

Latin prayer before the meal.
And also it was read by rhe-l
rrtj;a; o,n" exact physical sciences _
of tle university tuu.""t"
Nout p-ir" winner,
J. J. Thomsonroz
i:ii

of
ne

n.

t all around.

was writing the scene of Ivan

o of Ivan.
is definitely connected with
the
go in prewar England.

similarity of tone and tempo,

;!X:f iS?5,iT;t:'{{ry:frfio,"r.MontasuadH.Marshar,rrans.,simon

IV. Nonindifferent nature

312

manner of reading and rhhm - the dramatic direction of both read.ings

were also diametrically opposed to each other.
There is a reason why one of them is spoken by the deadriest enemy of
Ivan, and the other is read by his most devoted friend ad. "faithful

hound."
.' This inner struggle of the two readings - is like al inner struggle ,,for a
, poul."
' As on the luboks* or medieval miniatures, here nrvo principles
, , struggle - the positive and the negative - for the possession of a human
, soul.
' But, despite tradition, they are fighting here not for the soul of
someone dying but for the soul of someone crying over her for the soul
+ of someone living, for the soul of the tsar.
And one principle, one reading drags the tsar's soul to despair,
darkness, and ruin.
And the other - to activity and life.
one reading is directed to finally breaking the will of the tsar, to crush
and destroy the tsar, to make him an obedient and slavish tool in the
hands of the boyar clique.
This is the reading of the pages of psalms, full of despair:
I amweary of my crying:
my throat is dried:
mine eyes fail. . .

i
the
the tsar to grasp the
Another reading

to compel
to compel
battle with
,

him to abandon

redoubled strength.
The reading grows louder.
The alarm of the message increases.
The emotional despair of the lament increases, trembling from the
pages of the psalter. .
And now the final destruction of will, the last blow is dealt by the one
whose report was to evoke renewed strength!
Malyuta reports Kurbslct's betrayal.
With the moan of one beaten, Ivan responds.
His head is thrown back onto te coffin.
In the vaults resounds hysterically the concluding part of the
prokimento3 following "Peace be with the Saints."
The end. Period.
The culmination.
.

*
[Woodblocks or engravings in Russia made for popular consumption which often contained sariric or folklore material - HM.l

The music of landscape. .

313

But at the cumination (and it often happens

) in this ecstaric
of dramatic construction _ a sudden switch-torh; very opposire
:T:JI

And if Maryuta's information dears a

final brow to the tsar,
then as a reverse shock what returns
the tsar back to battle is
the voice of the one whose entire efforts
have been directed to
destroying tle tsar.
Raising his voice, Pimen's words are shattering
with the accusation:
Reproach hath broken my heart;
and I am full ofheaviness. . .
And I looked for some to take pity,
but there was none;
and for comforters,
but I found none. . .

But this is now rike a drop overfilting

the cup of long-suffering and
Like a wounded animal, Ivan roars in
response:
"Thou liest!,' - etc.. etc.
I
the emotional current of the scene.
I
Anastasia in the coffin enters
rhyt
that a distant choir is sinsins "Eternar
riii;assins into ,,peace
be unto you',;
and that the scene begins with a
the coffin with the face of the dead
candlesticks, to which Tsar Ivan is
For a complete picture one must
within the general rheme are arso s"pp;ftJ;;
including another series
misery.

a.l performance.

the immobile face

immobile shots of

wailing," "my throat.dri e!.out,-,,,,-V .V",

g..* *."rr,,5,"#f i:':J:
by shots of rhe vehicre of the them"
oia"",rt
an its aiuailuiprit _ ttre
poisoner Staritskaya.
The line of affirmation. _ Malyuta,s line _
is taken up by the
Basmanovs (father and son), afr" i"n"-Latory
nature of the old man,s
speech passes into the fiery "Two Romes
fell, and a Third stands,, of the
ght of servants in the real fires
of the torches,
of death ,,is removed,,, and the apparen
. smile
the dead rsarirsa, '.as if she ,";;;,,
in the
* About this,
see the detailed discussion in
the anicre ,,on the structure of rhings.,,

IV. Nonindifferent nature

314

coffin, had to be the culmination of this (,.The face of Anastasia

seems to
light up with approval") at the moment when lvan, having overcome
his
doubts, again sets out on the path of battle and life.
unfortunatery, rhythmic miscalculation over severar frames (temporal) and the filming of the smile being made too
concrete(the ptastic
,' element) disrupted the emotional effect to this detail (I cur ir out later
,,
eady showing on the screen.)
was that this smile, conceived of as.,appearing
t, ,
turned out to have been perceived as persisting,
either bewilderment or laughter or irritation
(depending on the temperament of the viewer!).
I myself once was forced to become
of how decisive a
portion of one second turned out to be inconvinced
a showing of. potemkin.
It was in London. rn 1929 our composer the now late Edmund
Meiser
directed
the orchestra, using his own music for tre firm. In addition,
at
his own risk - in the interests of the music he made arrangements
with
the film projectionist to srow down slightly the tempo of
te projection.
For one parr of the firm this rurned out to be fatal: foithe jumping
marbre
lions.
usually this "sculpturar metaphor" passed by so suddenly that the
analyzing capability of the viewer was nor able to be delayed
at this
point; the jumping lions entered into one's perception
as a turn of speech
- "the stones roared." Due to the attentior, .ar"n to it by ,,overexposure,,,
the immediacy of the "shock" at one's perception passea into the
realization of a device - into an "exposur" of tre tii.k,,'
and the
auditorium responded instantly wirh the inevitable reactin - amiable
laughter - unavoidable in all those cases when the .,trick failed
to come
off."
In my memory this is the onry time this piece evoked raughter, and
the
fault was due to the destruction of the duration of thos; parts of the
seconds that decided whether it was a construction by metaphor
or by
an anecdote told in its own words!
At the indicated point of Ivan aweil-conceived part, written correctly
in terms of the scenario, "broke down" because or tn" compositional
blunder in the picture,s methods mentioned above!

we allowed ourselves the luxury of a somewhat emotionally decorated

paraphrase of the scene of lvan at the coffin.
Now ret us try to arrange it into those effective means by which
the
polyphonic structure of this scene operates like voices
or instruments.
The object of despair - the dead Anastasia in the coffin.
The vehicle of despair (the subject of despair) _ Tsar Ivan.
The means of effect:
A. The performance of lvan

The music of landscape.

315

It is realized in

1'

2.

three planes:
performs (experiences, behavior,
and acdons of
f,:"Ttt"t
They perform for him (the
frame of the- shot, the light, partners).
t""'ofn""t" or the .""n" . u whore).

B. r'1::":",*::?l,i
1. Visible

Static (by camera angle)

pantomime movement
Figure in detail (gesture, mimicry)
2. Audibte
Voice off screen
Voice with representation
C. Music
The singing of the choir as te
musical sorution of the theme
of
ins or lvan,;; .h" permeatins
action or the theme
ff :t":.#r
The singing gos.on:on_tinuously
fulnL the whote episode (up to
turns to the Basmani"-r'a
nralvut", ir are few
of
i"**

In addition,

the singing now moves ahead,

now yields to the
antiphonic reading of th uoi""
i lrrurr.
The chorus works doubly:
l. Outside of the text (as
construction)
2. As text (as the meaningmusical
oiii"orr.ent
of the text)
D. Iradiation
"^" aia-iilinr"n
componen
-FF-^
l. Reading of the psalm,
and opposing it _
2. Reading of the dispatch
_
Reading of thesalm:
As tlre content of
text (the principle of meaning
prevaits)
.ah:.
As music (the me-lodious
intontioi"t p.i.rciple prevaits)
Both principles blending
To speak with a voice off screen
The representation of pimen
Both together
Reading of the dispatch:
Malyuta: the text
f{a-lyuta as reprcsenration
vorce and text of Malyuta
off screen
E.
rcpresentational elemen
lhe2urelV
1. The interior of the cathed;i;;ople,
the coffin, the candtes _
only as attributes of the c.rr'."t,
the
cathedral as a whore
,'score,,),
"sings" the basic

* rl:

IV. Nonindifferent natute

he music of landscape.

31

317

rionship of the characters according

ro the depth of the shot: The
one occupying first pJace domi.tut"rl.r
the scene eitner ;;*
prastic
or dramatic aspect, that is, tra
uttru"ir .ttention either by prastic"
means
or by means of performance.
An example of the first may be
the enrarged visuar depiction
of
actor that is strongly pushe
torwa _ into the ,:f;;J;ound,, the

-\

iffij!;."e

close-up or Pimen ana tne

(for

aep;;;;"n".iiTruu,, in the

An exampre

of the s :cond may be lvan's

beh uior when the attention is
distinctly focused on the aru. *irit"
rr" " Maryuta are arranged
plane and in one dimension.
in one
4. Close-ups of separate characters ken
(outside the, "piastic r".o-p"rrr-ent" separarcIy.
the cathedral, and not in th "spatia of the background. - is
chord,, of a cmbination

actors).

'

fftl,
'

!.,

'' ,-ru'',

,.1:"

o'r

am,,,.1

"

t't'' tr t'lrr'1t

r'

1't?

Figure 22. Eisenstein's sketch for "Ivan at the coffin of Anastasia"

[The tsar]: "We ae scum!'. Fedor responds firmly: .'We are!,,

witl

M rlrta
Anastasia Basmanov

Pimen Staritskaya
Instances when we have tefore
us "Anastasia,s face on the back_
ground of the cathedrar," or
"the group lvan-Maryuta
in the background
while pimen's face is strongly;;; -forward,,,
phstically
whar we mentioned *h*;; "o.r"rporJ
;;;
in" misr or
l b"gv or mast protruded i" th";round
and

,,

dialogue.

The characters, as an ensemble:

In combination wit the cathedra,l (,\o the accompaaiment,, of
the cathedral).
As separate groups outside the sensation of the cathed,ral.
3. The characters as groups among themselves (,,chords"):
Pimen, Ivan, the coffin with Anastasia, Malrta
Pimen, Ivan, and Malrta
Pimen and Ivan
Ivan and Malyuta
Anastasia and Ivan
Ivan and Anastasia
The order of arrangement of the names corresponds to the interrela2.

Iva

;.i::.":l::.':.'T,i:;ild:i::*"J?i::t1,;:T

we noted that through the wlole's""i".r,'"

the contrnu ous singing of
the choir (,,Eternat memor/, ."; ,,p;;';u
,ou,,). It
now enters inro
the foreground, then yields

to fuurrt
, ah,r";;;..r, ,ro*,
finally, growing into. a roar, merging wo.a
with
; voice: ,,you lie!,,
The same rore of the p-r""ii.
ir'pruv" by the cathed.rar irserf
the composition of its visual "rr-*i ^
in
Aepictiorr-.
Irs vaults e ,'ke the pears'i-"tr"."tt
singing that have become
petrified into stone cupolas.
This ptastic ors"t'.3 the general perva-sive
ba :kground resounds
onty with the curs of the shoi
air"i"rj^ny with tonal melodjousnessnot_
with light, or rather, with darkness.
And in a few moments this organ
dominates the scene as a whore
(exampres are rre initiar
shots r;; Jio,,
the end, *t;*h" peopre
are rushing into the
".
witfr
trcsl.
-cathedral
The permeating rine.
or "rutin9-witi'ark r"ss,, in rhe
experienced
hands of Andrey Moskvin reaas-i
chain of tonal variations and light ""i"ol through t," ,"rri" kind of
nuan;es
the funeral choir beneath its vJutts. ----' that penetrate the sound of

lV. Nonindiffetent natule

The music of landscape. .

319

f:i:::: ff j".Jff!|:.,:, t' a quesrion or a ,,dark cathedrar,, or the

In one case the dakness of the

cathed.rar rust ,,resound., above
whire in the other The cathedraL
ar,
,'resound,,
ir"-"rt
above a'_ in this
case distinguished by its
,,srates,,
darkness rro other
of the cathedrar _
from a bright cathedrar, .".rr".ui.rg"
in
turitight,
or a cathedrar
drowned in the sun,s rays.
"
If one does not catch the nuances
of s-im'ar v^ebar terms,

if one does
not understand why, ler us say,
Selvinsro+ ;;il'i;
one tine
somewhere about a,river that .,shins,
ahi.n_"ra and sparkles. . .,,, each
time having in mind-a compr"turvlnainaunt,.nuunJ
orirning, uno,
what is most important, if one
does not'have the ab'ity ,o,J ortor" onu,

ii:!:: :! :, :,;:

ase

s, rh;

;;;i

pr,

",,o-"i;' ;;,;;o

then' ' ' ' there is no p< int in delving

into the
of audiovisual phenomena and
stru-cturesr

o,

din

to

rarysis and assimilation

Ir is b;fte;o u_.r", in
one's ignorance, Monsie_ur Lepic.
i."_
the
novel of Jules Renarcl, los
carrots lPoil de caytte)
ro
sray
bewildered and leave
behind "empry solicitude,, ""0'"onti.r.r"
i"
marters.

a"I:i:,tr
Figure 23.

still from rvan the Terribre,patr:

cathed.ral.

The opricrrnikr.surround vradimir.

terms t.a.t from episode to episode

.,states,,

of illumination of the

1. The daJcness of the catledral.

2. The dak cathedal.
3. People in the dak cathedral.
4. The cathedal animated. with torch flames.

These armost identicar verbal terms

actuaty

conceal within them_

selves great variations of light.
I think this is so crear arrd ob.rious that
I am not sue whether it is
necessary here to chew the cud
and comment on the obvious principar

what Monsieur Lepic""aiui'r"ul

;*;;;
the hero of the novet _ his
son

My Dear Canots,
Your letter, which arived this
moming, great\ astonishes me.
in vain. It's not in vour usua
I have reread it
style *.1; ; you speak
of things which seem
beyond my competnce as well
as yours.
As a rule you relate your littre
aventures, you telr us about
your praces in
form' the merits and r""itr yo,r
";;;;h"
masters, the names of new
boys, re state of your linen,
"*ious
,rh;,hJ;;^r""0
eat welt.
"oo
interests me. To_day I cannot
make head o tail of
lease, of this e>

ryine
shape of your

handwritinn:"

ru
yourself,
*,.

anthe
or."pit"r"
""" Of
of somebody.
merely to pirrt ,ttir

;",;;:i:i::

ott 1e
if you are addressing

i,il1i.*,:: l:

*"

o. ,h. io-g, eu"., trr"

the arrangement of the lines
you appear to be making
fun
n't want to make a fusi but

Carrots's ansuet:
My dear papa!

_"iH;."j

a hurry to exptain my last

lener ro you. you didn,t notice

it was

I allowed myself this_digression

because, unfortunately, among
who saw Ivan the Tenible, ther";;;;;e
those
than

"

f"* M;;;;r

Lepics

IV. Nonindifferent nature

320

, I,
Orchestrationryrintimej
"Eternal memoryt'

Choir; "Peace be unto you"

Pimen, visual depiction

Tsar, visual depiction

Anastasia's coffin
Face of dead tsaina

Ma-lyuta, voice

Malyuta, visual depiction

sequence .,Ivan at the

contradiction between both areas can be considered ,,removed.',

coffin of Anastasia.,,

who, having noted that many of the usual things were lacking, totally
missed the point that the film is constructed on tota.Iy different
principles.
And many of their views sounded. to me exactly tike the bewiLderment
of the papa of carrots, whose "'arrangement of lines and the use of
capitals I find disconcerting,'!
They also did not notice that the fim was shot and assembled.. . . in

verse

327

From this point of view, one would have to introduce a supplementary

chart for each horizontal line. The chart would be concerned with how,
within each separate expressive "complex" ("the tsar," ',pimen,,, ,,Malyuta"), its own share is divided each time into the separate effective
means available to it.
This would mean the clarification, for example, of which elements of a
spoken phrase would predominate: the sense of the text, the rhythm of
the text, the rhythm of pronunciation, the timbre of the voice, the
emotional vibration of experience, the melodic principle, the combination of text and facial expression, etc., etc.
But this would obviously carry us too far from the subject.
Also we will not make this chart an exact copy of how, beat by beat, all
these combinations actually nine through the whole scene.
This would result in an overabundance of material. we will limit
ourselves to giving a typical example of how the audiovisual link occurs
and is realized inside the polyphony of the scene of lvan at Anastasia's
coffin.
1. Here intentionally the sound elements are not divided from the visual, but ae
presented as totally interwoven, so that the impression is created that the

Music - choir:

Figure 24. Polyphonic chart of

The music of landscape. .

2. If several cells of sound are filted in

in the vertical

column, this means that t}re combined sound of several audial lines is
occurring (5, ,8,9).

3. If several cells of the visual depictions are filled in

in the

True, perhaps in several parts of the film it is not only necessary ro

.look and listen, but to look closely and sten closely.
But it is interesting to note that in the majority of cases, the Monsieurs
Lepic turned out to be those who should. have been the very first to look
closely and listen closely to rhis film in the intrests of developing the
methodology of the composition of our films in general!
Let us try, however, to gather together into a conventionar chart the

interaction of a series of those components from which the general

polyphony of a scene is formed.

vertical column,
(, 10).

it

means that those actors are seen together

in one shot

Such is the polyphonic composition, interwoven from various spheres

of influence, as it unfolds before us in one separately chosen episode of

the film.
But this episode has not been chosen arbitrarily, and in many respects
it is a "ke/' episode.
Not only in the method of its construction, but especially because of
its dramatic effect.
This episode is a turning point.
For in it lvan's words resound for the second time: "Two Romes fell,
and the third stands," and here they are no longer just a program of

IV. Nonindifferent nature

322

action, as they were d.uring the coronation, but

they now resound as a
battle cry ("for deeds of greatness, rerentless"); thi
,rogu., becomes a
call to battle.

The music of landscape.

And the

inte

l:.-.Tf""ff

intemal battle of

lvan.

323

tions that these separate characters

nnictwithin rh.;h;;; of despair,
of everhing that is raging in the
ance there
the effect

r : with the episode at the coffin begins the second. part of the three series
'. "triptych" of the first Russian tsar.

rhythm of
The basic conflict in the tsar/s soul
"right or wrong,, - whether to
continue the cause or reject it seems -grow
to
out of the interaction of au
the erements of the scene, which
act as separate phases of this inner

struggre and blend into one at the curmination

or ou"."o-irrg ni. doubts
and the tsar's transition to a new

The compositionar features of such scenes usua[y

contain a set of
elements characterizing stytistic features of the firm
as a whore.
And so it proves to be true here.

Every 'voice" insid.e the human ensembre

of the firm carries

t,is basic
in its own way, with its own poriuorr, ,rd
;;";-ito
irs own
social and political point of view.
In the words and actions of Iva
of the unity of state
theme

inteest
o which the opposite

And the unselfish service to the idea of

the state on the part of Ivan
all possible nuances of selfishness and egoism.

opposes

er; there is the maniacal fanatic of

if only it would destroy and

is the old man Basmanov,

rs to replace the feudal lords

we
ovs
*

arena, and hoping through his

the descendants of lvan; here is

see how the second.ary characters staritskaya

and the Basmanare interwoven, extending the battle of these pposites.

[V. serov: important Russian portrait painter at the end of the ninereenth century _
HM.]

and adventurer; and even weak_

,,
to occupying the throne, if onty

les, blood, and a possibly ba

we ca

see that

in the actuar dramac

effect

of the scenaio about

fV. Nonindifferent natute

324

Ivan, we are again concerned wth a construction of the fugue type

as in
t}:e audiovisual solution of the scene at the coffin.
Actually, it is enough to briefly enumerate the most general features
of
the fugue for it to be clear\ understood.
I will quote the textbook of professor E. prout, The Fugue (Moscow,
7922):

.'2. At the basis of the composition of a fugue is a set theme, which is

filst stated
by one voice and then subsequently imitated by all the others. .
In the picture this is - the theme of power.
8' The subject o theme of the fugue, as it is caued, appears at first in the
beginning of the composition as single-voiced, without ac^c-p*i-".r,,
and on
which the whole fugue is then constucted. .
.

The music of landscape.

325

unintentionally it seems that roth basic cornpanion

opponents of
-Ivan,
of which one is Kurbs, who,

with the makeup and face of a blond

man, seems even externarty to be tr e "reverse"
of lian, and the other _
Efrosinya Staritskaya in one scene of te second
series she scares even
Malyuta by her resembrance to the rook and
face of the tsar, ,,transposed,,
into the face of the tsa/s aunt.*
As for the other characters, whose fate an.
actions are interwoven in
counterpoint to the actions an. fate of Ivan,
it seems tirat trre very nature
of their opposition to his work finds its
most precise definition in the fact
that
' ' .10. the counterpoinl which persistentry accompanies
the subject or theme is
caued tre countersubject It- is not obligatory
that the counrersubject remain
-tugu,;i."
unchanged in tre couse of the

countersubjects.

".rti."

;"tuni"i"inn

severar

And finaty, the most important condition

that must be present no
in the various parts and deta's:
"'23' The only thing t{a is obligatory is that the fugue musr represenl
an
organic whore; this is achieved uy tne
rct ttrat tre thematic material is taken
exclusively
matter what riberties a'e anowed

Ivan has to complain of so many things, but not of the clarity

and
precision of the exposition of his outlaid program.

from the subject o. aorrrrt".ruUect

As we can see _ they.coincid.e completely.

And we should not be surpri
Bach, the "father of the fugu,,,
"conversation [confirmed in the

I am very grad that I can use someone erse's

words to characterize it
this time, and not have to use my own.
S. Yutkevich in a review of Ivan thi
Terriblewrires;
.. .Eisenstein's film brings us
that has a powerful influence

The subject is contrasted to the answer or countersubject It is

interesting thr this companion is the subject transposed to aother
key:
9. The answer or countesubjecl is tre subject ansposed to tre key
lying
fourth or fifth higher or lower than the given key.. . -'

It is more interesting that often the answe is

something opposing the subject:

the subject taken in reverse, mul.tiplied or reduced..

rn to an understanding

of film as an art
*"" U.r" I would pd;;^;pply
nor a
term from painting, but one from music
- l *o.rra-""it'i"irl'Tenibre a
syrnphonic fiIm.
Eisenstein does not r.?pI picture gallery,
he does not turn the firm strip into
a
set of slides. He puts a-u his" tremendus
"ur*." of cinematographic expression
Ivan,s, looked at lvan's eye
ance

understood to be

.20. There are fugues in which the response is not the subject taasposed,
but

ba
on

Malyuta hides.
And walks bacla,rards to the door.
With a clumsy gait. F.O."

fV. Nonindifferent nahte

326

into the service of his theme and, as in no other film of his, he achieves a unity
of
the different expressive means available to the cinematic a-rt.
This is not only a brilliant duel of remaks and glances, but a passionate
battle of sound and silence, light and dark. Brightness and shadow, color and
texture - all influence one's mind and feelings. . .
...The black silhouette ofprincess staritskaya, created with such talent by
S, Berman, sprawls like a sinister bird over the silver cradle of Ivan,s heir;
contrasling with it is the whiteness and severe sculptured quality of the figure of
the Tsaritsa Anastasia. This play of brack and whtte, darkad. iight, as well
as
the contrasts of the folk choruses and brilliant music of s. prokofiv, the shadow
from the astrolabe and the silver cross, swinging on the tsa_fs chest; the twisted
candlesticks and the semicircula vaults; the fiery parabolas of castiron balls
scattered along the walls of the Kazan forBess. ard the pattemed fields of ratar
robes, and the white snow of tlte Moscow area all this blends into one
symphonic poem about the strength and beauty of the feat done in the name of
the state power of our native land.*

In terms of the key episode "rvan at the coffin," which we analyzed

above, if we wished to delve into a more delicate analysis we would have

had to use many more diagrams.

it is very interesting to establish where, when, and how the
-However,
effect, while alternating, proceeds from action (performance) and then
from the sot (plastic formation): This is why their conneitio., i"
refined and vivid as the effect obtained in combining words and music ",
in
a musical drama, rather than in a audiovisual drama as here.
Here, in the interweaving of visual representation and sound, is
achieved what was achieved in musical dama given the possibilities of
the combination of music and word. In one of his article, saint-sans
brings in "one of a thousand samples" of how similar combinations were
achieved by Wagner.
Tristan asks "where a-re we?" "At our goal" answers Isold.e to the
sound of the music, which before this had repeated the words: "Heads
doomed to death" - words she uttered as a prophetic whisper, looking at
Tristan, and immediately it is clearwhich goal, which limii, which end is
meant here. t
However, we must now focus on one element of composition, in what
way the "link" of large divisions that has been described is repeated by the "microscopic" link between the flow of the music and the
peormance.
In the analysis of. Alexander JVevs we have already discussed the
fact that "as a rule the borders of the division of music (for example,
in Sov. -Iskusstvo,
Ir Se9_clrom "Dalekoye i Blizkoye"
sainr-saens, port:its
pp. 284-5.

February 6, lg41.
et souvenris, socit esiition Anistique, paris, 1900,

Ihe music of landscape.

327

rffi H:'l.iHii::"T,T^:^olu1.l:lorulsuarobjects(therransirion
*#"::"il:j)
j::::coincia";^"::,i:"'#:l j:j
H."i:#en

crib e

d es

is, tlte overflow

combination
of
"-ruuduoll Of

".

il^ i :: "i::'1i',LTur,"
(red was "bricklaying,"
that

* '---*-

the_term ,,en;ambmen.,,

e,,, th ar

a unique
-----a*v uyyuLcrlrofl
application IO
to lhe
the
uvt vuuu uf_what in poetry
is known
by

, vs uy Lrrs sraolltty
of the corb,narion
orthe
basic
conblnation
i:" elements t a"::loile
of the
-t orthe
::*'irv
sound
track
and
"iJiif''j,'t:
running
representation.
-*
visuar
But this princip-le ta es
root even mo'e deeply:
insidete sot and
inside the musical "" p".""i"n"",

_ __-^-v

n*"

fusion. And so that the

the observance of these

inner diuisions of the

of sound an!..2ov9menr
:::rtrA;ll"
""*ts
serve as the perceptible
. _rces

divisions.
_

In its developmenr,

changed

(srresses) inside

skelei;;;;"r"

deg.ree

*"ii-i n"
mrrtug"

principles or

.,inner,,

structue.

vertical montage also

that is, in the
"!:^::"o.ge,
.pteces within those p,lastic
in the general composition
of

of what, at tlr3.ime, fett

ro rhe tor of silent
n te course of the vsua
t r"p-uitution, bur
when the divisions and
end

,"1:j3br"","f,occurs
orvrsions
and ends of Im""

to

..

r,

ip*."p:,:':i

"o"n"o.r,-"i:#.xili,i,T::iflT
little island

.A

d then

silent,
t,

I
thing
tion
d
sh,
ded

:'"0'
lwatrerArndr, rrans., pus]rkh ,o'l)^ro,Dutton,
New york, t972,

p.l44.l

wirh rhe
appears

ani

IV. Nonindifferent nature

The music of landscape. . .

328

also to rearize the

rhhmic outline and its physicat beat, trrat is, what

now in sound fitm is found almost totally in ttre souna
iract.
To achieve this montage, the s'ent filrnhad to lay
a strng emphasis

,".rll

329

interesting thar rhis example

is used by Feuchtwangerros in

a
s

on the greatest physiorogica\y effective element wittin

the system of
shots.

rably accompanied by
a
formula whenever and

ffi:T'ffi:;1"t#;",tisknowJi,,"p1u,"3"i,li'."::,':::l

In relation to the decoration

of

'visuaL representations of varying size, varying direction, varying lighting,

Japanese verse it
u",,JJ.y
_ns orem
The ranguag" *. tn" .o.r*--'*'(r 'cq

tc.

ren

ap

pieces- and

archaic lapanese ooery

had

the sequence of jolts

devices as the use of ,.empty,,

or

like, or compounds of theg

em
_ not, t o*"o".,
, mere chevilles, for
-Ho,meric-verss
well
as the mee.*

,:i.",t*i,:t"':rJ:'",il:f:

theme (of course, onry in those cases where

the deverop"rr, or ,h"
mic beat of the themel)
was achieved by
ts most primitive
s/Y: melodY and

r"iL"#i
This

accompaniment.

* Collected Works, yol. p.

f,
l9.

oj:" n to mind mv concru

s ion s

And,
And
analogi
poetry.

And the course of te beat of the montage junctions

through the
melody of.
on rs very
similar to
nt
usua,y
resembles
This creatio n of. a doubre seies (va ied series) of twoai-"r"rloT.oo,
the elements of one and the same dimension hai
b""r, urr"or.rr"red by us
ln many cases in extremely varied areas.
for example, in folk poetry part of t,e vebal
. Thus,
works not
in
a thematic-representationar *ay urrt as musicalmaterial
accompaniment,
consisting of turns of speech and words. A. N. veserorrrt
y *.ia"s about
this: t07
" ' ' ' The ranguage of fork poetry is fuIl of hierogtyphics,
which can be
understood not so much figuratively as musicUy;
,roi
,o much as
presenting as tuning up; one must remember
this ln order to anaryze
their meaning. . ."*
To a certain extent
same abstractry musicar rore is prayed by the
_the
notoriously comprex Homeric
epithets; you do not so ,nucr, p.raer over
their significance as- lisren attentively t th"i. rumble
This perception of them is very disinct in their repetitive-use,
""J i". where
they figure as an individuat musicat teinotif, ,;o;t;";ing
each
appearance of a chaacter.

;;#;.i:tt;n

.":jilff ||: i::lheaviness

able." Moreover, I think

catches the basic themt

ab

ou*he

rityof its performances.

Theater of the USSR.
ertain features, almost
in connection with folk
of the performa ce of
.g

wit works woe is

considered "perform-

rbove

cordingly, this part of

fashion, but as melodi
I think this consideratin
is based on
rly within the tra
Actually, the kn

all music, which

e. Understood aced in an everyday

udeville.
se of the

the idea

into the
This point of view shourd-not
wrinen into rhe rexts of pfa's surprise usJ Act,ally, what has or been
in i;*:
the history of theater,
conform to the stage
to
conventions i., *fri"t :r
they were created !
;

i l+""-lii iJf;:,,i1,Jiff##l,3;i,l.3";,:,

,leo' p ,*,

IV, Nonindifferent nature

330

Sometimes these were even...d.ecoration (a

phenomenon much
farther from the text than music!): Actuaty
ro -Jt;;;;;;pve monologues even in Shakespeare (beginning urith
trre mooniit night in
Romeo's monologue) serve to evot uero
o"i"v",
.rrirginea ra.ra_
. scape, situation, and mood!
'' In other cases the text of a pray must use very unusual
means to convey
the sensation of the duation oi ti*".
I would like to discuss one such case here just
because the text is used
graphic. modification of the visuairepresentation,
which it is forced
i. describe
?
,to

in

word.s.

This is a famous scene in

n/et before the king,s prayer and the

duologue of the Danish prince with his queen_mother:

PoroNrus:

Hnu.:
PoL.:
Hruvl.:

Pol.:
HRwI.:

PoL.:

HRu.:
PoL.:

HeM.:

My lord, the eueen would speak with you and presently.

Do you see yonder cloud thfs almost in tle
shape of a camel?
By th' mass, and tis like a camel indeed.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
It is back'd like a weasel.
Or like a whale.
Very like a whale.
Then will I come to my mother by_and_by. _
They fool me to the top of
my bent - I will come by-and-by.
I will say so.
"By-and-by'' is easily said. Leave me, friends.*

This part ofthe tragedy has usua

pretations, proceeding from the ide
the prince arbitrarily changes his
Therefore the scene is usualy tre
or the continuation by the Danish
I do not think this is quite true, and especiaty because
no one reary
imagines those contours of the croud we are
dicussing here.
And moreover the sequence of t re contours of
a camel, weasel, and
whale - are very rogica[y consecutive phases
for a croud changing its
shape.

Actually, we will draw these three contours in diagrams.

And what do we see?
The first contour pours over into tre second and
rater into the third
a normal sequence.
York' 7974'

o'"]

as

The music of landscape.

r"r, Moscow, l9os,

of the toadying of the

h the hat of Osric).

331

J\NP

lr-'J

,i#":r*i:rH,1:r"T,i:-.con-s_ecutive.comparisonsdenne

i:'TffiTff

"**ora-u-tr,"*ti"";::il""ifl,:X:.fi :ff :
"";;;";';;":i:t; ii

One has to conside that

the cloudy sky is
i not carm,
calm, ror
ange of
for this double
or outline
outrine occurs in the c^rr,^
doubre
:hulg9
^" --,- 't,tot remarks
consider trr"t tn"
one
has to
are
are nrc?ri-^
rushing by thgl
quickty,
changing shape.
"louds
"rd
. \4lhy is this double chaaderization :necessay the flow
thu.

il q;i;i;

flight of rhe clouds?

I {."li.t
think in order to emphasize

ffi m:1

of time and

two erements in the

behavior of the
T,f:H,{ii":";1"".'.""::
s, an d,he

'l:,'ff
Let us nor forsetwt",
,".i"li^;iJ:
,^l-r_1:""T" occupies
eral course of the increasing
"
in the sen_
In the conversarion with ",r-f;; events threatenng Hamret.
uiren;;" l^r:t
l"
do you

"";iiy,j"o,
;:ilil:',,"T"'T":li:lirip"ru,i'"ili,,",,,,-"n,
plav

. This snows ttrai tne p.irrc;il;tnnotthat.theupon me." lp.z2)--closins in aound him:^His

of inisue is
#;#1Y"already beenrins
recruite
,t"*p"",ury
iito
.o-", rri"*,"""
""9In"g
eight remarks ttrere witi;;;;
en.
unpleasant scene of t1e
the forthcoming
en
teart' rose not thv
rturar." (p.-23)r.
.
see the prin_ce. trrrougrr
ness rush feverish dL::J:t
whose conscious_

""il;""t";::::T:t

,h"_nish;;;"",',,:#:?1i:,1ffi

f ''fffi 1:*il,.1:

"{{r"iiffX;m".*:hlEI-*",,"a,",r,"r,,io,n,,o*n
or the croudy s.
i:*::.tti,' "" "h";;i'irms
comparisons, casually
polonius,s
tossed
a "tt"rrtiorr.runging
feverish flight of

,.

off, distact

.ana in
his most anxi(
prince
the possibilirv of .*uri"s
u"lffii-T Tot"nts, they provide the
short monorosue bertre
in his
.h"
at
the
bases
of
its struct;;;;
..
it' P.".
Not only the rhytrr*i"
something simitar to
bear, but
*.lt^"-t-has
) system of rhyrne is
for verse
"""r,

,;;;:;;#'il:JliT..oou.'out
il.t,i,:

l\,r. l\fqnindifferent nature

3|2

exactly what a "support" Iike the montage junction is for montage.

somewhere a quotation of Richeau, caught by me, is very convincing on
this subject:
"If poets would be frank, th
rhyme not only
does not hinder their creativity,
kes their po"try,
qppearing more like a support
.,,
formalism everywhere and to be frightened by
give grist to their mill, for the ,,play" of those
, . it,
life,, is by no means arbitrary _lt is the same
. rh
original basis of a conception, the same first ,'fling,' of creative intention
- necessarily thematic - as any element one uses to begin to embody a
conception.
" Let us recall here what Mayakovs wrote
about this:
f"Most frequently the first thing is the main word. - the main word
characterizes the meaning of the poem or the word underlying the rhyme.
The other words come and are inserted, depending on the main one (.Frow
to Make Verse)."f
ge

the music of landscape.

333

attractive, process.

all ,,see,,very distinctly in your

:i ::,i"Jt."

p atie n.v wai tins for

rhe mo ment ffi
i ii"31,T,
suddenry begin to "correspond" to
certain erements of the other:
the texture of the object or land.scar
passage; the potential rhhmi
ize a series of close-ups with
passage; the rationally inexpr

of music and a certain piec;

The difficulty, of course, is

You should not forget that at the

of

incompa

For this very first, initial rhythmic formula, for this rhythmic contoursimultaneously the bones ad skeleton of the future stncture of the
scene - one must. . ."paY money."
Everything that follows demands not so much inspiration as simple
talent and ability.
This is why S. S. Prokofiev and I always
is
first": to write the music to unedited pieces
so
that one could create montage by proceeding
ne
edited in its final form and write music to it.
And thar is why the firsr has the basic creative difficulty: to determine
the rhythmic development of the scene!
For the second - it is "now easy."
what "remains" for him is the erection of an adequate building using
the means, possibilities, and elements of his spheie.
of course, the "ease" here is quite rerative, and I speak onry in
comparison with the difficulties of the first stage. I know tle inner
mechanics of this process quite well.

correspond to the
"score" of what was ,'bein-g
For no montage can be
e is no inner "melody"
according to whih it is composed.l
This merody is often so sdong that sometimes
the whole rhythm of
one's behavior is nredtermineio"
uy" when one is editing scenes
according to the sound.

,1i;i:f:i'J;:J:

the

,\rilting,,rhhm

:"ff":li:
mysaitwasprecise,erations**ffi

in which I

:.l#'H:;i:

.i#itjr:.#:"::1""..r?

tion - sharp and abrupt.

Involuntarily, one eals Chekhov _
this time Michaelroe (and other
temperamentar actors) who,-when
praying a distracted man in the
evening, from morning on would.
o.,
chairs,
turn
over
cups,
and
smash dishes at home!
"to_tl"
How this occurs "in the sour" of
r composer I am not able to
in
gi:i:ffJ:". But r noriced somethins rie tnis in trr-,r.i'"r say
s. s.

IV. Nonindifrerentnature
334

The music of landscape.

.

335

K 5-10-20 en. 35.

,Ytt^1ll_'_:,.1 in my memory?

;.ii"*

*", "fl"y";';;:;me
uury-poo..
sod.
l:d_h"
All the tumiture oi .
wh"" r ;;;;;:1ir:i^:.1'led of one small rus.
ii'ili,cro,hes
"iJ:":i:i:""'"",?*:'i:ff
y.". """1more dazztins.
-qrrv'
iI"_i::
The
as a rair youns

furnishings of

t.---"

of one rug.
un this *s
ru9 *
we ,o."rtl^Yl]et.consisted
..'v days....
*o
"'
This is o pu.uptiur.
"p"r, m uqy'
my own words of a page
Isadora
,oru Duncan.
from rhe diary of
Ou.rar]i^^*."
is sersey
just
il:J
H-e
told me i::'^"r-!ooth
ttrat tre finally moved serseyevich.
out of the hotel into
apartment.
an

l,ji

*"

'
Figure 25' Pase of
,,To

inscribed:

And now I

while the orchestra,

cal number then ideni

prokofiev for lvan

:"o^r"- py sergei
the Terible,
dear and wonderful
Sergei Mikhailovich..."
o1:9t-i-11

wit allow myserf

time to discuss what I figured out

about this
in the form of a small .d.etective
,,"f;

THE TELEPHoNE ACCUSER

In several hours it will be New year,s,

I will calt S. S. prokofigy on tfru pt oi" 1945.
to congrarulate him.
y1.19! looking at my litrle pnone Uo I diat the number:

K 5-10-20, extension 35.

And I stop...
I do not have a bad memory.
But probabry it is because I an stubbornly
trying not to bothe ir with
memorizing telephone numbers.
I purposery cross them out of my
little gray book of microscopic size. memory and note them down in a
why was it so easy for me io remember
the telephone number of sergey
Serg,eyevich's new aparnent, where
he had just recently moved?
The numbers:

and her meeting with

ook of her memoirs.

sov, in tlte chaacter

of
iwear allegiance

n"tof newinvas
to ward off the ,collaPse
of one g
princedoms.
Incidentally, if you
episode, even if only

action and music, res

which the harmonious

was achieved..
prokofievon

Alexander

t in the process

eqi

t how, in two to thee

capture the emoonal

:lg.3"q the musicat

--'--' eqi
musicar
score.
In the scene' which is
being screened the tenth
me for the orchestrar

i:"::::"i;!"1";*T

fV. Nonindifferent nature

33

The music of landscape.

rehearsal, the effect was particurarly striking. The

music was written to a
completely

edited episode.

This method of ,,ligature,, corresponds to the ,,bricklaying,,

of tlte brick
layer or what is conventionaly cairea .'enjambment,,
iri t},"e work of the
poets.
Again and again I keep thinking abour the astonishing
ability of s. s.
Prokoev to achieve ttris result. .
However, the orchestra has finally mastered the
score.
.

In a frenzy the conductor stasevichlr3 starts

sound recording.

ao."t"rrr" it for the

They played once,

twice,
three times,
four times.

The fifth "take" was irreproachable.

The impetuous composer was aLeady wrapped up in
his checked
scarf.
Already in hat and coat.
Quickly he shakes my hand.
And, running off, he tosses me his telephone number.
The new telephone number of the .r"* purt-"rrt,
"K 5-10-20, extension 35!,,
And...out of his head gives away

his method.

The sought-for secret.

For the telephone number he pronounces:

K 5!

10!t 20!

!!

337

!!! s
this inscription in the manner of the earty Khrebextensi""

30

I pe_rmit myserf
nikovrrs or Tristan Tzara, in oider to note down precisety
thcourse of
the inronadonal emphasis with which sergey serjeyevich'haJyettea
out
the telephone number. ..
"so what?" you ask. "\Mhere is the key here to the mystery of the
creation of Prokofiey's music?,'
We will tell you!
Meanwhile, I am not looking for a key to the creation of
music and the
inexhaustibre wearth of images and sound. combinations
that Sergey
sergeyevich carries in his head and heart (yes I wilr not
aow anyone to
deny tris warm heart to the wisest of contemporary
composers). I am
now seeking a key only to the striking phenomenon oi..""tng
a musicar
equivalent to any piece of visual representation thrown
on the screen.
Mnemonics is exuemely varied.
Very often it is simply a matter of association.
sometimes it is compositionar (a series of words, which
are to be
memorized, are connected in action and subject matter,
and thus form a
concrete picture in your memory).
one well-known telephone subscriber is easily memorized
by a doubre
pun on the theme of the term ,,ochko (K 0-21_00).,,*
The mnemonic manner of a man is, to a great extent, the
key to the
particular nature of his mental activity.
In sergey Sergeyevich the mnemonicaevice is strikingry crose
to what
one might guess to be the manner of his perception
of vuar representa_
tion, which he so unerringly transl t.t", irrto a sound series.
Actually, what does pokofiev do?
The accidentar series of numbers s, 10, 20, 30- he
instantaneously
interprets as following a certain regularity.
This series of numbers is really the sequence we know
as the
conventional formula for jnceasin g quantityi
"5-10-20-30-"

A similar example is ,'100-200-300.',

Or in another area: ,'fvanov, petrov, Sidorov.,,
Ffowevr, this regularity is fixed in prokofiev,s
memory, not by
speculation but according to rhat same emori onal premise
tnt is then

made graphic by the given formula.

. This is not simply an increase in ,loudness, correspond.ing to an

increasing quanrity, not simply the rhhm of a phrase,
_nng n,r_b".,
which is automaticauy imprinted in -one's memory.
However, for many
*

[Points in a game

HM.]

IV. nindifferent nafie

338

orchestra players this is th

numbers.* The difference b

probably is that prokofiev

r an intonation of excitement.
ation of frrt just as well, in reaction to a
ive-bombing planes.
"subtexf' under the d.iscovered regularity
ror anv inter-

preration, it can be dictated, Tr"i"iill?*t"n

The "joyful" interpretation o the given rorrttJ
r"qoence in prokofiev
was probabry
determined by th unspoken joy of finaly, after
wandering around hoters, finding his own
i.riet upnmenr on Mozhaika
Boulevard. . .
Let us forget Mozhaika and the telephone.
And let us remember the basic point about prokofie/s
creative
mnemonics.
,'apparentry"
He is abre to interpret an
accid.ental accumulation of
phenomena as corresponding to a definite
regularity.
He gives an emoonar interpretation to thii foud
regurarity.
The means by which a formula is mastered sensuaty
- is unforgenable.

t of one's memory.
memorized through intonation.
of melody.
is able to interpret the intonation of the
cted on the screen.
elody of the spoken '.tune," Iies at the

with this the story essentiaty comes to an end.. we shourd

add only
that for this type of musicar composition, the 'vsual
music,, must be
constructed according to this same principre, that is,
the oir""iip
sentation must be edited according to th principle.
And thus the experience of the montage construction
of silent film has
turned out to be very useful. Silent filn dmanded thar
the musical development be incruded into the combination of shots,
equarty and indis_
solubry synchronized with their naffative presentation
of events.
And actually, it is only now _ in
thatyou can
see how the strict organization of
come part of
our flesh and blood after the peri
;,Hlfl",:rn

have known more than one who memorized metodies

by tyins knors ro

Ihe music of landscape.

339

The indispensable repetition of expressive groups of sound combinations in music is arso true of rhhmic and moniage groups of visual
representations moving in sequence.
And we ca
of how a completed element of
music - the '
wtitten ,,fo/, a certain part of a
scene

also

in

the
There

ted in

And not only in terms of "general length', but a.so in all the synchron_
ization and preconceived nonsynchronization of the accents
of action
and music.
This is possible for two reasons: first, because of the persistence of
the
basic emotional mood passing through in the variatins of individual
of the

Strictly speaking, there is, of, course, only one reason here, and it is
hat for a given emotional solution that compositional structure is found
n which it is expressed most compretely. To interpret it ftom
the editing

my article "Vertical Montage.,'*

Here I would onry like to briefly add a nuance to the deveropment
of
the compositional counterpoint as it occurs in Ivan.
In the analysis of the "Dawn scene" in Alexande Nevsky, we had a
typical analogue to the chinese picture scroll unol/ed horizontally.
There this can be read as two horizontal, paralrei rines of a
score the
line of ound and the rine of visual representation just like the line of
air, water, and earth in a Chinese landscape; here,
then in Ivan the
* [see s. Eisenstein,
Fr?m sense, Jay Leyda, trans. and ed., Faber & Faber,
London, 1943,
pp. 58-B - HM.l

IV. Noaindilferentnarure

The music of landscape.

340

341

Terrib).e, we apparentry have an instance

of a rot of firm ..unco'ing,,

- so complicated is the interrerationship a',d interweaving,
and so
great are the number of erements constituting
the
emotional
su""rui
effect.
,Although our detective novel
has

cter or the image of the criminal

and

up.
tends to become ,,mechanical.,,

e S. Meyefs How to Read

Character
pubtished.
dwriting that interests you
is laid
tracing paper.

radition
end but
sleuth-

But one must keep

evr/ r
in mind
uurru that
rrlar rnere
th
are two basic types of de_
tctives.
Just as in the case of graphologists, there is the private
detective.
one of them is a rrpe like Ludwig ruges,tt;
*n;*"v
operates
in an analytic manner.

rff"x ifr:l::
The
othe

t"o"

:.r

is arso the crassicar moder of

rhe

Sherrock

derective and graphologist

work in anorher
u.."i"," ot tr, *o.i,
i you rfte,

;Tl,::,::i1T{",1 ""
conscious and w'rfur erements, and tre
second with emotional, instinctual. ones.
of the huge murtitude of possibre',signs,,, which
incr.ude the size of the
letters, rhe srant, the closd-in and iu
op"n, t,e exprosive and the
indis

ciple
vano
___r

sen onlY the following

Printhe whole system of yin and
eth century!
nal traditions are' as soon as

Th
you come into conflict with pheno
not yet penetratd, and t}re phenom
of the natural and the orgaaic.
Let us not forget, however, that th
scientifically suspicious areas as. . .graphology!
Actually, wrfflin's famous ctassifiIcaon of
itytes based on a system
of opposites* and the observation of at of art
history as a system of
uninterrupted transitiolsone opposite to rre other, arso bears the
lrom
distinct imprint of the Chinese traaiiion.
In any case, rhe first type of graphologist (a,'d
detective) is the analic
type. In both cases, features and signs,
r evidence, are grouped together;
* "The linear
and the painterly," "surface and depth,,, ,.enclosed
and revealed form,,,
"mulriplicirv and unitv." "distinct
ini"iir (see H. wrfflin. Kunstgeschichte
Grundbegriffe, Bruckmnn, Munich, ""
fSZ1.------'^'-'

to extract
ssentially
person's

and nennan himserf

himself in his
;3:::l1",i:.:"li.l,t::*:"te,
;,;i..:":l=J.._o',. Sherman
crawinsorrresiona":::i:l'^ 1f obj":ts tat h" ';;;;om rhe
booklet
;:1 describes thos"

o":1:o-r"lic
fli'i:rri"",:il1"":"J.;;-"":';n:'i',li"io1',1"1r,i:
"cmplex"",, oirri"l;i;.

ilJ"i,Ti:I;::*:::.*:;

terany a,nazes you at rhe

first meeting is much more curious.
.":i"ilt"tr:*"-" acquainted with him in Berrin in Te2eand experi-

j-.yr:_this _hypersensitive man

*an ol
of small
sman stature
with
s tatue
H":
a pale face and sharp,
;*""#";os'(rve
Yements
convulsively
pen arrd begins to w1 i^^^
grabs
o"T'il"0:T:x'"1,:"',1.:"',:"i:',ii:;:;i,;#;"iH,1ri
a
^ _

"i:;lt:

llJ:i:i":"j11,f"l**:,r"*;:,;i..iJi::,:i:,,#j
'"i.:.liii:l^:'^T:-l=s"'{;;:'"''i,H,i:
o

i,""ig.i::*",:",:,:::,"*,1i."*i,"i"j.J,J.",easlyusea
.o," pio". . ;
":.lT
:^ ":t
11_i"1.^,
Is this
a miacle?
Or a mystical power?

;::i

IV. Nonindifrerentnature

u2

The music of landscape. . .

343

It is neither.
And, although the effect is truly amazing, te basic premise has
absolutely nothing to do with supernatural powers.
It is a matter here of imitation or, rather, in the degre e of imitationwith
whose help sherman, having "captured" you at first glance, instantaneously reproduces you.
not differ in any major way from
often accomplished with such per_
rs, without even having recourse to

that, the Chinese have not

of how to recognize the

i's:,:Ti, :fl
And here, along with the calc

:,i :ff ::::

re
Pasterna
Here the
Let us

d his terrifyingty vivid imitations

lexey Tolstoy.
the basic external characteristics
"en rot)te," as a whole, and does not "concoct'' an image of the imitated
person from distinctive "attributes.',

of

In this way he captures the basic 'tonalitf' of a person, which is

formed first of all from rt,e rhythmic characterization of. the whole complex of the person's functions.
But the rhythmic characterization is the external imprint of the caacterization of inner relationships and, connLicts in the ,,inner system" in
the person's psyche.
And, therefore, the once-captured, basic, tonally plastic characterization also provides a certain access to the inner psychotogical mechanism
of the imitated percon.
triking

is
w

simple

ner

of

Pasternak's poetry reading; Andronikov improvises the text in the

Pasternak style, not only in form but also in the details of the actual
process of formation, by a system of accompanying digressions and
commentaries to it by the ',autho/' himself.
It is now easy to understand why sherman, who has rirastered the

seem,

if not firsthand, then at least

3l,iil1'Jii.li"::::::i.l'-:"11, to rook at the sins sins

i'l,ii1T;
,nil1.::Tl1l_1r
ilT'i"".".il:i:,"::::l:-;.1;_.'.;;il:::ffi
lg,g,: ai .i,*"'il:::

,31:T""r,'",:T^T^"y^I:,1:i;;;;iJ":i ill; in rhe center or a

"o:T:,T. jlll^":: "ro," to *nil ;d;n"T#l.
"l,nr,l,:::"T:"::::,",-:rili;;::,::lii:,:i:^"i:".:

;i'
or the chinese
":::JJ
i:;",iffi1,,i::i'J,:i
"^1":::13,1+*"',.;ff
l?i,T111:f
jl;:i.:l:,""ortheseron""i";;i":#in'"T"'ln:#:i,i:l
tuneteler Flp ar.-o +L:- ^^-

,#i, or Shanghai.
Canton

'"Lir

out rhat this is built on precisety

rhe same system of

li"":i::iT""?,i:"1:"^1*o:.thecrientcaref

ury,reproduceshis

:::::3':,'"1"o::i:^'i,.1"1'*;i"i':'i:'i:Jiii:.'.1
$:'i,i.1il"11,1""":,11.."":-F;i';*i:,3""JX?iii,,",:::l
".::11
It is not surprising that another curious phenomenon is also built on
this same principle of imitation, This phenomenon again Leads us to
China.

chinese banking houses and offices have perfectly assimilated European and American banking methods.

trusnvorthiness,, of rh"
And the little sticks?

o";- bJ;;r,l:
-vu rer(u'

IV. Nonindifferent nature

34

The music of landscape. . .

which the experienced imitator and physiognomist-fortuneteller interpreted from his face, appearance, and behavior."

resonance stimulated b1' the tired eyes

of one in contrast to the
submissively compressed, toothres s jaws of
another, o. tt tr"rr"parency
of the pare skin on the tempres in third, in
contrast to" the scattered
wrinkles on the shriveled face of a fourth.
,lrd, second, to take into account what these separate faces with
different nuances of emodonal "resonance,' provide
in combination with
the others.

I think that for us professionals there is something less miraculous here

than appears at first sight.
For does not each of us directors
to constantly ',crawl into,, and
' "crawl out of' not only the individualhave
characters his aists play but also
. the actual individuality of the actors themselves, without which he
cannot help them in the complex process of the mutual "penetration,'
' the character - pedormer, and the performer character, lei alone the factof
that without this ability of the director, it would. be impossible to transfer
the problems of drama into a chain of concrete acts of rear, existing

And now you look, ,'immersing yourself, into such

a face, and
unintentionarly you enter into trre -whole
system or--tiving

drama
engendered on the ord man's face by these
furrows of sor.ow,nese deep
features
grief.

* The degree to which person's

a
character provides an imprint of his whore appearance
and rhe degree to which-the trained eye of ihe observer can interpret him from
such an
appearance can be well illu_strated by a line from sainte-Beuvelre (auserjes
du,lundr-, III,
Garnier Frires. Paris, l924l2 pp. 23i): ,'They say of Abbot Morell, pedant
and fanatic of
great precision, that he evenqalke.d with sharplydrawn-in shouldes
in ordel to get closer
to himself..." (!) One ecalls a simila chacterization of the miser-rattri, Grndee,
in
Balzac.

of

of

characters.
However, no matter how strange, you

wil feer this most strongry in rhe

work of typecasting, rather, in the process of selecting types.
It is true that the constuction of a suire of types, .oo'loia of separare
close-ups, appearing for only a moment before the viewer, demand.s
basically two conditions:
first of all, that the expressive "resonance" of such a face be absolutely
precise, like a chord or note, not allowing anhing false in a given
combination;
second, that this precision be expressed with rriaximum clarity and
directness, so that a certain image of a compretery defined human
characterization could be formed from a short, momentary appearance to
the viewer's perception.
The suite of faces grieving over vakulinchuk's body was constructed
in this way.
Each face appearing for a moment bears not onry a compretery defined
chord or note of grief, but also a sign of social clss, of ccompanying
everyday associations, etc., etc.
Their correct selection also provides the sensation of the ,,universality" of the grief over Vakulinchuk - grief uniting the old and the young,
the intellectuals and the workers, the sailors and the women.
Therefore, the process of serection demands great exertion when, for
example, we have before us dozens of "gray-haired old men', su[moned
by a private announcement.
And now you must' first of all, catch the nuance of emotionar

345

the physical details of such a life (and

this

rhh

on the screen.

,i::;i;#:,*"#"i,;"i

If this is the nature of the

encounter with a senile face

that, Iike a
member of the Synodik," has engraved traces
of the history of a whole life
on his parchment, then, no matter how
strange it may seemf the process
is even more sensitive in those cases when
one must select ch'dren,s

faces.

This concerns young boys of eight_ten_twelve years

of age.
If the face of an old man or ord loman read.s you
back
to the distant
past by the imprints left on their faces,
then the drawing of the features
on
into the futue, The features of a
chi
f all nclinations wirhin him, like a
clu
ce having developed, greatly define

the

ro immese oneserr into such ,.":Y,T$ti:i:;o""#;*n.

Here the inherited traumas and often horribre
d"p;;;; incrina_
tions have not yet been overcome or smoothed ""d
away by the rong to' of
one's

life path or wortdly

encounters that smooth

and level their

scandalous diection.
Here is a feature predisposed to vice, shining
in all its glory.
Here a feature of a psychological flaw or inferiority
cannot be hidden

by the art of pretence.

Also purely physical badness is

the pro

And
begins

t mollified or leveled. down in

this cluster of possibilities

vithout the unavoidable tevling correc_
tives of practicar life g_row "directly''
a
.':and you
shudder at the picture of what r
".rr""".-i"J;r;.
child,s face has grown into,
-orr.t". this
*

ll.ist of the dead to be read in chuch _ HM.]

IV. Nonindifferentnatrue

with the imprint of future sufferings and griefs in his childish

features!
No, the process is even more terrible.
It is even more terribre because it occurs not before your "spirituar
gaze" - indifferentry and objectivery but you yourself,
'in the skin,, of
this chitd who stands before you with wia-opnea eys rooking
at the
"'famous director," experienc ail the torment of his possible future

'.
'

., development.
It is good that this rasts for onry a moment, and by the sign
of your eyes
the diligent assistanr leads th child away to the gr"orrp
of those

considered suitable or unsuitable for the shooting.

But how horrible it is when you have to look ou"i50, 100,
200 children
in one morning. . .
The detective technique at reast on the pages of a detective
novel _ is
very good at this method.
The detective tries to "get inside" the train of thoughts and
feelings of
rhe criminar who is unknown to him, and in this ay to possess
his
living image, so that he can guess the picture of the crime and the
action

of the criminal.
The classic example of such an approach is the famous Dupin,r2o
conceived by the officiar founder of the genre, Edgar Alan poe,
who
his Te Purloined Lette reproduced theompletJtrroughi processes in
of
the person with whom he was conversing.
of the newer ones, one should recall the detective from the novel re
Invisible Potait by Joseph colomb (rg2g), where the person
who is
being sought is reproduced by this very method from the erements
of
usual surroundings - books, furniture, etc.
And, of course, to a great extent this is chesterton's Father Brown;
this
little simple-hearted priest, preserving in his soul hundreds of monstrous crimes entrusted to him during confession by inveterate
criminars;
the image of the funny little priest, capable in necessary moments
of
"implanting himself into these criminar naturesf thereby educting
the
various artful designs of their crimes.

he music of landscape.

347

But the majority of exampres introduced

in the course of this articre
in exactly the same way.
We have written in referene to prokofiev:
",..The accidental series of numUers _
S, 10, 20, 30 _ he instantaneously interprets_as following
a certain regulariy'. .-.,,
we could generarize these co;si"i"tion,
by recating the words of
Rmy de Gourmont:l2t
" ' ' ' To elevate one's own personar
impressions into
- this is what composes th great striving of man, if aheraw of regurarity
is sincere. , .,,
The same thing occurs her as well.
e actual calling of attention
to these separare
el
all, by emoonal entusjasn.
arose

But let us not tire the ,"uTin '

Earlier, in discussions on pa
ion" rough the comparison of
series, from different periods of his
activity.

mbination of the two engravings is

',Jumping Lions.,,
that same set of laws, ,,detected,,

in

phenomena.
speak not only about the

ir "creation," for

here, of
active,'establishment,, of

ce here.)

s.

ple of the fugue rhat penetrates

his
construct my
an index of a

Thus, to the second type of detectives belongs the detective

who set out

to find solutions to S. S. prokofiey's work meods.

And the sorution is made easier by the fact that the detective (and
that's me) works exactly the same way.
I can ilustrate this briefly in the material of this article.
The search for a certain regularity in the juxtaposition of apparently
unrel.ared phenomena is the great passion of its uthor!
The embodiment of it or the case of the simprest "materialization,,
this attempt was probabry montage constructions like the "Jumpingof
Lions," where three independent positions were synthesized into
the
normal phases of a single process of movement (in otoberthe
examples
were even more "dashing,' in tlis respect!).

not yet been forn

ngs of Dungeons for a long time
with;ur success.
ntally found myself in one of the provinciai
cities

of

In connection with looking for materials for

a film about
which I had once thought of iraking.

Frunze,

if"":'ff::r:*11_-:::{il trre ity_ur".,_, orsanized on the basis

"ll"::r.:i:i:1.1"T:merchantilh;;;',i:i:i;
unexpectedr^v I saw ;;r*";;*
iii."n",, ln
::: :?:iil
."u,Tul
s]1 case - ald fiom the
By a prolonged dipromatic operation
"".i;;;";;;.
c*tan the herp of the rocar

department

of film distributionri

I *r- able to barrer two sheets of

IV. Nonindifferent

natu.re

348

Piranesi for a whole package of other engravings that I proposed to the

museum as an exchange. Both sheets have been framed and now hang in
my yellow corner room.
Satisfied with the favorable outcome of te ,.transaction,,, for long
hours I sit and admire the engravings.
But the "itch" for establishing interrelationships does not give me any

Tle music of landscape.

349

cognitive, would have been impossible, and. so wourd the effects

calculated earlier.*
Now, with the arrival of sound, the basic solution of such .'secondary,,
problems, which formerly were based on te changeof visuar
depictions,

completely passed over

into

the area

of

sound.

,peace.

Quiet "contemplation" without fait slips into "comparison.,,

And then suddenly and unexpectedly a "dynamic" tie is established
between both engravings, as has been shown above, historically
separated from each other by twenty years in the life of piranesi himself.
And we obviously see that the predisposition of a detective is absolutely of the sort to pttzzle out the secret of the one he is pursuing!
And that he tries to solve the puzzle of this other person "through
himself."
And again we recall the Chinese, who even on this occasion, as
always, have a charming story.
WHAT MAKES FIsu HRppy

chuang Tse and Hue Tse stood on a bridge across the river Hao. chuang Tse
said:

"Look how the fish dart about. This is the way they express their joy.,,
"You're not a fish," said Hue Tse, "how do you know what makes fish happy?"
"You, nol I," answered Chuang Tse, ,,how do you lsow that I don,t know what
makes them happy?"
"I, not you," asserted Hue Tse, "really don't know you. But I also know that
you're not a fish, and therefore you can't know a fish."
Chuang Tse answered:
"Let's return to the first question. You're asking me how I know what makes
fish happy? But you know that I know, and yet you're asking me this question.
But never mind, I know about this by the joy which the water gives me.',*

This support, as we have shown above, was, although often excessively "aestheticized," the ju ncture between pieces, that isl the element
lying
outside of the depiction.
With rhe rran

its

t:',iii::::#":,i:l:

monrase or
elements within
And the basic center of support is no ronger the element between
the
shots, the juncture, but the element within the shot, the accent
within the
piece, that is, the constuctive support of the actuar
structure of visuar
depiction.

However, let us return to the problems of montage.

we wrote above that in the montage of silent film the "rhhmicization" of separate passages at least in the large section, is achieved

mainly by editing.
Here editing established both the change of the precisely established
length of changing impressions, as well as the systems of rttytmic
pu,lsations that are actually fel permeating the pictorial passages.
At the same time, editing also carried out the necessary articulation of.
this uninterrupted flow of the pictures.
Without such an articulation, any perception, be it emotional or
* FromDeraleChinese lscuang-Tse.DeutscheAuswahlvonMartinBuber,fnsel-Verlag,
Leipzig, 1910.

d been made in this diection, but I think this must in general

ogy of staging musical dramas, and not only those of

agner

IV. Nonindifferentnature

the music of landscape.

350

351

certainly not only on jolts between pieces, like the blows of buffers
between train cars, and in music the stress is certainry not arways
on the
first quarter note!
The accent within a shot can arso be the changing right tonatity
and
the change of characters, the movement in the emtionat state of the

fftT'?l;li i,:: i:

t:.1]1ke coecutive variations and

disrocations or a,

llffi il::l",?l#",,'..','ff

demaded ttr

fl

,ff J:'s-.lii:'l:r':l'';i:
. at rehearsat of Mystery-Bouffe,

tlie.worOs:

...myavstraliitsv.
UnasvsUyto...*

should definitety be pronounced

with two accents:
...myavstrali_ts.

U nas vs

And the combination or conflict of the system of these accents, these

junctures "in a new quaritt'' on the vertical
- cannot be composed
accidentally or unskilltully.

U0.

W-ith this reservation

. (v ryL
let us rurn
turn to
t,
the acrual graphs of
combinations.

""ii:t"i:5"":i:tJ""or
Schema

the most obvious cases

and one exampre or

Sound

Picture

accompanying it.

In addition, it is quite conventional to take the four-beat measure wit}

a strong accent on the first quarter note, and the second. strongest on
the third, and for a passage of visual depiction the same accents- are

All articulations coincide

.yvu rr
in ruuarlon
location

The
2, The
3. The
I.

as
well as intensity.

usic.

This is an example of

..nonbricklaying.,,

ntinmusic'

Schema 2

power

is
disrrib
visual
It

unevenly accented articulation within the visual

not:

syncopated
t accents of
ast with an
depiction; and, of

the

l-E
trr

but:

l-l

(-1,

l-7
F r-r

IV. Nonindifferent

Datre

352

According to the main articulation, this is also not bricklaying; but the
principle of ligature is set forth as the strong and weak accents of the
music and picture already moving while interweaving.

(The weak against the strong, the strong against the weak)
Schema

3 Bricklaying
ababa

The music of landscape. . .

353

Classic "bricklaying."
case A is distinguished fom the preceding by rhe facr rhat rhe
montag juncture does not coincide with the accent within the piece, and
the inner ligature is maintained in the graph of weak accents opposite
strong (at-b, br-a).
case B is distinguished from A by the fact that the inner ligature in it
is weakened: strong opposite strong and weak opposite weak (b1_b,
a-ar)'
The merit of graph
the actual laying of
large articulations the
comp)ete symmetry
(which always carries
nality) - this occurs
because t}re montage j
e middle of the beat
(opposite the weak accent) as there.
Here the junctions fall opposite the unaccenred quarters.

Schema

Bricklaying

III

aba
Sound

Picture

a br

a bl

AB
This is a case of "bricklaying" Iaid bare: The ends of the musical beats
and the borders of the pictures do not coincide.
The secondary ligature in the case of A is maintained in the fact that
the weak stand opposite the strong, and vice versa (a-bt, b-at).
It is weakened by the fact that the juncture of montage coincides with
the strong accent a1, inside the picture itself.
In the case of B, the secondary ligature is established by the fact that
the Linear montage juncture appears on the weak accent b1.
It is weakened by the fact that the vertical audiovisual juncture is
constructed on the principle: the strong opposite the strong, the weak
opposite the weak (a-at, b-b|.
Schema

Bricklaying

II

Sound
Picture

Distinguished from the preceding graph by the fact that here the
fall on the unaccented elements of the music

accents of the picture now

(at-c, bt-c).

The innershot ligature is even smaller. But there is now a danger that
this ligature, if poorly understood, will generally be weakly felt or hardty
perceived at all.
The same thing occurs with large articulations, which with great risk
go from "bricklaying" to "the laying of pillars" (a montage juncture
of the
picture comes close to coinciding with the articulation of the music into

beats).
The next step

will be tle case when the accents of the picture no longer

fall between stressed accents, as here (a1 opposite q lying betvyeen a
and b), but between stressed and unstressed (between a and c or c and
). This kind of "Iigature" will almost not be understood and will be felt
like the accidental co-occurrence of the music and picture.

fV. Nonindifferent nature

331

Sound

Picture

Graph I - is a comprex, very strongly acting accent (the complete

oincidence of all individual acents); it is recorrmended to be used in
.very strongly accented positions (in the scene '14,t the coffin of

Anastasia" it applies especially to the episode when lvan hurls the

'candlestick; at the same time, the scene as a whole basically is
maintained by variations of graphs 4 and 5).
one must not forget, however, that the strongest positions are
" sometimes
more profitably built in a conta-accent (see above, in the
analysis of the general question about '.reverse decisions").
The coinciding of accents with the ends of pieces produces a scanning
effect - also sometimes in special cases a real, desired, and tt""".rur!
effect.

The too-frequent coinc

inevitably gives the feeli
especially if the musical
This produces a rather comic effect, and therefore

c and picture
le,s behavior,

it

movemen.

often is used in

funny.)
If one looks at the graph of the basic principle according to which
audiovisual combination occurs, then a curious thing is revealed:

NN
Just as in the actual "laying" of brick articulations, also in the mutual
play of accents - where the accent of one row tries to lie between two
accents of the second row - we essentially have the same rudiment of
opposition of oddleven: one brick gpposite wo, or one accent between

two!

Thus, having begun

about "nonindifferent
imperceptibly moved i
landscape grows and

andscape,

word, we
which the

The music of landscape. . .

355

stage-it is now a question of the 'visual

- on this new
music,, of whore
fragments
of the acdon complet in themsetves.
As we will see, both the theme and the problem
grew way beyond the
frame of the music o!
into probtems of re music of each
lanaScaye
ptastic construction of the shot ingur".",rno ro.rgi
o'a.nar and
visual, but also in terms of perfonnance!
"riv
we arso traced o.ow hidden prasticmusic grows
out of the depths of

the landscape into real music witrr trre

transition from silent film to
audiovisual cinema.
And we traced how the music and picture
merge in audiovisuar
counterpoint, and it seems that the music,
wrrile pe#ea*J,n" texture
of the randscape, seems to pour back
again into the plastic medium from
which it was formerly oveiheard, emeiged,
and was born.
However, as we have seen, an emotionat quality
can be sensed from
the plastic structure, and this is true not
only when we are concerned
with pure landscape and pure mood.
An "evenur" dramadc shot can engender
its own music through the
plastic narure of its composirion in
eiactty th" .;" ;;;. "'
For landscape, as we have shown, is
least
dr; ;;iarog of trees,
lakes, and mountain tot s.
"f
Landscape is a complex bearer of
the possibilities of a prastic
interpretation of emotion.
And if a tragic scene in its narrowly prastic
time a unique "tragic randscape" unaersiooa form is not at the same
emotionaty, then a major
portion of the effec of the scne will
disperse like smoke.
For not onry is a pure armost austict
- emotionar effect of mood
accessible to landscape
A strong dramatic effect is just as accessibre
to a no ress degree.
And there is even more to tlis.
Landscape can serve, as a concrete image
of the embodiment of whore
cosmic conceptions, whole philosophic
.yra"_r.
The numerous series of ctrines landscapes
of the tenth, ereventh,
ttuelfth centuries, and especiaty
the compositions painted for the
emperor (sung dvnasty, 960-772^uy
Huanjcn'tian ci-ij rno* u,
a piece of craggy mountains, a rten
ir"", .o-. other deta's, and., in
the middre of them turned three-quartel,
r.o- us, with his gaze directed
into the depths of the pictur", ir
t't e-nj"r" or a sage, standing,
sitting, or
resting, with his head leaning
on his-.,rru" urm.
If one mentarly traces the irection-oi
,rr. gaze of this figure of the
sage, then, while passinq.oler
rh" *g";;utlines or.r"g.iuti-i,
vaeys,
and mountain contours, this gaze
itr"ituury turns out to be directed
"nothing" - at the actualry *irr"
at
ixil.nd of rhe pi*ure, free of rhe
stigtr]1sf hint of objects r r their
aepictonsr
'r certain speciar cosmic calm wafts
from these pictures.
the somnorent smile of Buddha
Just as with
in .*p,"* or in figurative painting,
this

fV. Nonindiffeent natute

3S
landscape
to tlle ex
East desig

And this is not by accident,

atest

into
.,, . ..

The music of landscape.

357

George Sand writes something similar:

The example of the same mutual dissolution into each other, but with
the interpretation that nature enters into man and dissolves in him, is
given us by Maupassanr in the words of paul Bretin (Mont-orior):

has never been at one with the white man. Never.

ly never felt so bitter anywhere, as here in America,
its very beauty, seems a bit devitish and grinning,
cooper, however, glosses over this resistance, which in actuarity can never
quite be glossed over. He wants the landscape to be at one with him.
So he goes
away to Europe and sees it.as such. It is a sort of vision.
And, nevertheless, that unity will surely take place _ some day.

Dostoyevs has separate moments of similar illumination in the

unity of harmony, having described. them with the wod.s of Kirillov in
The Devils:
"...There are moments, no more than five or six, and you suddenry
feel the presence of eternal harmony, tota[y accessible. . .,"
"t".
.

See D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Litetatue, New yor

1923 [reprinted by
Penguin, 19771; chapter enritled "Fenimore coope/s Leatherstocking Novels.,,

we will not study the nature of this

extreme feeling and the

psychological predispositions for it in any more detail This is a separare

topic I studied a long time ago in a separate work.
Courbet was imprisoned in
],wlere
Vendome Column.

connection with the affair of the destruction of the

tV. Nonindifferent nanrre

358

Here the cited exampres are eno Lgh if onty because,

to a certain extent,
such a feering is not strange to any of us. Howeu"r,
,ro.r" of us tras begun
to make metaphysicar carculations and conclusions
from this. Moreover,
we especiauy experience this feering, not onry in
its earry ,.pantheistic,,
form but in its highest and
-ost pe.fect form - on the ,.r stages of
.'development.

.'.Jhis is what the feeling of merging with the colrective

merging
with class is tike; the experien"" oi indestructibte unityand
with
one,s
nation, with the best part of humanity as a whole.
'. we experience these great moments, and God knows how many times
ihis has happened during the last years of the trials of
our Homeland _ in
the moments of the greatest upheavals, when "human
fates, nationar
+fates" are decided by history.

This feeling strengthens

us in sorrow, it pours new strength into us in

years of misfortune, it makes us indestructibre
in days of bale, it causes

us to rejoice in moments of Victory.

And in these great moments, the

life, of

the music of landscape...

Is this not the sourc of the une

of the portrait of man and the

Terrible, atthough location and
but still so profoundly differen

this is the onry conceivabre form of

the

ina

of the

painted kimono that clothes a

r
Everywhere this was the emo
the human being, or more preci
Everywhere tle emotional lan

itself
of the

the actual principle of

inspiration of patos.

meeting the heroes of the world wa.

From the heights of these feerings we can arso furly
understand and
imagine this historical, evolutionry, precursory form
of the ecstatic
feeling of merging with nature

stages

e
e

in

rejoice,

on those

inting from the invisible coexistence

erience

harmony.

359

And is this not the source of the perfection

of this organic development
of musicar randscape into an imaie
oiat"
musical
nature of a human
portrait?

emotional

achieving
ledo.

on alr such stages ries the same imprint of patos it is all the
same
whether it be in a rebelriou" repre"entation of t]'e active removal

of
oppositions or in the ryric feeling of the passive dissolution
of opposites
into each other.
here at one "pore" stands the active pathosof the
spaniard. at the
_And
other - the East, immersed in the self-dissolution
of nirvana.
But in both there is basicarly the same psychorogical phenomenon
the apparent removal of the contradiction between nature and of
the
individual - from where the concept about the removar. of
contradictions
from any pair of opposites in general was born.
However, the forms are different.
Unrepeatable.
Unique.
History forms the pervading tendency.
The forms are the stage of developmnt of social formations.
And at every stage the artist propheiies about ttris witrr
tris-o*rr aongrr..
we have already written above concerning chinese painting that
landscape is largely a portrait, and very often se*_portrait
apptying to
oneself and dissolving the person in oneself.

mind that this principle of ,,self_

does not o".rr.
and is
".r"ry*here
scapes of Drer belong-

a brief characterization
ape in Drer from one of

Here the following idea is arso

interesting (in the light of further
deliberation):
i Wilhelm WaeEoldt,

Der u nd seine Zeit,phaidon_Verlag,

Vienna, 1935.

fV. Nonindifferent nature

o.

30

1l^r:-"^*
prarse.

of landscape was viewed as Dre/s

conceplsinthiscom_binarion."rrn::::::tJ.ff

The music of landscape.

::rA;"-:;.1#

relates to Drer,s sketches during his journey

,",^l1t-11cally
to the
r\eTnerlands,
tromwhere, properly speaking, tri reputation as
,
a
. "landscape artist,' begins.
The rack of any "subjectivity" in Der's laadscapes
strikes you

particularly when comparing them with van

Gogh's, especauy since,
" purely in terms of subject
ttrey re frequentry somewhat similar
-uit..,
roofs, little houses, prows of ships: for exampre,
tre sheds ad tree in
Drer's warercolor Ansich von KIchreut u"jl.
. "f ;; Gogh. .
But Waetzoldt is
wrong when he .o.rsid".,, Drer a pre_
_entirely
decessor of van Gogh on the basis of a sim'a
subject -uar". in both
painters! In his misguided conside
ships in the drawing o
In silhouette they are
Gogh's - but what is
objectivity of Drer's sketch and the flaming serf-dissorution
in van
Gogh's landscape, where a stroke or trace of a dab
coils rike the tortured
clump of snakes on Medusa's head.
That same ardent subjectivity, as if rearing up, twists
the stone pillars
of the crags resembring the contours of monks in the
armost delirious
landscapes of Goya, t which seem like a copy
of arother land.scape
miracle from under the brush of El Greco his
Moun tains of sinai
(r57r-6).
This is where one courd trury overturn the ord fomula
of
that says that "an is nature seen through a temperament,,+ naturarism
and say that
art is a "temperament bursting throug nature.,,
However, for an emodonar randscpe it makes no
difference from
which end one reads this formura, toi in the miracr.e
of a genuinely
emotional raadscape we have a total unity in ttre mutuai
interpenetration of nature and man wirh at the overflowing variety
;f ;i; tempera.

ment.

* Missing
in manuscript,
r The so-cated Lan dscape with
lwo rees and rhe Landscape with a warcrtar.
r "L'an c'est la natue

t.-pi"*"n? (Zol^).

3r

At reast this current of boiling rava acts in exactry

this way, erupting
bubbling volcano of the very sour of the g"ut rodoun.
I will not describe the effects of this picrure, t".*urirrg-i
*or-,.r,ui.,
avalanche crashing down on anyone 'who has
trre gret-tortune to
approach it in the halls of the New york
museum.
Let the confirmation of what has been said be
the vivid impression of
another viewer, anotrer epoch, anotrrer country,
other efforts, other
ideals - out of vaious authors I wil cite at
rand.om Hugo Kehrer from his
monograph on El
(1914):
Greco

In 114 when, in mv oginign, death arready was

extending its bony hands toward
him, El Greco painted Toled.o in a sto

before us those tragic theatical stages

illumination, and where he shuddeied

Judgment. Dakness envelops the lands

blind us, clouds tormented by stonns
of the mysterious unknown and of the

feel the inner laceration of El Greco, h

he forces us to experience with him this
he attracts us into the inner storm ofhis

;i'l"lilffi .,""""'r"Jlr:1

Wirh rhe infallibte precision of a sle

the lightning,
Everhing is I
ephemeralness
the image of its

flames, burning up what is. concrete; the crags

rose their sharp outrine and strict
form, no longer crumbling into stone, Uut tne],
acquire a velvety fluidity and seem
to be lit by a light from within.
Thus everything concrete dissolves, becoming
the grandiose embodiment of
the inner states of El Greco. while raising
this pice or ir.tu." io ul ii."..io., or
the metaphysicar idea of the essence of te
.rrriu..r", he at the same time testifies
to his complete rupture with reality. . . *

_J;"fl:*

- A typical exampre of this is one of the first independent and

thematicalry serf-contained. randscapes in art historythe fmous storm
over Toledo, which has already ben mentioned.

""

fro-m the

background painted very small. Hes and lndscaf""

*" pt""en"." wrhout
any connection berween them. The raad.scape
is put iimpty *t
L"." happens
to be free space next to the head that has already
"."
been ..*rr...'

vue aves

that in the last years of his life, Et Greco was

seized by
same cruel and, it would seem,
e gives birth to a frenzied artist,

Picasso!

'J'*'.i'"',J::.i;,'ft 1?.

* Dr. Hugo Kehrer,

Die Kunst des Greco, Schmidt, Munich,
1914, pp. g3_4,

fV. Nonindifferent nature

The music of landscape. .

Here

33

- in death, just as there in love - in the twinkling of one radiant

- solitude and isolation perish.

moment

But in this case the payment for this merging into one is not the
destruction of a self-seeking "solitary image" completely dissolving; in
this case life is the payment.
The horn pierces man.
Or: Shining steel pierces the animal.
There is no other way out.
The price - is to perish.
The reckoning - is blood.
thousands
in
rifice, that
ex
contraries.
Even if the price be rife, the barriers separating them into distinct
categories are torn down.
Figure 26. The Builby pablo picasso, 19J4.

We can see why the bullght is st

b

For true freedom grows out of another's sacrificial btood.

ti
fi
kidnapped Europa - and damn it, I undetstand
Europa,s
this black devil who trampres everything with his hoofsyielding to
- this is
simultaneousry
Picasso.

the image of both gr"t spurriards, El cr"Lo and pabro

They also both seem to be, not

rhe bull or the

in the same w

each other in
death, bull and man, instinct and craft: aimar natue
and the art of
man!
The merging in the unity of Man and Beast!
Through death.
Hegel calls rove the feering in which "isoration
undergoes negation,,,
and as a result "te singre image perishes, not
having the strength to be
preserved. . ."*
To perish there - to perish here.
.

Hegel, The Philosophy of Namre, Sotzekg, Moscow _

Leningrad, 1934, p. S13.

This unquenchable desire finds a temporary satisfaction in the pathos

of atworks and art forms.
However, the embodiment of the idear is smashed. on the rocks
of
historical prematurity.
And thus is born the tragedy of new contradictions between striving
and possibility.
The materialistic wing of Hegel's followers has given its energy to
the
creation of the actual possibilities of realizing this dream.

IV. Nonindifferent

nature

3&

The idealistic wing has given its energy to the glorification of its
strivings.
And the followers of the idealistic line of Heget,s teachings cannot
interpret the basic essence of trese strivings othei than through images
of metaphysics and. . .mysticism.
And they write about picasso in the same way.
Thus, for example, Fritz Burger* says:
...

' . . Here in Picasso we encounter forms of mysticism very direct\, which the arts
'had daed nor atrempt
unril now. For mysticism. . .is noi onty opposite to, but is
simply in its very essence alien to the system of logical division. it immerses
the
understanding into night and nonbeing. In the place ofa divided unity,
it raises
the chaos of night, in which the beauty of form perishes. . .In its
impatience with
" everything that is realized according to categories, here e general ies to
swallow all possible distinctions. And where a logical attempt isirected
towa-rd
differentiating everring so that each separate item a.qr.i.e, its
own inde_
pendent form, here the mystical striving achieves an absolute
merging and
devouring of oppositions. Mysticism is essentialy arien to the principle
of
opposition, contrast, negation. ..If you consider the most profound.
essence of
mysticism, then its position leads to quiet silence in the boundless
fullness
of religious experience. ..

For mysticism, tre unity of opposites, which is the sour of the

dialectic, is not in the active process of battle and mutual penetration,
as
the basis o etenal movement, but in their mutuar devuring of
each
other, that is, in the metaphysical ideal of the static immersement
in
eternal peace.
. . ' Picasso's images are, therefore, essentiany not capable
of being pretty or even
connected with features of individ.ual concreteness or with the
expression of any
inner spiritua potential. For the nature of mysticism consists of tis
ind.ifference
to the individual. The intellectual opposition of figure and
space, the organic

and

inorganic, are subjected here to the aftempt for complet esiangemenr,

and
before us we have the numbing chaos of crysab piled p o.r" opo.r",t

(pp. 124-S)

"

other.

There is no need for us to potemicize with Burger. what we have

already said speaks for itself.
And to what has been said above one shourd onry add one
consideration ofthe unavoidabe social tragedy ofpicasso,s position,
as
Max Raphael does r:
". . . The inner division of picasso was revealed as early as his .blue,
period; here it is partialry reveaLed trrrough tre strong -opposition
of
spatially limired figures (or groups) and an unlimited aci.i.o,rod. ..',
Picasso's passion for achieving unity forces him to fling himself from
+ Cezanne
1

The music of landscaPe.

365

extreme to extreme; from the "mystical" dissolution of one thing in

another to a dominating concreteness and objectivity:
". . .Now corporality merges with the background and is lost in it, and
this is a symbol of the metaphysical absolute, and then, on the contrary,
three-dimensional space dominates, and three-dimensional bodies symbolizing the material and earthly move into the foreground. . ." (p. 21)
In the most recent stage of his path of deve.opment these tendencies
are defined more sharply.
The method of mutual penetration of bodies and space by a mutua,
effect on each other through different dimensions or opposite directions

(upward-downward, foreground-background, right-left) is not sufficient to reproduce the actual concreteness of true reality. And Picasso
finally solves this problem for himself by a unique squaring of a circle.
"In addition to the most abstract (illusory) spatial interrelationships,
he applies real materials outside of art (wallpaper, pearls, wood, letters,
etc.). Here Picasso encounters the most decisive problem within any
ideology: the problem of idealism and materialism. However, the
paradox forcing idealism to sound so abstract and materialism to sound
so literal crnnot be looked on as a solution to the problem, but just the
opposite, it testifies to the complete impotence in finding such a
solution.. ."
Picasso's method does not achieve a unity of both areas - the abstract
and tle concrete - but emphasizes just the reverse - a factual division,
even more emphasized by a paradoxically forced approach of refined
"opposition."
"...Tfre increased emphasis of separate poles distinctly points to
Picasso's inner turmoil without elements of dialectical possibilities and,
on the other hand, the limitations of the boundaries of his idealism
clearly seen from the material point of view. Both these facts are very
closely connected and have a huge social significance. . ." (pp. 215-76)
It is interesting to note how this sign of bifurcation hovers over all of
Picasso's activity rght up to the present.
We know of his magnificent behavior during the revolution in Spain,
his noble position during the occupation of France.
Finally, we see him decisively joining Communism as a member of the
Party.

And yet the imprint of division is still apparent in him. We cited

Burger's words referring to 7923. Raphael wrote in 1933. And here is
testimony concerning the same thing relating to our own day.
In the April (1945) edition of the London joumal Cornhill Magazine,
there is a conversation between Picasso and the director of the Tate
Gallery, John Rothenstein, after Picasso visited him in Paris*:

und.Holder, Delphin-Verlag, Munich, 1923.

In his book poudon, Man, picass- Trois erudes sur Ia sociorogie

Excelsio, Paris, 1933.

d.e

r,art, Editions

* I am cting the Ameican magazine n'meof May 7, 1945 (No. 19). The article: "Picasso at
Home." Report of John Kewstub Rothenstein, director of the Tate Gallery, London.

IV. Nonindifferent nature

The music of landscape.

367

A simila inner torment passes through the images of his sculpture.

"...They are full of an inner conflict bursting out of them like

"Th.er9 is_just such a want of accord between

,conceded.
the two revolutionary

'.

forces,,, he
"But life isn't a very logical business, is it? As for
me, I have to act as I
feel, both as an artist and as a man...,,

i, ' This profound dissociation of

the revolutionary artist and the
'revolutionary man is very significant
here, arthough his revolutionary
decisiveness in both spheres evokes our armiration.

In another place, in connection with the production of Die wakre,

r
wrote about this bifurcation in wagner, embodied in
the tragic divided
figure of Wotan. . .
The particurar forms of the expression of Micherangero's inner
division within the prastic features or rris sculpture tras en
noted by
Ekhardt von Zydow*:

Die Entstehung der Barock-Kunsr rn Rom, Schroil, Wien, 1908, pp. 3S_.
l*-!i:gt,
' ulrculal movement, chancteristic of the so-called pairs

* In the book Die Kultu

1 See

der Dekadenz, Sibylen-Verlag, Berlin, 1922.

Romain Ro[and, Vie de Michel_r{age, Hachetter, paris,
1914.

an

irreconciled opposition."
A. Riegl* captures fairty wetl this complexity. He reveals in an analysis
of the structure of the figures ivigt and Day that a certain totational
movement lies at their bases,l a movement "that possesses that
uniqueness in which all elements participating in it are found in
movement without the whole moving; absolute peac the absolute
immobility of the parts. . . Figures as a whole are sitting, sleeping, but all
the separate members are totally put out of balance. . . "
The author sees this as the reason for the indistinct behavior of
Michelangelo's sculptural figures, an indistinctness that at times allows
directly opposite interpretations, beginning with Moses; the moment in
which he has been caught, in spite of the mountains of interpretation,
has remained insoluble even today: It is unknown at what mment he
appears before you - ready to jump in rage, simply staring excitedly, by
sheer force of will forcing himself to remain seated. And this is true right
up to the Madonna of the Medici chapel, with such a strong opposition
between te aesthetic assertiveness of the infant, who has g.uueo t is
mothefs breast, and the tragic despondency of the Madonna, a
despondency worthy "rather of the goddess of Death."
Besides tlis inner antithesis of both figures (here it is probably
appropriate, even thematically), here there is that same dynamically
rotary arrangement of basic planes of one section of the whole group that
again recalls Riegl's observation about the uniqueness of the movement
of Michelangelo's sculptural figures.
we find the latter particularly interesting, and this is why our v. serov
borrowed the scheme of this mutual dynamic play of planes from this
very sculptural group in 1904 for the compositional solution of the
problem of Maxim Gorkt's porait.
This has been cleverly proved by L. Dintses in the article ',v. serov,s
Portrait of M. Gor."r
He notes how, thanks to this, M. Gor's figure, originally conceived in
two plaes, "energetically developed in a spiral movement, destroying
the boundaries of the canvas and attracting the viewer to itself..."
Perhaps even here, in these planes of a section seen from extremely
different angles, one can catch cinematic features - a certain resemblance to the piling on of shots, this time taken not from above
of forces, is formed s a result of
the fact that two equal forces pulling in wo differeni directions are ptaceJ toward
the ends
of a balanced lever.
I see the preface to the second volume of the publication of the Academy of sciences, M.
Gorky. Materials and Research, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 193.

IV. Nonindifferent nature

38

downward, but in a strong conflict of setups, as if shooting running

figures from aLl sides.
However, returning to Michelangelo, it is interesting to note that a
similar "bifurcation" is embodied in literature in almost exactly the same
way. The living witness of this is the endless list of antitheses into which
any page of Victor Hugo's prose breaks up.
., Take any convenient place from The Ninety-thid yea. From any page
of it, beginning with the antithesis of Goven and Simerden,r2 an
l 'trnrestrained stream of an unreconciled series of oppositions rushes at
.you, hoping for an unattainable fusion in the pathos of the author, who
was not given the oppoftunity socially and historically to fuse them into
a unity.
i But the phenomenon of bifurcation is so powerful that the aging Hugo
was, in general, incapable of expressing himsetf outside the structure of
antithesis.
Paul Gsell, in a book of his conversations witlr Anatole France,
introduced an interesting recollection of France's about Hugo:
This was at the time when we founded parnasse. we often met at the publisher
Lemaitre - Coppe,127 Leconte de Lisle,128 Catulle Mendes,r2e and I and the
first number of our journal had to appear as soon as possible. we were looking
for what might attract tle attention of the universe to our newly born infant.
One of us, I no longer remember who, suggested asking Viclor Hugo for a
letter-preface. He was then in exile in Guernsey.
we grabbed the idea with great enthusiasm. Ad we immediately addessed a
letter to the famous exile,
Several days later we received an unusual epistle:
"Young people, I am - the past, you - the future. I only a leaf, you _ the forest.
I - nothing more than a candle, bul you are rhe Magi. I no more than a stream,
you - an ocean. I - no more than a molehill, you-the Atps. I am only. . .',etc., etc.
It continued in this manner for all of four pages and was signed with re name

ftgotrsic of landscape.

365

forms of harmony, they incand.esce

the striving inherent in the peopre
tc
harmonv in the actuar rearirv oitr,"i.

,o.iioi.,"nce

il:"ir#irar

and

However, their finar sociar varue

is
su''rmon such creations to an immersion
.determined. by whether they
in trre contempration of
possible harrrony and inactiv"
a.".irrg about it, or they summon
them
to "establishing," realry an actineiy,
aharmony of social justice where
there is a chaos of socat
The objective vartre of the"orrt.uiir.
n..t, oi"*se, strongry yierds to the second
lies li e a shado* o.r ,t L artistic p".i".tion-tt

,J:trJ"se,

ar the

first

This forces one to assign them rather

to creations of a rerigious type,
where there apparentrv is trr"t
.utn"-n;*;;;o"'"n,ruoicrions,
but even in the best cases they are
und.erstood only as a compromise,
.
and
irit,, thn in,n l. u or co., c."t"
."
o.,.,
iTr"a;,";ir,sp
"
"ffi " ". t" a
The sma' huma-value of a-Ir this
apparentry occurs because such

#r

an
imagined abstact spirirual f""u"s-i
harmony neither demands a
system of comprex psychologicar
exercise" ro, ,"li-.rr.sion
into
ecstasy nor comprex attributes
for achieving trr" en".ioi-ti,,opium
or
not even opium is necessary for
this _ nitrous oxide is
:ih:i:X.t:" Actually, the fictional and imaginary
liberat,on from contrad.ictions
can be achieved bv a- very simpl
mens-^This has been tested
and
described most recntly by William
Jamesr3o in his work:
' ' ' It is impossibre to convey an idea
of the torentiar chaacter of the
identification
of opposites as

*:r.f"T"::::'

ii st.eams
phrases

o.."gn

the

mind in this
.,r,I experience. I
lo;,;i;;^ili";
il o*i.",io,,,

which at the moment of

*"."ro.
evil, life
a"air,i
"r

V. Hugo.

tanscribing

The young writers doubted the authenticity of tlre letter.

They suspected a ick or a joke by the police censor, and made an inquiry of
Hugo's closest friend, Juliette Drouet, who was living at the time "at the feet of her
divinity." In her answer, the "poor woman" affirmed the authenticity of the letter.
. . . She was even surprised by our doubts since finally, she wrote, his genius
simply stands out from all four pages of his letter!*

white, quantirv and quariq, shiver

or ecstasv._and
""i.:lx"j,ig
and swa-'owins, inspiration and
extent and intent, ioke and ea-rnest,
r*"n,
"gi" comic, and fifty other contrasts
figure in these pages in the same

A more felicitous epoch, a more fortunate talent for the same talent in
more fel.icitous moments of their creation - when they rise higher than
just a reflection of their age to stages of prophetic foresight are able to
achieve an inner harmony through the organic wholeness of their works.
The social usefulness of such creations is that, while appearing as
* Les matines de Ia Villa Said: Propos d'Anatole France
recueillis par Paul Gsell, Grasser,

Paris,1921.

God and devil, good and

,rli.":i

opir-'r"t".;;, ffiloa
*ora.ro *uy._

In re varieties of R:rigious
topic in great d.etail:

Experience,i ames returns to

the same

' ' ' The keynote of it is invariabry a reconc'iation.

It is as if the opposites of the
wold' whose contadictoriness u"
.oJi..
make
alr ou difficurties and
troubles,
were merted into unity. Not onty
a-tney, as contrasted species,
belong

* From william
James, Th," y^il.-to Berieve and other
Essays in popurar phitosophy,
"' " "

f ",i"i:H'"i,,*i:k,'

iial'

370
to one and the same genus, but one

.,

'

art is divided in rwo by the

difference
urll,"r
'' one branch of it is the branch of abstract

in the aim that it sets for

d.ream, which merges with

religious dream and through this ,'opi.r'
ror
ttra'pffi, borders. on
, hashish, vodka, and nitrous oxide.
' The other, through powerful imac s of an
active dream about the re_
creation of the world,
sparkling pleiad of social thinkers
: - lrgm the utopians
scientific Marxism.
Howeve unusual
dual myrhotogical beings of antiq
;i*:
and man into the Centaur, bull an
India
or Egypt, man and elephant,
However, they most of all
iry.
For one face of theirs _ th
_
the
future, and the other face _ the preacher
ar
the
past, to what has been overcome,
experienced, to what has hopelessly
- and ro see the features oi tfr" imaginea gof"r, .g" of the
l."l"a
'

The mgsic of landscape. .

nt.
oach

history is again Tolstoy.

_of

ii jiJ"i"'$:l_3:,"i: r r".,i,,

But let us introduce on this occasion the fairry

detailed excerpt from
Korolenko's article, "Lev Nikoraevich rorstot', (tire
on the background of other works on roistoy ir nrrt "rti"t", 190g).
ill;;"ored than
others, but the nature of it comes very close
to *t.t *"-urJ concernd

with here:

n Confessions) that at this time he was

cross-roads, Tolstoy the atist extends

371

And now he this teacher, goes up the sandy hill and begins
-they to speak. He
speaks the simpre words of the evangerical teachings,
and
immediatery
instill his peace into the confused and thirsting sou.
This had taken prace. This means above a-riit courd
be imagined. And rhe
moving and clea imagination of the great artist was
at his service. He tjmself
stood ar the hill, imserf saw the teacher, and with
other Israelites of the first
century, he experienced the charm of th
this spiritua_l system, into whose sph
him, and unfolds it before the people.
Tolstoy, essentially the old Chstian
Gospel from under themost recent layer, as gord
from under slag. Tolstoy reads

tlle Gospel, ponders the original texts of ihe Vulgate,l3l

studies the ancient
Hebrew language. '.But this study is not the reseach
of an objective scholar,

ready to recognize the conclusions from the facts,

whatever tn"y *"f trr.n out to
be. This is the passionate attempt of an
artist to begin, no matter how, to restore

the spiritual sEucture of the ftst Chri

uncomplicated Christian faith which h

time, as the feeling of welfae

he was an Israelite of the fus

This is not difficult fo him:

power of reality. That is first. And se
service to his atistic mental outlook
Tolstoy the artist knows, feels,

and

His artistic world is the world of

Lazauses.r32 Here there ae also

tsars taking

ys.

virtuo

independent
deprived

not

is own

which was also of

bove.

agricultural Russia.

cultual system and its poor

and poor Ruths,r33 and unjust
peasant. But there is neilher

honseli"".ii::?i:x3,:r;

nor political demands, nor class wars, nor strikes.

..
This means that nothing of this is necessary
earth _
spiritual harmony. Love. is necessary. The good,
Ruth
to
collect eas of com in his cornfield. The wtow
. . .And
God arranged everything fo_. " bressing of both.
..Love is necessary, and not
Eade unions and suikes . . . Let everyone lve
each other. . . Is it not clear that then
heaven will settle on this perturbed earth. .
.
Tolstoy is a great altist, and To
path to a new life. It is not stange
to portray in concrete, visible forms the

preached. I think this app

does not require any new so
in retrospe

principles
structu-res

words of the great teacher of

life...

cottages, those same log

and tle same way of life

would love each otler.

uld offend orphans, the

{tz

I'he music of landscape.

authorities would not rob. cottages would be spacious and clean, the corn bins

Another branch of the thinking intellectuals of the nineteenth century

looked at these questions in another way.
For them the golden age was pictured not as a return to a past that has
vanished but as the energetic laying down of a road leading to its
realization in the future.
Shchedrin writes:
. . .In the forties Russian literature was divided into two c:rmps: the westerners
and the Slavophiles. At that time I had just left the school bench arrd, raised on
Belins's articles, naturally joined tle Westerners. But not the majority, who
were busy popularizing German philosophy, but that unl<nown circle which
instinctively stuck to France, not to the France of Louis Philippe,ls and
Guizot,r3s but to the France of Saint-Simou;r% Cabet,r37 Fourier,r3s Louis
Blanc,r3e and especially George Sand. A belief in humanity flowed to us from
here, from her shone the confidence tlat the golden age can be found not behjnd
'j-r' ;.
us, but ahead of us.r

it was not for his outmoded criticism that we disturbed the

great shadow of Tolstoy the preacher.
But in order to obsele, long before his "departure" from Yasnaya
Pol.yana, I how in an artistic image, through the magnificence of his
However,

* See V. G. Korolenko, Colleaed Works in 70 Volumes, Vol. 8, Goslitizda

Moscow, 1955,
pp. 105-07.
1
Shchedrin, Abroad,IV, in Collected firorks (Russian) Gos. Tzd. Khud. Lit. Moscow, 1gS0.
I [His country estate HM.]
-

373

ars the same tendency of a pred.estined d.eparture

wide and full, the cattle stong and well-fed, fathers wise and benevolent,

children good and obedient. There would be no factories or plants, universities or

high schools at all. There would be no'\rade unions," there woul.d be no politics,
there would be no sickness, there would be no doctors and, of course, there would
be no govemors, police chiefs, policemen, or "authority" in general.
It might be this way in tlte world if people \ anted to obey the Israelite of the
.' first century of our era who himself heard the words of the great teacher from the
hill in the midst of the sandy desert . . . He heard him so clearly, even if it was only
i a prophetic dream!
. I think I am not mistaken: in this image, which rolstoy re artjst presented to
, Tolstoy the thinker, and in the attempt of the thinker to develop in concrete form
the feeling of benevolent spiritual harmony wafted to him in a dream, after the
harmony attracted all the people to this dream - this is what composes both the
law and the vice of rolstoy the thinker and moralist. Here is the astonishing
+ strength, and here
is his no less astonishing weakness.
The strength is in the criticism of our system from the point of view of
christian principles recognized by this system. The weakness is in the inability
to find his bearings in the confusion of this system, from which he wishes to
show us the way out...*

sian Fields of ancient harmony, with its ideals of

nature and the unities of the living and existing

. . . He

spoke about Dostoyevksy unwilingry, with great

strain, somehow avoiding
the issue or somehow gettin the beneioi it.
acquainted with the teachings of Confucius or the
brought him peace. This is the mosr important

thing

. . . His foggy preaching of "not doing

anhing,,' ..non_opposition to evil,,_ the
preaching of pacifism, this is alt the unneatny
ferment i ord Russian bood,
poisoned by Mongolian fatalism...

such is the nature of the idear inspiring Torstoy's preaching,

an idear
remaining so far behind.
Ie and far from the quiet and humane
image of
(as India and China of antiquity knew
ir) is
Tolstoy revives itl

And meanwh'e - this fictirious and imagined harmony

is possibre
only in forms of self-annihiLation.
only through s annih'ation is serf-dissorution in narure
and a
return to a single, continuous unity with it possible.
Through self-annihilation.
Through death.

'[This is lacking in the final version of Eisenstein,s texr _ Ed.]

in rne niae',iii", s,o,es r. H. Dare, trans.,

i"t;:fi;Y:ji"'

crower,

IV. Nonindifferent nature

374

This is how a soritary being, once having reft the universe, is incruded
back into it:

the music of landscape.

375

birds
human
of the black well.
nibbled by

fle
call

over into

She

of lives into which she would be reborn.

You

..*

wilt inevitabry reca' Laeftes's tragicalty sick,

ryricar cry of pain

over Ophelia,s body:

. . .And from her fair and unpolluted

flesh
Mayviolets springl... CV, li

However, perhaps another

here that shows how the ext

"Human Renaissance" on the sa

Chinaman of earty centuries drew

Knvc: Now, Hamlet, where,s polonius?

Hr.: At supper.

Krnc: At supper?

Where?

Hn,1.: Not where he eats, but where

At the end of a week there lay beh

kull, and
two shoulder blades; all the rest had
zhik who
gathered up the bones
, Ldrrru
carried ul
off al
and put
them to use.
The dead body of sierpukhovskoi, who had been about in e world,
and had
eaten and drunk, was buried rong after. Neither his skin nor his flesh nor
his
bones were of any use,

There is an even more penetrating example. This same idea sounds

in another ending. By another writer. In the reconcilia-

even more tragic

he

A certain convocation of politic

emperor for diet. We fat all our
maggots. you fat king and your
but to one table. That,s the nd.
.

Hnn'I': A man may 'h with the worm that

hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish
that hath fed of that worn.
Ifiruc: What doest thou mean by this?
but to show vo"'ho* a kins mav
so a prosress throush the suts

:lii"#iins

(IV, 3)
Thus;we see how each stage of history,
through the creations of its
great rdpresentatives, was able to
nd its. own unrepeatable image of
ithe unity of nature and man! This
is
ent in aft of the idea of what can
only in the social re-creation of
reality.

tiili.rXt"itietv

To

lstov,

ica

ss

o, Maup

",r$ffi

as s an

r,

sh

ake s p eare,

rectification of the basic idea, lris

suing from ts understanding and
a.

eagh

il

his own way, to bring

the leading philosophical

;":f"Ttn:f".1ilYHarriet," in sot stoies or Guv De Maupassant, Book

IV. Nonindifrerent nature

376

conception of their ideas on paths toward the actual realization of these

basic universal aspirations for unity and harmony in the future.

The solution in the form of completed productions and in an orderly

system of aesthetic teachings of the reality of this principle of unity and
harmony must lie on the shoulders of our still young art of cinema.
For the first time in the course of history and the existence of
humanity, a social system began to be aead of the creators of artistic
works in the solution of these problems.
Here in our country the builders of real life outstripped the creators of
artistic values, and before the artists of our country and epoch stand.s an
unprecedented task - not to be above their time, not ahead of it, for
neither is impossible here - but to be on a level with and worthy of their
time, their epoch, their people.
our cinema, as the most progressive of the arts, has this great task
before it: to reveal in its works that profound unity and harmony, and
that profound worldview that our socialist era has brought to humanity.
we have seen how artists of different periods and. nations tried
through the artistic images of their creations to embody the philosophical conceptions of their time, fashioning out of tlle elements of a real
landscape the artistic image of a basic worLd outlook.
And involuntarily we recall the poet Novalis,lao who had written
earlier: "Any landscape is the ideal body for the expression of a definite
system of thought."*
The philosophical mind accomplishes the reverse, penetrating the real
landscape with its outlook.
It interprets images from it, which embody whole systems of philosophical conceptions of the world.
If he is a painter or photographer, he brings them to the canvas or the
film, having liberated them from anything obtrusive or incidental.
If he is a philosopher, then he leaves us those same exciting
"philosophical landscapes," as the young F. Engels does in his
descriptions.

quote:

On a stormy night, when clouds stream ghostlike past the moon, when dogs bay to

one another at a distance, gallop on snorting hoses over the endless heath and
leap with loose reins over the weathered granite blocks ard tlre burial mounds of
the Huns; in the distance the water of the moor glitters in the reflected moonlight,
will-o'-the-wisps flit over it, and the howling of the storm sounds eerily over the
wide expanse; the ground beneath you is unsafe, and you feel that you have
entered the realm of German folklore. Only after I became acquainted with the
'"Chaque paysage est un corps idal pour un genre particulier de l'esprit" (Novalis
Fragments).

The music of landscape.

377

North-German heathland rid I properly understand

the Grimm brothers,ral
Kinde- und Haus-Macen. It is edent fiom almosr
aI these tares that they had
their

origin here, where at nightfau the human er.ement

vanishes and the
terrifying, shapeless ceations of popular fantasy glide
over a desolate

land,
which is eerie even in the brightnesi o midaay.
Theyare a tangiurelmbodiment
is way in his
late expanse
tained from
pe in
those fairy tales. you will not overhear

tales on the Rhine or in Swabia,

lightning night, says Laubera2
-

whe

Hell.as had the good fortune o

consciousness in the religion of her
all her landscapes ale or, at least,
And yet every tree, every fountain

fairy
right

in

the foreground, and her s is far

too magnificen! for them to be content with
the raconic spirituarisation of
shelley'sras spirit of narure,* of an al-embracing pan.rs ^icf

autiruuy

shaped individuat feature lays claim to a particurar

god, each river wil have its
nymphs, each grove its dryads and so ase the
religon of e He'enes. other
regions were not so forrunate; they did not
serve any peopte as the basis of its
faith and had to await a poetic mind to c(
that slumbered in them. If you stand
Bingen, ald gaze over the vine_frag

word becomes nesh ad dweus

"':".i:T:i:iJ.if

i"r".,"r1i::

",o"',itt;Ttji:T":#'"'ii,i"?,:.f

Christianity, The direct opposite of this

nothing but dry stalks and modesr hea

dare not raise itself

shattered by lightni
sufficient magnifice
m the poor, crused earth lying below
it in
sackclotr and ashes, and the more does its ey,
the sun, toot aow-viith burning
anger on the bae barren sand there you h.u"
representation of the Jewish
-

world outlook.f
"
To continue with the religious chaacter of vaious
regions, the Dutch
landscapes ae essentially carvinist.las The
absorute prose of a distant view in
Holland, the impossibility of its spirituarization,
the gray s that is increed the
only one suitedto it, allthis produces the
decisions of the Dordrecht
the landscape, remind one

moved only by the breath of

*
[The words "spirit of nature" are in English in the
originar. In sheiley,s works, in
particular in eueen Mab, the-panthe-i;.
n"ir
'" symbol of pan appears,_HM.l
t
Tetesraph

fur

Deutschiana o. rzz, jily-g4.

fV. Nonindifferent nature

378

death." And in rhis barren orthodoxy, the Rhine, tike the frowing, living
spirit of
christianity, Ioses its fructifying power and becomes completely choked up with
sand. Such, seen from the Rhine, is the appearance of its Dutch banks;
other
parts of the country may be more beautiful, I do not know them.*

understand these pages of Engels very weil. And

it is probably

because at one time I experienced something similar just as poignantly.

Fate found it convenient that I immerse myself very deeply-- '\rith
my
-srroundings

whole head"

- in the study of the diarctic in

of . . .Central Mexico (1931).

the

I was astonished, why from books (part brought with me, part sent
me from my distant homeland) it was precisely here, in these circumstances, that I not only felt so clearly as something tiving but I would
say experienced the basic dynamics of its (dialectical) principle

beconting..

The music of landscape.

.

379

i:"Y::

y_"1?:.," rhe cown of rhis rriad.

It resounds in all its
fi;;* ,;*"
ts fibers
with :i^',i",tnad'
the highest form of
becoming.
becoming social
Hee the
has
stipped
"."_"r.::lad
and has settled
intg
l?T *qrn his horse and camet
he "oI".tirr".iui of life on earth.
or inoivii-r.T#;","
;to thousands or
Here the barriers
ii:?"rr".:1"".:, ,n" mark of race, ctass, or
rings with technical
pouring down its st
of its superindustry

;*^

.",f:i#jli:s

ew york shores, you feel

Just as strongly that the

I had long

searched for an answer, and when I found it, I understood.

the secret of the completely inimitable charm of Mexico at the same time

as the answer to this question.

There are three countries in the world at least in those parts of it in
which I have traveled - where you will experience this special feeling.
This s the Soviet Union, the United States, and Mexico.
If the prim immobility of the weil-established wafts from England. . . a

For long hours and

protective canopy of
the
greenish surface of
the
tops are in the morn
not grow out ofthe s

top hat on the head of an Eton boyrn ,. .the medieval guard

"Beefeaters"ras and present-day

of
"Bobbiei"r4e at the foot of the Tower of
London, the wig on the judge's head and a sack of woor under the
seat
of the Speaker in Parliament.
- then on the contrary, from France wafts the ephemeralness of the
continually changing, the inconstant, and the transitional: the unbelievable contours of the boulevards of paris floating in twitight, the
coquettish curves of the Louvre, as if waltzing among the castles on her
shores' the rococco volutes, like curls from under whose gold peeps gray
hair of threadbare curvesf the balls and musettes, the dancei, where at
the peak of a working day a young loafer runs to dance with his frivolous
girlfriend for three rounds of a waltz just as we ail push into the
whirlpool of quick-flowing life so that our biography would flash by even
more fleetingly. . .
The static is there.
Excessive immobility is here.
And only the soviet union, the united States, and Mexico each in
their own way make you feer as if in three different phases
and
experience the great principles of the dynamics of combtion
- of
forntation and becoming.
I fia-Man ancl F. Engels, collectecl works, Vol. II [International publishers, New yok,
1975, pp. 95-7. SME quores are out of sequence _ HMl.

boat passes under

the
rses over the smooth

faceted columns. Their

Juncture of

s ad

ea

crapers of Manhattan.

arthly
their
n and

.nrt'"ltl;,t:::;1"rate
of small angels, but
more like
Th_u tapering column
of the
'ioroacler
shoulders of

even srenderer

the

s rke cheerrur enema crysters

or

the first

p'lar to.soar upward from

the
and stand stiu in .r," in.""Ii*r,uunlv

ing elevators and staoo"-.r,lj":^:."::_'-.

taggering, turisting fire

es
them.
And from this poinr,
.
towers piercing

into the
nlrstf takes airplanes

IV. Nonindifferent nature

380

The music of landscape. . .

38r

And next to it is Mexico, into whose patriarchal depths the iron stain of
industry has not yet penetrated.
Mexico - still unawakened and drowsing with rhe childish dream of
its century plants and palms, sand, plains, bird sanctuaries, thickets,
bays, and mountain peaks, like the matriarch of the tropics and the stern
masculine force of the central plateau.
Mexico, where its favorite word is a lazy "maana" ("tomorrow"), while
its grandeur is recalled in the thousands ofyears behind or is foreseen in
the vague contours of the centuies ahead. .
Mexico, where everfthing breathes of primary and elementary becoming and at the same time - eternal.
It is as if the organic world looked just like this in the firsr days of
creation.
Is this because today's Indian sits cross-Iegged on the stone, exactly
as his stone image sits, carved out by his ancestor thousands of years
ago? Or because one's feet cann t help stepping on the sculptured stone
ruins of ancient cities and cultures along the thousands of kilometers of
shrubbery in Yucatan?
Perhaps it is because the primitive's hut is built today from the same
oval poles stuck into the ground with a light covering of straw,
as depicted in the codex of the pious Father Sahagun of the sixteenth century or in the undated antediluvian frescoes discovered by
.

excavations.
Or perhaps it is because of the interweaving of birth and death, which
you see at every step, because of a constant feeling of the cradle in each
sarcophagus, because of the view of a rose bush at the top of a crumbing

pyramid, or because of the half-effaced prophetic words above a

sculptured skull: "I was like you - and you will become like me."
Or perhaps this feeling is derived from "Day of the Dead" with its
decorous principle that a family, amid candles at the grave of the
deceased, participates in its sorrowful feast so that tle young people,
having become intoxicated, Iook after the continuity of the family and
tribe by the grave of their ancestors.
This is the constant mixture of life arrd death, appearance and
disappearance, dying and being born - at every step.
And little children on "Day of the Dead" stuff themselves with skulls
made of sugar, and chocolates in the form of little coffins, and they
amuse themselves with toys in the form.of skeletons.
And the most naTve childishness also gazes enthusiastically out of the
eyes of the full-grown bronzed Indian who even today, as once did
Guatamokh on the brazier of the Spanish aggressors, could bear without
flinching the torture and torments, saying: "And I am not lying on a bed
of roses" - in answer to t}te moan of the weaker. That same childishness
also shines in the landscape - in those moments at dawn or sunset, when

Figure 27. The General from Eisenstein's Que Viva Mextco.

the air is so transparent that it seems as if someone had stolen it, and
distant slopes reddish mountains hang with blinding distinctness in the
airless space between the ultramarine s and the violet shadow of its
own foothills - and suddenly you feel clearly that our eye cannot see, but
feels and senses objects just as a blind man does with his hands.
And, perhaps, the sensation of this Life-asserting growth and becoming comes from the thirst with which the vioent greenery in the
tropics swallows everfthing that falls in its path in its unrestrained thirst
for life - just a few days of inattention by the railroad guard is needed for
the Liana to intertwine among the rails and viaducts, pumphouses, and

IV. Nonindifferent nature

382

Epilogue

383

And eyes sufficiently open and a burning heart, so that the nature
around us sings, speaks, prophesies...
But'\nhere nature displays all its magnificence, where the idea that is
slumbering within it seems, if not to awaken, then to be dreaming a
golden dream, the man who can feer and say nothing except,Nature,
how
beautiful you are!' has no right to think himsetf superioro the ordinary
shallow, confused mass.',*
Apparently

it is here where the oncept of ,,nonindifferent

celebrates the highest point of its joy and triumph.

nature,,

Epilogue

A tall whire house rises amid the sands of the desert.

It is'trimmed with brue srabs an. surrounded by
luxuriant greenery.
This luxuriant greenery consists of several pt*s,
but mainly _
cactuses.

High cactuses and low cactuses, pigmy cactuses

and giant cactuses,
round cactuses ard cactuses reachinj upward
rike candelabra.
This is apparently the best conection of
in the world _ these
porcupines that seem to have run
"u.to"",
by mistake
from the arrimihngaom
into the plant kingdom!
I have never in my life seen such a variety of needles.
It is as if all the arsenars of the Europ"L lit"
Ages shared the tips
of their pikes with them.

le
-S
p

whose perverted fantasy pranted these freaks

back from the desert? !

a lancet,
into the
warming

in clumps of soil won

Who is that sadist who hourly feasts his eyes on this

crowd, of
Niunberg iron maidens twisted inide outt
This maiden' as we know, was a holrow read cupboard
crowned. with
a woman's head, and furnished with needles insie.
The doors of the cupboard crosed srowly by a clock mechanism
and millimeter after millimeter the shary thorns
penetrated into the
body of whomever the terribre maiden locked into hr read.en
embrace.
But this desert is not the Sahara.
It lies in California.
And it is densely popul4ted.
And it is certainly no sad.ist who lives there.

They are around us everywhere.

". . . Be artists," writes Jules Renard. "It is so simpre

know how to see...,'

you only have to

* F...Engers,-'wanderings_Through
Lombardy," coilected works, yor.
Publishers, New york, t9TS, p. t7S _ lM.l '' --

II

[International

rv. Norundiltrent nahrre

384

Epilogue
385

And rhe bloodthir-sty songs of Lautramontlsr or the pages of that very

deceased Marquisrs2 do not tickle his morbid. ear.
And this is not only because the howl of Maldoror or the cold cynicism
of the heroes of the "philosophy in a bedroom" do not reach him, because
he is simply deaf: But, if desired, they could be shouted to this stately old
man through a huge microphone dangling on his stomach.
,' But mainly because the needles of the cactuses here are not really
connected witlr sadism.
r Above all, they
serve an nner aim - compensation.
. In fact, the same person who planted
a bristling forest of needles for
, himself and his home turns out to be the same person who inflicted the
' most horrible blow in the history of humanity on the bristles growing on
the cheeks and chins of his fellow manl
+ Both the house and the cactuses actually belong to this man - King s.
Gillette - inventor of the safety blade, the "Gillette,, tazot.
of course, it is difficult to imagine that it is possible to suddenly meet
the man who bears the name that has become so common for this small
machine, which daily scrapes the chins of millions of men.
This person seems to be an abstraction or abstract concept, somewhat
like Icarus among contemporary pilots, Hephaestus among colleagues of

a crematorium, or Neptune jabbing his ident into the belly of a

submarine.

Gillette has had a place for a long time on olyrnpus next to Aristotle,
Copernicus, Madame Curie, or Luigi pirandello.rs3
And yet - he does not.
In 1930, the now-deceased legendary old man was just as alive as
another california rarity: the first child born of the pioneers in that same

to be made

wiil

go.

in

the opposite direction,

to you why the ,,Gillette,, razor

n.

le series of books under the general

I arso look on my firms as being "didactic"

to a certain efient; thar is,
immeia ui-,
o,,,ui,, J..cn
:,*::,:"ilt*."t
a
"r*uv" "
", ",,
and experiments are made so that _
in another
om another individual point of
view _ they could be
ly by all of us workinj o' the creation'"of
nt.r* i'
Therefore, I am not constrained
t
mentioned a hunded times. Esp
ments" had never been in conflic
simply separate from the content

land of California.
We saw that per old man in a red flannel shirt and with a long
beard, riding in a car to San Francisco, when he was going to look at
antiques associated with the "Gold Rush" of 1848.
The old man allowed himself to be photographed, to be sold
souvenirs, and to be shown tiny gold nuggets, hanging on a watch chain,
which had come from former mines on the land of the famous captain
rsa

e.

n the interest of those ,,didactic,,

rword to possible dangers resulting
once maked and chosen. .
.

of polyphonic montage,
S. Gillette _ to maintain

Sutter.

The old man Gillette

- himself

an inventor

nciples of montage can

gold nugget, and even the

chains in his home are gold, for, owning all his patents himself
(which is a great rarity), at that moment he was valued roughly at 0
million - had been fined for not paying taxes, apparently up to one
million dollars; and in the end was an ardent enthusiast of the "noble
experiment," as the foremost Americans referred to our Soviet Union in
those days.
But rhe old man King Gillette finds himself on the pages of this arricle,
not because of the cactuses and the black marble of the bathroom with
gold faucets and handles and the gold chain on which dangles an oblong

It is apropos here to mention first what

saint-sans wrote in relation
to wagner - one of the unaouui-pr"".urrors
and ancesrors of the
audiovisuar poryphony of contempo.ry
(true, under condions
-orr,"ge
so. imperfect an apparatus q
(neater was, even in
as the
rue thatr
Bayreut;.so
Saint_3ans

*.*-t*^*(qr

to the
and

inter-

JV. Nonndifrerent nature

38

weaving designs, the nuances of the play of sounds;

it forgets to Listen caref'lly
to what the actors are saying, ana losei from
view tfre ation.
The new system armost completery reduces to nought
trre at of singing and

boasts about

it. But, in this way, the main insrument, the single

,rrving

insuument, departs fom the rore of carrying the merody;

arr irrstea this role
falls to the instrumenrs manufactured. by our hand.s
as fate ana crumsy imitations of the human voice.
.' Isn't there something
wrong here?
Let us continue' rhe new

"',i"i:ffiff"-,i:ii"*:f;

,'
+

sensitivity, which is the result of the application

extremery tense and provokes

H*H;TI "li Hffx"

bounds of the aims that at must set for itself.

This music so excites the brain tl,at it is capabre
moving it off-barance.
I am not criticizing: I am simply stating tre facts. Theofocea
kills: But rhe sea and a hurricane do ttt lor" their grandeu o*.rr, thuder
ucause ot it.
But let us continue. of course, it is conuary to reason
to ta'sfer te drama to
the orchestra when its place is on the stage. But
one must satizs that, in this
case, it does not matter to me at alr. Genius has its
own co,,rmon sense, which is
by no means compulsory for common sense.
But I think that what has been said is enough to prove
that even this a_rt has its
flaws, as does everhing in the world, and trrat this
at is still not perfed and

Epilogue

387

one's basic task of drawing in the viewer, and going off completety into a
self-contemplation of the harmonic perfection of the composition of one's

own parts,

This is particularly dangerous under the conditions of contemporary

man's perceptions.
we are not able to be enthusiastic about the harmonic perfection of the
forms of ancient sculpture, as winkelmannls8 and his contemporaries

were.

We canno
the extremely smooth surface of
the nephrito
arts, as Gaston Masperorse or
]ean Franoi
we are more excited by the scribbled understatement of Mexican terra
cotta or the chaotic piling up of separate details of its decoration.
And the audiovisual polyphony must diligently avoid d.egrees of
fusion where all outlines composing its featues disappear completely,
totaly, and forevermore.
Moreover, what is even more dangerous is: te commensurate merging
of sound and visual depiction; that is, the phenomenon that we caII
"SYNAESTHETICS" is a typical feature of so-called sensuous primitive
thinking.

polished...[...]*

But besides these considerations, there is one more great

dager in
this method - this is the danger of te solipssm of audiouisuar
drama.
The proclivity to egocentrism rnd soripsism in those
who work in
synaestletics is quite well known.
The egocentism of Wagner is well known.
And Prekhanov made fun of this procrivity for soripsism
in scriabin.
Solipsism, as we know, puts yo
therefore, on meeting Scriabin in
the habit
Alexander
Here be

very fabric of the work.

The perfection of the fusion of parts amorg temselves
can easily slip
into a distinctive self-encrosing of things into themserves.

still no division yet into thought and feeling.

under "normal" conditions we experience this "original bliss,' of te
undivided and the non-disunited either in a state of intoxication (active)
or in a state of deam (passive).
In any case, in states of '\nritdrawaL" and ,,immersion.,,
And we know what it costs us just to enter into a condition that is the
result of a certain psychic set of circumstances, which inevitably
produces in us a psychological sensation of this set of circumstances.
And the result may be, in addition to "self-enclosure,', a certain
"dowsiness" of the general effect.

there is

They can shut off the canals through which creation daws
the
with knots they can plait antenna between themselves, which
trre
production directs into the thoughts and feerings
of the viewer.
Like a squirrer in a wheer, one can spin a work \nrithin
oneself,,, rosing
spectator to itself;

;o:1#tl"o:""t-sans,

Ponni etsouvenr societ

des Editions Arristiques, paris, 1900,

And fortrnately, the aud.itorium does not fall asleep.

IV. Nonindifferent nature

388

However, discretion and honesty force me not to ignore this danger,

and this is especially in the interests of the method. itself in the
interests of the fact that partial breakdowns in the practical application
of the method should not be in a state that woud discredit the method
and the forms of a new type of polyphonic montage, which, engendered
as early as Potemkin, achieves its final culmination in the audiovisual
construction of lvan the Terrible.
And one more thing.
The stylistic tendencies in my work, as in any of our work, are
certainly not maliciously far fetched or intentionally fantastic.
Our people and our time dictate to us what we should fiIm.
The nation and the time define how we look at life.
And both how we Look at things and
dictate the appearance and form in wh
The structure of a work, the principl
ment of methods are born totally out of
treatment of it.
This determines the vitatity of the theme.
This engenders the progressive changes in method.
And this inevitably nourishes the inspiration for creativitv and the
inevitable search for something new.

Postscript

when you delve very deeply into analysis, sometimes you begin to be
doubtful: Does anyone need this except me, and is all of this not
"analysis for the sake of analysis," like the notorious l,art pour l,art?
Is so much space necessary to explain landscape and. music, the
musical construction of emotional landscape, the special features of the
musical composition of landscape, etc.?
Does this not have merely a purely acad.emic and historical interest?
And does this have any relationship to what is now being d.one in film
and will be done in the very near future?
well! This is far from being analysis for the sake of analysis, and is
certainy not merely curiosity about what took place long ago; these are
very essential themes of the most recent cinematographyl
The technical mastery of color has barely begun, has yet to be realized
and the aesthetics of it have yet to be mastered, even to a modest degree.
And in the light of the "color catastrophes," as almost all color films
appear to be today, the theoretical work on the problem of the subject
matter of a film, its color and combination with music is very significant.
The definition of a "color catastrophe," as the definition of aesthetic
Iack of mastery in the application of color in film, unforrunately does
not only refer to those films where the color functions only as a recurrent

Postscript

389

Figure 28. Last page of the manuscript ,,Color

Cinema": lnes written
Eisenstein the day before his death.

by

sensation - such as le Thief

.of Baghd.adr'r and, Mowgtir2 as well as
The Bathing Beauty of MGM.I3
Other such examples, alas, wer
different intentions, which I saw b
work on the Chinese landscape for t
friend Disneyr65 (which I encoun
Columbia Pictures (lg%).I was pa
film - it was so bad in the unmusicality of its land.scape
and co10r.

Disney - is the brilriant master and unsurpassed

s";;r in the
creation of audiovisuar equivarents in music of the indejendent
move_
ment of lines and a graphic interpretation of the inner
flow of the music
(more often of the melody than of rhe rhyrhm!).
He is
when it
is a question of the structure of the comlcaily exaggerate
"rr.prisi.rg
the human characters, the maskrike figures of the comic -ou"-"rr, of
animals, but
this same Disney is amazingry brind whln it comes to randscipe
to rhe
musicality of landscape and at the same time, to the musicariry ot rolo,
and tone.
Already in tre earry works of Disney, in what I rhink
is the besr of his
series, silIy Symphonies,t'T I was disturbed by the total
stylisiic rupture
between the background., painted in such a weak, childis
manner, and
the brilliant perfection of the movement and drawing of the
moving
figures in the - foreground. . .
This is particurarly striking in a masterpiece of the moving
equivarent
of- music as the dance of the skeretons in b^n"" Macabre
or "irrt-s"e.r,

v. r\onrnotllerent

Dature

390

(7929), where the naturaristicarly shad.ed

dead background. is extremely
ugly.
In the Mickey Mouse seriesrs especiany the brack
and white ones it is somewhat better, for thee the randscape is mostry
sustained

linear-graphic manner with

concise brack wash' of

-parts in the

of

the

landscape and background, as was appried in the

drawing of ivtickey and
rMinnie.

.' In addition, one shourd bear in mind that Disney bears the
ful responsibility for the failure of the landscape (we*
are forced to chas-e
I fter effects of rear nature and on
our knees beg it for symphonic
'
elements of sunsets and sunrises, misty dawns,
or th trrreatening racing
of

cl

.and
tM

total

Postscript
391

was wrong, with its sharpry confined

rinea contour and the continuous
ouilining of colored areas.

In Disnels earier wgrk this type of drawing

corresponded. completely to Mickefs paradoxicat ch
that Disney, within the self_conta
subjected it to an iurmaterial free
one of the basic springs of the co
just the reverse.
Here the most important thing is lyricism.
With a propel resolution of te

he complete master of the atmosphere

at

artwith which

he works provide

ape elements wtrictr are actually deformed) to live and pulsate in the tone and emotions
of correspond_

ing action.
Here the rear flow and true formation of randscape
are possibre,
transitions from one element of landscape into aothr,
not onry as a
meaningless panoramic shot or as a tracking of the
camera back from the
crude, naturalistic dabs of background, as, ret us
say, n Bambi, where
this is very objectionable.
It is much more than this. tt is accompanied by a complete
rupture of
the stylistic manner between the flat drawing of convenonar
volume
in the figures and re false three dimensionaiity ofthe setting,
painted
with all the painstaking care of a bad oleographic print.
The cul'ture of the cinese landscape could add a great
d.ear here, for,
in spite of everhing, besides the effeLts of "seasons';*irrtu.,
spring) in
the landscapes' somewhere there is the pretense of conveying
:rn emotionally charged "atmosphere." However, in addition, w
forget that
only a definite "dematerialization" of the elements oi this rand.scape
could achieve this. Instead of trris, what is presented is
an oreographic
pain_ting of an emphaticalry concrcte envirnment
that, in contrast to
the chinese landscape where everything is done by nuance,
it does not
subject itself at aII to conveying mood.
Here in Bambi, where it was no lon
parodoxical, but of genu ine lyricism, o
the soft dissolution of forms in the
pass one into the other and repeat the change
of mood.s, and by this flow,
create genuinely plastic music.
ln Bambi I think the retention of the former mod.e of Disnet's
drawing
* [Refers to those filmmakers
not producing animated cartoons _ HM].

so upset me

here.*

is that this had apparently all been

filn Bambi.
between the drawing of a
, but the very way both have
follow very closely to what
'

to find a graphic and

its aims or a stylistic
ly spectacle.
I even in the
elements of
ight!

d to repeat the course

it would seem that it

or ten der r"o\iJ".o"tii l,l"t"',;,

a charming problem indeed.
frlm Chopin?

;::i:xi;il'l"Li,il::
" I know severar ofthese sketches from the reproductions
in
Disney,

An orwalt

Macmiuan,

a_good book: Durant Fierd, The

;;'y;;i; i"i'. ,rr_ru,
and especia'y p. lle.

IV. Nonindifferentnature

392

Postscript

393

I wrote about this in the newspaper

..

Kinogazeta

_ in l94O*:

The best works of our cameramen had long ago been potentially
in coor. Even

if it was still a "minor palette" of the grayish-white rante, in this best

examples
they never seem to be in "Ei-colo because of a poverty
of expreJve means.
They are so powerful in rerms of composiiio' uid .oro,
tt
to be
the intentional self-limitation
"t^ttand
"f1eem
Moskvin,
Kosmatov,
literally wishing on purpose
colors: white, gray,

and
blac and not with all the p
Thus, in limiting himself in a part of the rolanthe overrure,
Tchaikovs
speaks only with brass.
similarly, iri Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, in Act II of the

ballet,7'

suddenly, instead of the whole orchestra, onry a few mandolins

speak.
In the works of oul greatest cameramen, black, gray, and white
were not
perceived as e absence of color, but al lvays
as a definite color gamma, in which
(or in variations of which) not only the plastic wholeness of the picture,s
form was sustained but also the thematic unity ana movement
of the film as a
whole.
e

in potemkin It was composed of three

ofthe battleship, ofthe soft tonality

*"

iltrt;,:T'"1irtii"l;illl

seemed ro combine the risttwo-takins

nt"?
from the second: This element was theariaiion of the
sea,s surface shot totally
in this gray garnma.
The gray tone in the pctu_re sepalated into extremes.
Into the coror of brack. Into the doubre-beasted black jackets
of the
commandes ad into the black shots of the anxious
night.
And into tre color of white. Into the white tarpaurin in the
execution scene.
Into the white sails of the yawls rushing rowad the battreship.
rnt n. flight of
the white sailor caps at trre end, a flight that appeared
rike n exprosion of the
tarpaulin death shoud, blown to pieces by the high intensity
of^revorutionary
1905.

I continue to believe firmly that the problems of color will have to be

solved by our cinematography in particurar, which, beginning with the
period of sil.ent film, has tirelessly striven to be audiovisual col.or.

october is totalry sustai.ned in a velvety-brack tonarity.

with a black gleam
with which mon.ments, ra'ings, and roadi, wet with
rain, shine in nature, and
with which gold, gilding, artd bronze shine in a photograph
The old and the New had a white tone as tre reading
color. The white state
farm' clouds. The steams of milk. Flowers. Through
t-t" g."y motives or tne
beginning - destitution. Through the black motives
crime nd euii. ngai' ana
again everything connected with the theme of joy-and
the new forms of the
economy show rhrough as white. The white coror was
born in the most tense
scene in the picture: the scene of waiti rg for the
first drop r.oo, trr" ,"parato.
And, appearing on the screen with it, trre white coror carrid
the theme of joy to
the screen as shots of the state farm, as rivers of milk,
as herds of animals and
bids,

* "Not colored, but

colorful,,, Kinogazeta, No. 29, Vol.20, 1944.

vr!

ssru

394

In Batties potemkn, the red color of trre flag exproded

like fanfare, but it
was effeclive because, above all, it was not
ust coior, ,rt l*."pt.
And, in approaching the problems of color
in filrn, one must" think especiarty
about the significance of color.

The same
consistently t

night search,

'the whiteness

up faces.
while preserving all the merits of the silent firm in
trris area, Nevsgoes even
r
further in this resped. The foreign pr"r" hu"
been sEuck by the fact that in
,
not the aditionar utact ttrat denotes the virrain,
but the
blinding

ffiffi;r"

",1t

iil:J"*

achieves a rear iltusion

e of the Ice sometimes seems blue,

and

I remember shots of the funera of the

old man Bozhenka, golden shading into indigo,
and the shots at the beginning of
Ivan as blue-green,

decisive in an audiovisual combination.

texture of the ma

visualandaudial

Postscript
395

,i:i"i
the whi
light in
that it s
alcove,

This example is
apropo.
at the end of our work.
And not onry because
^p_articular
-19."
it gives'a snarkting
and brinding example of
how one shourd work out."r".
rrir,iir,
in those cass when it is
in the hads of an.a1is1 with
a ;"n; of"o.n
every kind of color richness
(ad from this point of_view
it *oa good idea to reca,
endtessty the novels of this
an. reread
master c
not
only becauser"" "..";i;;;
h;;;'i"orr"
^ T9 and
traditions
methods of rhe p;i*i";'
ethods of the gre
;sionists, who so

.If tre movement is rhhmic and the

the East. And in this

n organically into our

:i

achieved most di
nuances of color..."

of

ons of rea phenomena,

cannot but recall here, at the conclu

example of an audiovisual symphony,
monotone color but with a blin-diig vaiie
different materia|
This is one of the
charming examples of Zola,s .,symphonic,,
-mostthe
constructions taken from
scene "The white sare,, in'his nover
Women's Happiness:

ff::i,:i,i

They di

sung by te fabrics of
greater: This was the

whole
exhibition
cascade,

in the

apparenr chaos

of rabrics falrins u,"nrrtl

i:J"tTii

disemboweled shelves, there was a harmonic phrase:

Nuances of white followed.
and unrolled one after the otrer; they were bbm, grew,
and perfonned a whore

'

[Cameraman of pudovkin, diector of the classic film, Moter _

HM.]
p. 257 _ HM.]

[See FiIm Firm, op. cit.,

deveropmenr or the methods

o.Ji:.i?"T,ili"ri
re in this n""".lyl.! I
wilt never personalty
",

lass,' along with my other

teachl.,

It is interesrins .r,.,.rr"Tllofonro'
_or,,
9e

,,h. g..u,

Zola, esPeciallY seems

by

adition of ou silent

"Oh! How unusual!,,the women excl

the

same;

the other, conasted, s

real light. The white
muted white tones o
gamut linle by ttte bec

fftr'*,:#"T#pr.ij::??;:i,:rw*d\ana,,73whichhad

n:i,i',*"i:,*i:.T,;Ji'i:"Hl"":.,"11,"x?:f

high level

of

g the generally

Beast lTa In
sYmphony of

iiT.lit::,: Si*

s The Humanastonishing

e
in the rhhm,

rempo,

:f,:,i

IV. Nonindifferent nature

396

Several gray newsreel shots of arrivals and departures...several

inexpressive corners of train stations...two or three empty railway
platforms . . . perhaps they do answer the exhausted "slogan" of the
school of naturalism, as it is understood scholastically. But in these
films there is none of the range of fervor and trembling, passion and
lyricism from the pages of the great magician, sorcerer, ard, above all,
poet - Zola.
And here, probably, is the key to the secret of why it was among us, in
r the period of our most temperamental cinema, that the predecessor of
'.sound film has flourished so richly - the cinema of "nonindifferent
nature."
For - damn it! - "nonindifferent nature" is above all within ourselves:
i It is not the nature around us that is particularly nonindifferent, but our
own nature - the nature of man who approaches the world that he recreates, not with indifference, but with passion, actively and creatively.
And the temperamental re-creation of nature in a work is, as it werer an
image of that mighty re-creation of the world in which our great
generation participates.
For around us is not a world "seen through a temperament," but a
world created and re-created according to the commands of that creative
revolutionary temperament of our inimitable country and epoch.
And the nonindifference of our own human nature, participating in the
great historical act of the best parr of hr:manity - is the invincible
guarantee of the undying essence of the great arts, glorifying with every
means available to it the greatness of Man - the maker and the creator.

Notes

Poor Salieri

I ...1 flin
Eisenstein
offensive a
critics. . Bur
another, but
Izbran, Proiz
.

2 Quoted by

I.

to the Devil, a term used by lessing.

ng words of Lessing: ,'. . .It was always
eard anhing that tended to blame the
place to
Lessing,
01.

On the structue of things

7 Diderot deduces the compositional principles.. . in suounding nature, sME

has in mind the views of Diderot on the nature of music, set our by Diderot in
his book rhe Nephew of Rameau (Le Neveu de Rameau). SME deals wirh this
in some depth in Montage, Herbert Marshall, trans., in publication (selected
Works, Vol. II).
2 M. Sukhotin in a letter to veresayev, sukhotin Mikhail sergeyevich (1g501914), husband of the daughter of L. N. Tolsroy Tatiana; Veresayev (Smidovich)
Vinkenti Vikentyevich (1867 - 1945), Soviet Russian wrirer,
3 see v. V. Veresayev, Memoirs, in sobranye sochinenii, collected. works, \ror.
4, Izd. Pravda, Moscow, p. 433,
4 Drama on the Quarterdeck (literally "Drama at Tendre"). The mutiny on rhe
Battleship Potemkin begal on 14 June 1905 while it was docked in Tendrovsky
Bay (near Ochakova).
5 Plato, (427-347 s.c.).
G. E' Timerding, Professor at the Higher Technical school in Brunswick,
Germany, author of Ile Golden Section,
7 See V. v. stasov, The Exhibition of the Itinerants, selected works, Vot. 3,
Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1952, p. 59.
8 citation from V. Nikolski, The creative pocesses of v. L Surikov, Vsekokhudozhnik, Moscow, 1934, p, 68.
9 Awakum Penovich (1621-82), an archpriest, orator, and writer, author of the
classic work of ancient Russian literature zhitie lA hrel, founder of the old
Believers, a clerical movement that arose as a religious protest against the
397

Notes to pages 26-40

innovations

'

398

Notes to pages 40-61

patiarch- Nikon
and grew
social
oppression. fne suUjggi-of the painting
f V.
fate
of
F, P. Morozova (?_1672), a famous
m
and
rncarcerated in jail by the tsar.
"Uir,r,o
70 Frdrick Lemate, pseudonym for Antoine
Louis prospero Lemalte (rg00_
7)' French actor, representative of te romantic
theater, initiator of critical
realism on the French stage. isenstein
dedicated to Lemate much of the
,,The
secrion entitled
Lion in Old Age,, (see
II).
t;::;:eship Potemkin, Herbert-M.tt.rr,Chapter
ea., euon Books, New york, 1e78,

ll
,po
13

.12

composed music specially for

rvtslon.

(1925) produced by UFA Fitm

te accompaniment of

filmed to
uss.

.i#; i::; ;:';:#,fT:

8 Andrea Mantegna (1431-1s0), Italian painter and engraver. In rhis

case
Eisenstein has in mind his painting The Dead cnst
e4e7, Garery Brera,
Milan), also known as Te Foreshortened Christ.
9 Jupiter, once kidnapping Europa..., the Greek mh.
10 Moses..., Exodus.

!7

GoLden ca,lf, Exodus 32.

i#

s to a procession during a Muslim religious ceremony

the Caliph Ali-Hosain, killed in a battle at Kerbela

simulating the funeral of Hosain, accompanied by

15 Kasimir severinovich, Marevich (1g7g-1935),

Russian artist, founder of the
suprematist movement in modern painting.
16 A curtain wastotn open. . .on Officer
Stree
ra_
spectacle Victory over the Sun performed
in
of
(lext by A. Kruchenykh,-music Ufivt.
---' ----vv vr ''.
!r_rt11ists
by
M. Malevich).
17 A srap in the face of pubric taste, the title
of an anthology and declaation of
Russian fururists (1912) that declared t"t
*itt
their art their"* .n"uenge ro
the generally accepted and, according
"
to them, petty bourgeois taste.
78 comdie Franaise, the oldest thater
in
France, ,'nJ Hous-of Moliere,,,
founded in paris

in

19 Matthew 27: SL.

U.

399

of

1S0.

Pathos
gend the very cup
|esus Christ used
the blood of Christ was presewed.
poetic works including the operas
of

sh vessel for?

mmunists blaze before the shimmer_

r!"

h witer and critic. He wrote Ie

S. Brasiltach (1935; published in

oet. Author of Toit and Days.

20
alter
2l

er in which the clergy and the congregation take part

of supplications and fixed respon-sesi
ative image of a French militaist of the period of rhe

Notes to pages

6l-79

4100

second Empire' He was the main character of a whole cycre

of graphic and
sculptural caricatures by Honor Daumrer.
22 Rigalbouc, a French singer and cancer ofthe period ofthe second
Empire
and author of. The Memoirs of Rigatbouch, 1g0.
23 The bothers vasil'ev, pseud.onym of the soviet film directors
G. N. vasilev
.'

Notes to pages 7g-96

401
engraver, representative

of

the

ness, and mischievous humor

e Battle of Carnival with Lent,
mish painter whose works are permeat_
ed perception of the world.
), English poet.
sh philosopher.
ht of the Gods), the last opera of
Richad

' Axe, 793I;

My Friend, 1932;

and,

After

espearian productions

of Romeo and Juliet and The Taming

25 Grigory Vasilyevich Alexand.rov
03_ ), Soviet film
'r director, People's
Artist of the USSR. He began his activity under the direction
of
s. M. Eisenstein in the proretcult theater. Frm r92s to rc3
he participated in the
production of Eisenstein's fir.ms. He i; the producer
of the musicar comedies
cheerful Felrows, circ-us, vorga-volga, spring,., Russian
souvenir, and also the

film Te Composer Gr-inka, etc.

26 Maxim Maximovich stauk (1g00- ), soviet actor and theater
director,
People's Artist of rhe ussR. A friend since childhood
of s. M. Eisenstein,s,
shtraukh began his creative path with him in the First workers,
Theater of the
Proletcult. In 192s-8 he became part of the '.Iron Five,, assistants
of Eisenstein.
(see Herbert Marshalls Battleship potemkin,
Avon Books, New york, 197g,
p. 13.) The image of V. I. Lenin was created by the actor
on tl,e stage of the
Moscow Theater of the Revorution (the production of rruth,
1937) and in film
(Man with a Gun, r93B; yakov srerd.rov, 1940; They
call Him such-nator, 1942;

Tales about Lenin, I9S7).

27 Eduard Manet (r832-g3), French painter, one of the founders
of impressionism. Eisensrein has in mind here his picture The Bar of the
Foilies-Berger (1gg1)
and The Beerseller (1828).
28 Ragtime, rhhm characterized by strong syncopation in the merody
with a
regularly accented accompaniment.
29 Sequence (music), the sequential
and poly_
phonic musica structures in an ascen :
Eisenstein
uses this term figuratively for signifying
director to
develop an episode or sceDe in a film. Besides the scene from ,.Meeting
the
squadron" discussed. above, one may take as an example the wel-known ,,suite
potemkin
of the Mist" in
anaed. by Eisenstein later, n the chapter ,'Nonindif_
ferent Nature."
3o rabernacre, a portabre sanctuary of the ancient Hebrews that accompanied
rhem, according to Biblical legend., d.uring their wandering
after the .,exodus,,

from Egypt.
31 Franois RabeLais (1494-1s53), French writer and. humanist. In
the novel
Gargantua and Pantagruel (rs32-a), d.irected against the ord
feudal world and
the scholastics of the medieval church, Rabelais with briniant
hypirbolization
praised the joy of earthly life and human flesh.
32 Peter Breughel, the Elder, nicknamed the peasant (bom betrreen
rs2s and

sicologist, author of the books Scriabin

, and a series of anicles.
), people,s artisr of the USSR, main
r of the USSR.
John.

Biblical legend the ancient palestinian

because of sins.
American poet.

n psychologist and journalist, autho

Y.

poet known for his collection

of

book t4lalr Whitman (1937), to

n of Masters.

aI myrhology.

ljk;1#$1"l:i:*r::ilr
the margins of the manus cript,
the
houldn,t we here talk about montage
lly, was born in films of purely poetc

Notes to pages

-g7

402

Notes to pages

49 Stefan Zweig (lggl

97_ll0
4103

(1911), Amos (t922),

an
biographies. Eisenstein

'

Immoral Memories: Au
tra-ns., Houghton_Mifflin,
Boston, 19gS).
50 Gusrav IWahIe (lg0_19ffi
A;;""

elist, and critic.

st.

born a
led the

composer and conductor.

;;;;;
Bi:n;i*:,:ffi:.Ti,
"r,
evoted
i;;;"
ni.,.u'p,u,*io; : ;;;,
""stein
, ;,'i::i':i #,iHi;:ii:'
or pathos,,
53 yuri
2! !::y'Joseph r (1830_1etj;
.,s2 Nichoa s *e'ooi
L* k* a

of the

eorge Cukor director.

'

e Fran_
Figarc.

Nikorayevich rynyanov(1gg4-1g43),
soviet writer, literary critic,
translator, author oristal-ritery
and
iu."n
novers .t;i. s. pushkin,
A. S. Griboyedov, V.
"n
K"kh;i;1".,'i"o
.
- others. The story The Waxen
,Personage was written .K.
by him i" fp3i.'
54 Henry Wadsworth i""st"ur*'iioz_82),
American poet. Author of the
widely known A Song of Hiawatha
fAS1.
Altan Poe (180s-+sl, A-i-"r"rit".,
creator of the so-ca,ed

nll.ion"t

ad dramatist, author
of

the Camelias.

thr'rer

56 What scope for ,reqalninq the

city,. a rephrasing of a citation
from the
or st' paur "Resainins ti" citv
itn ruture.,the cig

ih;

:ii"

ftagments

of claudius's

"rtl*n;
58 David Belasco (lg59_1931),
oll",Tt"""n

sadou

cr aer

speec

"";;s

or

given above(see ,.on the sucne

23-Zg), ancient

aj-i.#

aru.outi"t,

otr,i^*.ry -"ro-

0 Ambrose Bierce (1g41

-rgr4), American write continuing trre tadition of
Edgar Alran poe' master of
short
aphorisms The Deuil,s Oicdonary.
",ory
' 't ritt"rs." Famous for his book of
1 Arexandre Dumas(-pt

French wter and dramasr,

popular novets: ,n"
aurror of
-oao;,,-70),
-rui.ir,
an The Count or Monte Cristo.
?r::.wus*eteei'(t-B-)
2 Flix prar (rgto-gg), rrenctr
a,,d poriticar acrivist. wrote
melodramas protesting against
tyran.ry
paisian nsiic*er,..rt-ri"e;
9 wirh the poor. His best
"ny-pathizi
success in tr," reuoiuiionary
aays
3 Guirbert de pixecout (1773-rs4),
French_danatist. writer of pseudoromantic melodramas. Known as
tt e ,,no"ius'of tne Boulevad.s.,,
64 Edmund Kean, centra character
i" ,t play by
" hero
n Caesar de Bazan,
ther fean, hero of the m
cter

:l"r;i:'"

j!

convict in a merodra*1 o'

Anth,pr,
Lematre himserf wrote a comedy

s"ir,,,ilol,,,, ."0

"J":'#,lJ

j:;.j,,",:

!isirrri*i

around the same chaacter in

which the
specularor and murderel^ueom3s
r*g;;""cier.
Honor Daumier created a
cycle of grav'res dedicated to
Robert M;il (183-g and 1g40-41).

Rr

ancient creet< paill leacher and writer.

cent Greek mFhology,
subject of the tragedy

American dramatist and directo.

by

ncient Greek mhology,

subject of the famous
ptay
-f-

nt

*i"
", Annr^8r
nr.,

Rome.

o is

in

,-,

r,lo-",bJ

1l"s!lnns,"

Eisenstein

;'ii^l*:,,r,.*rvrakov,'',-ii'F:ii;i'"","fr'ilffi

iil

#ii"*il*i,ld-rwaikov(182,-'#i,I",i,H:,x:ti;ii*;,.:n:i,:;
,g,,Afr***:lr:::i,'".,."_Junl",ji..n"*o. Roman philosopher,

ff"::xur."rR*i"-{ixTiiff:;i::;",,;, ptecursor of
;ii",*i.1"i:"*:;,"i#":i.:;i:::
,iil:*f
tne Jew of Malta,
j
^!:_".",_"'Jl;i,:ji"
clz
rcszt,
Ensish dramatist,
*i:: : :: "'. ;i i;i;37)'.
t:y","-t
author of the comedies
:omedie

Shake-

86
i';:H::m.l*:i:.r-z_Ensrish
Everyman n ni" i,^'^i?ti tngush
g
,
an
n
u
Th
,

e](t
ext
xt

:lo

*i ,,r'r.'t:::'1" 'e

dramatist, aurhor
author or
or rh
...Th^
ttt,t,
^,,.^.__^

1910.
1910

you
know'
vou know,
You

me as ir

a, and in

Devil
Devil.
uevil

--c
;;;

d." tn
d.,,rn
r ru; rrom
ostrovs's
Ostrovs's
vruuvsr<Y s play
--"
plav
PIal
.":'i:11i^nom

.^i, i,",il-"I-!av

such a bright pilar

'"4:l*lii;'i;"X1i":*"iliiii
..-nt.'-:"#:,:,i:::"::iJ""iliJ."jil:,:';tfi3:Ji
thepaintins"o""".o"i",;i!"::Jif
tr,tr,'::m::iliti*.l"""r:qihq:i,,rtTffi
;ff:1i,,3:":

"";

Notes to pages

lll-3

404

Notes to pages 1g_S2

89 Maurice Barres (7862-1923), French wter,

author of t,'e book El Geco ou
le Secet de Toldes, (IgI2).
90 Ifus picturcexists jn fourvariants
n canvases of rhe
Exputsioi of the Moneylenders vn

severat copies from^his ,trrio.

lt mav

the program of
(1881-19S3) and
Cubism, Unwin, fi
'Wo _ you!,, In his
monumental ainr
.107.
desucrion ortne city
#i::'il
v
l.l_ul"tt
uuefDtca
qurrng

d in 10-10 (preserved in the

the Fifth Sead see note gg; Ie
art) of the El Greco painting Ie
d exciting Storm over Toledo. In a section

e of

'

,4t
is a.lso
10g

the

"pathetication,, of landscape in the

93 Andrea del Sarto (14{l_1531),
e, representative of the Florentine school.'
94 .. 'contnst the Renaissance and Baroque.Eisenstein
has in mind the book
by the German art critic Henrich wlflin
ilao+-tg+s> rn" n"""rnce

(This st

mechanicauy the

95 Donato Bratnante (r44-r5L4), Italian

achitect of the Renaissance,
designer of the Milan cathedral and oihers.
In 1504 bega., ,o **t o' a project for

St. Peter,s Cathedral, Rome.

ra

te

_7779), Italian engraver and

achitect.
ravings, tlle themes of which are ancient

d;;;;

luelnica Pcasso reflected the

by the
German and
ltalian

r"r.iri,

ensemble...Is tatsa
me dance, that

aesthetic
expression, bur in
lo9 Tianon,aoar
|-oo1co style.
ll0 Gopuramg tlre great gateways
general

and the

Baroque.

can do anything,

uoi-in"r'^'"""

^.r,
Czanne
expresse

li"::r1:

greatest variations from each other,

40s

sphere, cone, cylinder: n r,^+ r^_one must tearn to

draw these simpre f.
utu to il";:;ir,.
rorms' you

of realistic

3,,::fli:;iffj?:
nstein seeks for the

snaping i

notel
". in
ptures
the

of Indian

richly

i"o*,

ornamenre

wi

etc., and

97 Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (

signer, art historian, head of the World
Eisenstein quotes from his History of
98 This chapter does not have a title.

author or

"u,l;''r,iv,f,,"n
"nou' c""-"i J,''r,.:;

;:T' {:;:;-t#::lJo;,\y),.r:p!ish
--v uquuer
ravlor Coleridge
i'| Coleridge
iii
<tZZZ_tA
wu" u oo

poe,

rhe-in';;;;fi :";".ii1?;"T?""::*:i.,",n'J#;
Q11jt'"m,

! lt6

engravet and theater anist.

e
h

I engraving.

an theoreti_

rtaty,

o.

*J
;;
--'* ;H
-Hq'qr

cated relisious movement

.ff"::J:::3,ff:Ht
s who was eventua

engraver and draughtsman.

h engraver and draughtsman.

ch engraver and draughtsman, whose

29), Capriccio (1617_23) The Disastes

s ,,The Temptation of St Anrhony,, relate

105

the stair case, hurled from one world to another

. . . the Biblicat tegend of
Jacob's dream, see Genesjs.
106 lVext - the young- picasso, Gleizes,
Meinger- The French anist paul
czanne (1839- r90) decared: 'iEverytning
in narure is designed in the form of a
..

th

are arso risures or

"l-''^1":o-'es,
-y!i"d Ei;;;'""ii:"".,''r'i:"
1810_91),
famo
circus entreprene ur,
;;i:$merican
.oTl'i.u
^.
^- cities of yucat
" ancrent
ncv
(7785-tit ;;:an' rounded in 8e7-1Q07.
writer,

,fr"u"r

Juan de Ia Cruse (1.542_9r),

a
:static and posthumously
relegated
(13g2_1455), Italian

.)

of Buddha.

"

*: New that w s rntended to

?!oagriculture.
show
i ln
lsee my
]

other two

book

aftisr of

tirm

The

rhe

old

munist pany
a, Routledg

Notes ro pages 152-61

406

Kegan Paur, Bos10n, 1gg3; and Immoral

Memories, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston,

122 Peter Andreyevich pavrenko (1g99r95r), Russian soviet witer and scriptwriter. Together with Eisenstein wrote the
script of Jexa nder Nevsky(1g3g).
tsee
Mastes of Soviet Cinema, op. cit. p. 4e, 216_lZ _
HM.l
123 Eisenstein is working here with data from the
American press

Hemingway

that he had at
predicted by K. E. Tsiolkovs was
f Soviet and Westem astonautics.
rican author, representative of modern_
The Autobiography of AJice Ioklas, and
n the formation of the style of the young

125 Later in the manuscript, Eisenstern says: ..At

another point we will briefly
on the technique of patrros in which the famous pu".ug"
of the .bird_rroika,
of Dead,SouJs was constructed in te
governot thumbs his nose at himself in
pathos does not turn out to be among
(The Central State Archives of Literatu
has been presewed, precisely pointi
research on patos, of two unfinished
10 June, 1947, "Gogol and pathos.,,
',8
A Gogol "Bird-troika.,,
i Chichikov in the roika.
ii The troika in general.
iii Only a smart people could invent it.
iv "Aren't you too, Rus, a smart unsurpassabre oika. . .,, (formula
of the
atomic bomb)

* tT:h

Not"" to pages 16l_7

407

o:f"i

iilill1f".fiffii;i
and cl.oiste!

n,nn",.ne wars

society
f.ull
. the deeds created orrhe
by you

rhar

under the

wrjter, atti
Cocteau,s

Vol. II.
uscript Eisenstein m
see

..his (G
Pais: stru
unarchitec

the quote. At Tsgali

of Gogol has been

stores, the ugliness

of b

l0 June,

1947. Kislovodsk.
Gogol. The formula of whitman-chichikov and
the register of dead peasants
cvol' I, chap. VIf' Right after and as a consequence of rhe covetous
Knight
(Tsgali, f. 1923, op. l, #1014).
126 Infeno and purgatorio, the names
of Dante's Divine Comedy. Eisenstein
Souls. The Russian literary scholar D. N

this conception, wrote that the

great
everything that was bad and darK'in th
the good inclinations hidden in it, and finally, to
show Rus the way to rebirth, to a
better future...The story about the advenrures of pavel
Ivanovich Chichikov
turned into a poetic contemplation of Rus "from a nice
distance,, into a mournful

narration abo
ck of light"'
finally, into a
"Purgatory"
(Part 2), and
The Diuine
comedy of Dante, which_ Gogol never stopped rereading
in ltary, where he also
worked on Dead sours (D. N. ovsianiko-Kulikovs,
cortected works,

Gogol,
I27

orator.
Barone

Vol.

1.

p.32-3).
g), Russian lawyer and judicial
Superior Mitrofanya, formerly the
machinations to great speculators

o had a

^lT:to:

great

c principles of
tution of a flat
to connect the house
principles, Wght
open terraces and
ts ,,synthesis,, with

artist, In t922 hecreared

of a co,ossa,

,,,J::::::i:.-

ProPe,,ed
can fly vertically.
n unison, the performance
y a male choir singing

Notes to pages 167-83

408

in unison Catholic religious works created during the late sixth and ear\ seventh
centuries with the participation of Pope Gregory I.
13 George Gershwin (1898-f 937), American composer, setting the principle of

'

so-called symphonic jazz. He used the melodies and rhythms of Negro folk music
in his work.
137 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-18O), German idealist philosopher.

138 Albert Einstein (1879-1955), one of the most important physicists and
theoeticians of the twentieth century, discovered one of the fundamental Iaws
bf .ruto." - the relationship between mass and energy. The formula of this law
: . (E = mcz) ptayed a huge role in the development of nuclear physics.
' 139 Introspection, self-observation, direct observation of states of conscious' ness of those experiencing them.
'L4O Theurgiq one of the varieties of so-called mystical knowledge presupposing
an entrance into a union with gods and spirits. The concept of theurgy was
widespread in symbolist literatue at the beginning of the twentieth century.
741 Manesa, a city in Northeastern Spain. The Dominican monastery where in
the 120s Ignatius Loyola gave himself up to self-flagellation is located in
Manresa.

742 Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-155), founder of the Order of Jesuits (fhe
Society of Jesus). Canonized in 1622. Author of The Book of the Spiritual
Exercises, a carefully worked out system for Jesuit education.
743 Gnostic, here in the sense of one who knows.
744 George Sand (pseudonym for Aurora Dupin, 1804-76), French writer,
author of the novels Oas (1841), Consuelo (1842-3), and others.
145 Alexander Borgia, Alexander VI, Roman Pope (1442-1503), representative
of the aristocratic Florentine family, the Borgias.

ltt

Alexander Christoforovich Senckendortr(1783-1.844), reactionary political

figure of the epoch of Nicholas I, from 182 chief of police and head of the Third
Section, one of the adent enemies of Pushkin.
147 Shams ud-din Mohammed Hafiz (7325-89), classic poet of Persian

and Tadzhik literahrre, praising exalted love, joy of life, and natue to his
gazelles.

148 Constantin Mikhailovich Simonoy (I9I5-79), Russian Soviet writer. The

lyric poem "Wait for me," mentioned by Eisenstein below, was written by him in
7947.

149 Eisenstein wrote about the connection between the principle of the
hieroglyphics of the East and the laws of cinema montage in the article "Behind
the Frame," Film Form, pp.28-44.
150 Since the beginning of Te Kangaroo in the 1930s, Eisenstein begins to
become profoundly interested in problems of the creative process, ying to
establish a link between the most general aesthetic laws and the laws of
developing human consciousness. As a result of many years of reseach and
obsewation, he came to the conclusion that in lhe process of the creation of a
work of art, not only do those layers of the human psyche that correspond to the
level of logical knowledge of reality take part but in them is included the deep
spheres formed historically in tle prelogical epoch, mar's sensual knowledge of
the world. Eisenstein conceived severa-l works on prelogic ad its influence on
the construction of an artistic work, however, he was not able to finish any of

Notes to pages 183-201

409

In its general features, he discussed this concept in his address at the

creative conference of workers of Soviet cinematography in 1 93s. Here Eisenstein
jokingly compares human thought to Pandora's box, having in mind the ancient
them.

Greek

mhs about how the curious

Pandora opened a box given to her as a

present by Zeus, full of calamities that flew out and spread around the world and
from which Pandora was able to keep back in her hands only deceptive hope.
151 Eisenstein made a note in the manuscript, intending to bring in "several
examples of her wting and a fragment of a parody on them,,, ,,a rose is a rose is a

rose," etc.
152 Here the well-known statement of Karl Marx
cheerfully parts with past."

is paraphrased: "Humanity

153 Emanuel Swedenbory Q688-1722), Swedish scholar, theologian, and

author of te book Heaven's secrets, an allegorical commentary to the Bibe.
154 The representation of a person established by the theosophists, who
invested the mystical content of his teachings into forms of speculative logical
constuctions,
155 English film shot in 194 by the director compton Bennen, a work of sidney
Box Productions.

15 Piene curie (1859-190) and Marie sktodovskaya curie (1867-1934),

physicists whose discoveries in the field ofradioactive uranium set the basis for
contemporary nuclear physics; Louis pastew (1922-95), French biologist,
founder of the science of immunization.
157 Joseph John romson (185-1940), Enflish physicist, winne of the Nobel
Prize, one of the founders of the contemporaty science on the sucture of the
atom,

158 Eisenstein brings in tlre name hee and describes below the subject of the
prcparatory skerch fo te picture st. Anne and Madonna with child
in which
st. John is substituted by a lamb. However, tre principres of composition
of the
sketch are preserved and developed in the finar version of the picture.

in

159 After

brins

;ijl"flj}'i"g

Leonado

l,

from the biography of the aftist

her, and then in the home of a

(Leonardo
stepmorher

- the legal wife of his fatrer), Freud interprels t" ,";.a of st ,4nne
psychoanalyticauy as a cryptogram of the
situation of ,,child with tlvo mothers.,,
In contrast to Freud, Eisenstein sees in the picture_
an image of the pathos of unity
of generations, whose brilliant sorution etermined
the unsurpassable signi_
ficance of this masterpiece.

m.

Once again on the $rucnre of things

is referring here to the book rhe Director,which

he was working
The first volume of this fundamentar
work, which had armost been
s
been pubrished

Joh
3

in vor. rv of the s"t"r"i w|rrrirror.nrn"

popular American song with

the words of the poet
18s2).
American film and television actor.

Notes to pages 202-15

\,""

410

417
19 Romain Rolland (1g66_1944),
French wrirer, musicologist,
political figure,
or the nover' k;;:c;;;.p;"'c'rror-,rl

4 Mars (the

,,

i^

ro pageE 27;5_22

pseudonym o_f Anne Boutet) (r77g-rg47),

a French acrress who
played major roles in^the_Comdie
Franise for a ton!'time.----5 Marie Dorvar (rzgg-rg4g), French
and
Piene Bocage (1799 - rg62), French romatic
"r"r" actor,omantic.
partner of F. Lematre and
t. Oo*"t in the Theatre porte St. Martin.

,itr

ana L,me-enchante

IV. Nonindifrerent Datrrre

I He has in mind his

2 Amotd Schnberg (

gogue, and

venture.

r$

personality and
Maly Theatre.

act
9
act

m 7974 leading

10 Marlene Dietrich (1902_ ), Germn film actress.

Her acting acriviry bega
in Germany, in the theater of Max Reinhardt. At the
beginnirrg o the 1930s she
went to the United
sternbers, rhe

Blue

Expressionist

3 Camille Sant-Sans

taits et Souvenr'rs,

4 The

c.

er. C. Saint-Sans, por-

Socie

is, 1900, p. 294.

discussion is ab
apparently about the film
(1926) - charaderistic

of

i',tli:TrT"'i:fF"{,;:l

in recent yeals e prosecutionof B. Wilder and The

Nwemberg Trial by S. Kamer.
11 ]oseph von sternberg (1894-1969), American
director who began his activity
in Holland in 1925. The fitm Moocco (based on
the pfay of ferro Vigny, Ema

/o,lie) was shot in 1930.

12 He has in mind the performances of The Inspecto
Generaf (rg2z) and. woe
V. E. Meyerhold.
rench lm director, poet, authol, philosopher,
and
e lrhe wheerl (1923)' I'accuse
Accuse)
lr
(1 9 1 9), Napoteon (1927),
::r1:"
""o comedy Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme (l70). It is
Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family (chapter
the Merchat of Secrets,').
15 The conception of Eisenstein, characterizing the
fst fifteen years of soviet

films. Alberto Caval,canti

Europe

film (in

until

1949. In the

England).

onaparte (International publishers, New year,

century,dashimpetuousryrromr"'"X":,'iffi
are more blinding than the other, peop

Bengal fire, every day breathes witl-

"i"r"lt"rS

or

rhe autor or the scenario was

*orfinI,"';,iffil;:#;"1""'ffi,"."#t
r qqvyNrr, cameraman,

1926,

A. D. Golovnya. Made in

on the short r,ory--by_T.v.

Gogol, direcred

by G. M.
, cuneraman A. N. Moskvin. Maoe
i-lgZo.
(tZ5t_1831),
9o
famous ltafian""ign",
Iong time in Russia.
"no

etti (Ig7

*i#:ii"

ll

rsoffrev

_ I 944), writer,
head of reactionary Italian

Tzara (1896-194), French

writer, one of the creators
of the dadaisr

Confucus (SSI_a7-?

chaucer

13 This is about

tle

ancient Chinese phil< sopher.

^a-.c.),
(134o:140i;'ri.rr'..i.".,

s.

the

of the French

trte

canterbwy

r"r"lr

"'"^..'

:lj

60-1849), great Japanese painter.

rse composition, the system
of intenelationships

18 Jean lawes (1859-1914), member of the international

sociarist movemenr,

r.

;;;,iTi;,".::'iJ::";.?ff

d with reseach on rhe

t7

uu,hoi.o

most ancient form of wririno racia-^_rrawins

ach
sob

historian and leading orator, author of a fou-vorume

r{istory

ng master of documentary

h Golovnya (1900_
), Soviet cametaman, professor.
rhe End or" ii.p"r";;;;;;;#
i!"""na"n, o
made him one of the founders;i;il.s-offiscrroot

film (1919-34), had een discussed by

the Creative
in 1935 CVoI. l
i"
th; ;;i;
"The Middle of Three,' (published in Vol.
1 Eisenstein probably has in mind the following statement
of Kal Max in his

diredor who worked in

s (Mothers,

Conference of Filmmakers

Revolution.

of Things."
r, theoretician, pda-

16 Tristam Shandv. novel by

the English write Laurence
Sterne.
Futwe oisouna^riin, A
18 William Thackeray ( I 8 1 I _3), R;;;-;;;dation, [op. cit.].
"s]'h i;"rr.,.

tT "The

Notes to pages 227-43

412

Notes to pages

249-

413

19 George cruikshank (1792-lB7B), English graphic artist and book illus-

trator.

20 An analysis of the dawn scene from ALeksander Nevs appears in the

article "Vertical Montage," in Fi,lm Sense, J, Leyda, ed. and trans., Faber & Faber,
London, 1953, pp. 87-156.
2l vorschlag, a musical term [Engtish: grace note], meaning a small note put
: at the interval of a tone or half-tone
below the hamonic.
..:22 NikolayYakovievichMan(1864-1934), sovietlinguist, creatorof atheoryof
the origin of language.
t ' 23 wu ch'ao-ch'u (e.o. 700-60), one of the most famous atists of ancient

'

"

3), German ardst of te Renaissance,

_1967), artist, poet,

critic, one of the

China.

ing to his ideas on foyce,s methodology,

which were
attempt

24 sessri (1420-150), important artist of the so-called Japanese Renais-

sance, follower of the Chinese ,.Northern,, School of painting.

25 Kuo Hsj (1020-90), Chinese artist.
26 Siu-jan, Chinese artist of the tenth century.
27 chu-jan, apparently he has in mind rszuyi Zhan, chinese landscape artist
of the tenth century.
28 lu ssu-hsrin (50-71), head of the "Northem" school of chines, painring.
29 Wang Wei (699-759), a very imporrant Chinese artist and poet.
30 sung Epoch (907 -1270), in the cited rext there is a mistake: the years of the
Sung Dynasty are g6O-1.279.
3l Ming epoch (728o-143), the years of the Ming Dynasty arc 126g-1644.

c art.

to creare the technique of ,,inn-ei

monologue,,

g Chinese actor, director.

nch naturalist who first restored

the
ls by parts ofthe skeleton rhat
had been

"i ffi:::i,jfili:::us

dramas, very widespread in

Europe in the thirteenth

32 Nikolay Konstantinovich churlyanis (churlionis) (rg7s-1911), Lithuanian

composer and artist-symbolist, striving for 'Tnusicalit/' in painting and who

considered it possible to convey in colors sounds and melodies.
33 Taoism, the teaching of the ancient chinese philosopher Lao Tze (04531 a.c.), whose basic category is Tao: "Law,,, ,,The Way," nonbeing, containing
in oneself au the possibilities of being and achieved by contemplation. Taoism
includes elements of a naive dialectic.
34 See K. S. Stanislavslq, My Life in Art, Sth ed., Izd. Iskusswo, Moscow-Leningrad, 1948, pp. 363-4lMy Life in Art, J, l. Robbins, trans., Linle Brown, Bosron,
1968, p.4171: "'Listen, nor vishnevy but vishnvy sad,' he stated triumphantly. . . This time I understood the great and yet delicate difference. Vshnevy Sad is
a commercial'orchard that brings in profit. Such an orchad is necessary to life
even at the present. But Vishnvy Sad brings no profit. It hides in itself and in all
of its flowering whiteness the great poetry of tle dying life of aistocracy. The
vishnrry sad grows for the sake of beauty, for the eyes of spoiled aesthetes. It is a
pity to destroy it, but it is necessary to do so, for the economics of life demanded

by
ve

sh film director.
03).

the appear_
d tiny dabs.

erican writer, Nobel prize wnner.

58 orson welres (r91s-g), American

director and actor. His film cizen
Kane
il

::111,flt",Ir"jiJ."'e

'e""*i,'s-,n"-oo,irionar ",,a .pi.nrarionar

ir.,,

of the most important

published in lg20_2.

35 James whistler (1834-1903), American artist, often called his landscapes

and portraits by musical names,

3 See the article "E!" - "On the Purity of Film Language.,,
37 sepulchre of wu-Kung-tse, burial of the family wu in the province of
Shandun (147 .c.).
38 Fujiwara Takayoshi, Japanese artist of tlte yamato-e school, who worked. in
the middle of the thirteenth century.

39 william Hogarth (1697-1764), English arrist, author of the essay

Ana.lysis of Beauty (1753).

Te

list.

), American writer, author of advnture

of letters.
as_pre (1802_70).

(l 939_9S), Russian writer.

erican writer.
an write.
playwright.

NotS to pages 269-96

Notes to pages

414

8 Claude Me'an (15gg-1gg), French engraver.

He probabry has in mind
Eccehomol
9 Albrecht Drer(I4Tt
70 According ro legend,
the pole of a wagon with an intricate

',,'

*",1f"oll"li*':lf;;::'*l;-1.,

"

), originally polish, but wote novels in English.

onad and Ford Madox Ford (1g73_1939).
Ford

,
p

I:.y B oynto n ri e s t ley G*s;l;Btr'irlli-".io n wrirer

1!
and praywri s ht.
75 L,Iian
HeIIman (1905-g4), a*"i.u" wrirer, playwright.
Author of. The

Little Eoxes.
76 Conviuo lThe

Feastf, this treatise

often by serge Eisenstein in his

mante

(IW_15

mentioned quite

re

vatican and the

o Buonano (14

ete1s.

author

of rhe

; *u.

also an

Greek myth, half-bull half-man who ravaged

men. He was killed by Theseus.

88), French philosopher_positivist, one
of the most

), Soviet makeup artist.

cameraman E. Tisse in part XVi of

fxl Eisenstein has in mind the words "Noli tangere circulos
meos,, [Don,t touch
my circlesl, which, according to tradition,
Achimedes addessed

d #;;

legion threatening him with d.eath.

84 Eisenstein

once intended Nonindifferent Natue for a couection

devoted to
the trrenty-year-old potemkin. The colection
was pubrished after his tifetime.
See Battlesip potemkin,_Herbert Marshall,
ed.., Arion, IV"_ Voit, iCZA.
85 comedy ofmasks, a form of ltarian folk improvisational
theater that arose

in

the twentieth century the

icularly V. E. Meyerhold.

2_99), Fench satirist.

or comedv trat
is bult on stase .o,1,:1_n,",
*".o.:i::#:::i;:stic
", Englisriwriter and philosopher,
89 Thomas carlvre (179s-rggl),
affirming the
romantic "cult of the hero..,

415

90 Eugne sue (1g04-57), French

witer. The co kroachis a ,.coroniar,,
on the exotic material of the
novel
topics.
91 ]oris Karr Huysman (1g4g-ig07),
French write:. Des .Esseintes,
rtael^Au Rebous [z{.garhst tne
hero of rhe
Craii,- tABa.
92 on the fruitfur sife-oi-ttre .";;;il;rhe

Zeus. The oracle predicted that the on

of Asia. Alexander the Macedonian u

:71 He has in mind
.
Dicken's chris,,nas caro,r where,
Er:' sharp change in the chaacter of the miser in the couse of christmas
1
and egotist occurs.
rhe Detuse, prav bv

zgT-W

ilTilTl

to the article "rhe Montse

"monrase of aftractions,,,
see the

orttractior',,,i.

rl,e rlm sese,

93 Andre Le Noo.e (r13-1700),

aurror of. The plan
94 Eugne Delacroix (1798_t;'ir.

of the park at vesa,Ies.

painter. His ,fourna.r was
an

important literary_artisti. aor"*""iif

tfrJ^.rro"tu"nth century.
es Andrey
,1?:9__^rr3*)
o, noris rvikorayevich Busayev,
prominenr repre
sntativ" r,a tr,*-.i"til,il;,

"""
T "#:.
sycholo icat ."{i""i"$:

;";_

74

{*::"Tnilt";t:ff'#
98 Atdous Huxtey (7gg4-!g;,

novel Baye New World

i,

te 36),

ns

li

sh

*t"i,

*uriu

: rm
^t,n

"

b o ti
s

s.

o- cal

Ie

(18e3- ), soviet writer, critic, writer

of
Engrish writer-sari ,ist. Eisensrein
looks at his

his wo*:.On SLreo itm.,,

'Freast crria-ii5i,-r,mef
newspaper pubrisher
#"JtTH Tinttt
e a byword in designating thean
p.in.ipi-f

reacdonary
7oO

press.

lingoism,

an

word,aris

arch-

the 1g70s, sign_ifying Anglo_Saxon

chauvinism.

ili.:i*'"i*
'Thomson,

isn-inr, sove ;;;.";:;ber

of the

I
ro section ,,pathos.,,
:reekl, line oi
p..r* suns ar marins berore rhe
l9l;:r:i* 't"
1"1t:?:y;.::vinsky(tlee_ ), Soviet poet. rhese rines are raken from
19? I:

105 Jules Renad (1g4_1910),

French wrirer and playwright.
10 He has in mind the wora., ;H;';"a"r*
a man -. thii is the main
107 AreksanderNikoraevichvesetovstcycia3g-tor,Russianriterafhistorian.
rhing.,,

109
the
The
II0
111

gg4_l95g), German
writer.

(1891-1955), Russian
actor who created

V, e!., on the stage of the Moscow

Art

A. T. Emigrated to tle West.

sh director and theater designer.

_1927), American
dancer,

dance.

moden
112 Joseph Frantsevich

G_erto

v!cl!!Bg6-1953), doubre

;;:-' il',
*"#'" ,",:';-i
;;:"# :i.,Alekseyevich
volsky
lln^_u?!.
Eisenstein
prkofiev
and

in the

Velimir Khlebnikov (
-115
11 Ludwig Ktages (t872

organized.

t"-i.r".

.r."a*

of

of the

"""forms

bass performer, professor.

ou,", ..

fi

n Munich o
bewesuns "and Gestattunsskrart,3/4
Ausgabe, Leipzis,

;;:;;;:' i

tiro

r r
o

ne

the Terrible'
engineer, colleague of
Y and lva the Terible.
Pget.

of idealism' In 1905 he

ii;:r""

LAusducks-

Notes to pages

y|l-Zg

476

117 Gustave stesemann (1878-7929),

German political figure, once leader of
the government.

ll8

Heracles Luarsabovi ch Andronikov (190g_

critic, master of oral speech.
119 Charles Augustine Sarnte-geuve (1g

120 Dupin, her o Edgar Allan

), Soviet writet and literary

nd poet.

poe,s
)r,,,

the

Rue

French writer and literary critic.

lish novelist and poet.
nch panter, active figure in the paris

'124

kno
, t2s
126
bear the trvo principles _

3g), German architect, painter, and engraver,

ol;""
of V. I

t27 Franois Coppe (lg

l2g chartes Leconte de

painter.
o,s novel The Ninety_thd yea who
e "practical" uth of the revolution.

poet and dramatist-

one of the main

nd critic.

and psychologist,
the Bible.
of France (1930_48).
ch historian and political figure, prime
13 Heni claude saht-s'mon (r76o-rg2s),
French trinker, one of trre most
important socialist utopianists.

topianist, autlor of the novel Ile

utopia socialist.

socialism.

I last representatives of French utopian

14o Novaris, Baron Friedrich von Hard.enberg

(r772-rgor), German romanc
poet.
and Wilhelrn (lZg_lg59), German
famous children,s fairy stories.

er and dramatist.
English poet. Eisenstein cites his

inen in

'

1921.

*t, ti.o,""tant
creed (Huguenots in

'\rvorldly ascetisism."

at a Synod held in Dordrecht

Is of faith were ratified.

y, at the famous Eton College, England.

Notes to pages g7A-gs

417

148 The medieval gu I of ,'Beefeates,,, dressed

in medieval costumes and
guarding the royal palaces of England.
149 B-obbies, a sla'g name for London's policeme .
Also known as .,peeers,,,
from Sir Robert peel, their found.er.
l5O Demiurge (Greek), a platonic Subordinate
dei
751 Lautramof (Isadore Ducasse) (rg46-70), .
irench wrirer, whom the
surrealists declaed to be their precursor.
r52 .. 'that very deceased Maiquis, Eisenstein m |ans
the Marquis de sade
(1740-1814), notorious for his prnographic
works that gave birth ro rhe rerm
"sadism."
153 Luigi Piranderlo (rg67-1936), Italian writer
rnd dramarisr. particurarly
famous for his play s.rx chaacters in seac
of an Autho.
154 captain (John Augustus) sutter, a swiss emigrant
to the united states who
discovered gold in carifornia. when in America,
ir"nrt"in p.p";; to make a
film on the history of this d.iscovery, sune/s Gold
but *u, .rn"i" script is in
Ivor Monragu's', With Eisenstein in Hollywood.,,
155 upton sinclair (rg7g-r9g) Amerin wrirer
famous for his ,,muckraking,,
novels and campaigns' At one time a socialist
cand.idate ror congilss.
156 Bayreuth, a town in sout Germany where
a special theater was built for the
production of Wagnefs operas.
757 "welr, are we obr.igated to you, Arexander 'ikolayeuich,
for this good
weather?' A joke on A' N. scriabin atnibuted
to p. M. preuanov. (see the
anthology: A. N. Scriabin, Muzgiz, Moscow_Leningrad,
f C+0, p. 9;.
158 Johanne loachim Winketmann (1717-68),
Geri.an'hist"iii " arr critic,
researcher into ancient cultu.res.
159 Gaston Maspero (lg4_191), French Egyprologist.
10 Jean Franois Champollion (j,7g}_Ig3i)_,.French
archeologist and. Egyp_
pioneering the decoding of Egyptian hierogtyphs.
lo,loSist
761 rhe Thief of Baghdad, an ngusuture film,
diected by Zoltan Korda, a
London Films production, 1940.
162 Mowgri, Engrish fe ue film based on
Rudyard Kipling,s Jungte Book,
directed by Alexander Korda, London Films produ
ction, 7942.
763 Bathing Beauty, American musical comedy, produced
ul vletro-coldwynMayer

in

1945.

164 Bambi, animated c-olor,catoon film produced

by walt Disney, 1g42.
165 .Walt Disney (1,gOL_66), American
artist, director, and producer, out_
standing master of animated catoons.
766 Chopn, the American, hographical film
about Chopin called A Song to
Remember, Diector King Vidor, proauce
uy Cotr.r_ui. p*i"*rlsa.

767 silly symphonies, a s ries of animated ro.

Disney in the 1930s.
"*oo. nrms createa by walt
768 In the Mickey Mousg senes, Disney,s famous
ani nated
cenual characters were Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend cartoon fiIms whose
Minnie.
169 chopiniana, a crassic balet based on the
music of chopin, first choreographed by the Russian bar.rer-masrer
M. M. Fokin (1gg0_ 1g4i) on rt . stage of
the Ma4ms Theare in petersburgh in 190i,
170 . - .Romeo and Juriet, sME hai in mind rhe
barlet starring uranova with
music by S. S. proko.ev.

Notes to page 39S

418

177 Thrse Raquin, a feature film

directed by rhe French director Jacques

Feyder in Germany, a DEFA Film production, 192g.
172 Money, a French fearure film directed by Marcel L,Herbier,
L927.
773 Nana, a French feature film directed. by Jean Renoir, 192.
174 The Human-Beast, a French feature film directed by
Jean Renoir, a paris_

Film Production,

Index

1938.

Acapulco,382
Acosta, Uriel, 280- I
Ahriman, 0
Aleksey, Tsarevich, 280

Aluander Nevstcy, 4,35,

U, 124, lg,2lg,
214, 229, 287, 292, 293, 335, 339
Ale:<andro Grigory Vasil'evich, 61, 226,
283

Ali-Hosain, Calif, Sl
Alma-Ata Studios, 291
Altdorfe Albrecht (painrer), 3S9
Alupka (Crimea), 283
American Society of Engineem and
Mechanics of Chicago, l5g
Americans,22

Amos,88
Analysis of Beaury(Hogarrh), 266, 262
Anastasia (Tsaritsa), 303, 310, 3l l, 313,

314, 316, 377, 32O, 322, 324

Anderson, G., ll
Anderson, Sherwood, 26S, 269

Andizhen,308
Andronikov Heracles Luarsabovich, 342
Angelico, Fra Beato,

l5l

Athens, 103

Atlantic Ocean, 329

Auswahl, Deutsche von Manin Buber, 34g

Awakum Petrovich,26

Babel, Isaac,2S9
Bacchus (Bacchanalia), 149
Bach. Johann Sebastian, 4, g4,231,2Zg,

285,32s

Bacon, Francis, 73
Bal'mont, K. D.
Baltic Sea, 280
Balzac, Hoor de, 6l ,

w,370

63 , g7 , gZ

, 261,

267 ,

Bambi,389-9r
Barbusse, Henri,8l
Bardche, Maurice, <10
Bamum & Bailey Circus,

l4l

Barres,Morris, lll
Basmanovs (father and son), 3lb, 317
,323

Bastille,34

Bathing Beauty, The, 399

Battista, Giovanni, 1S9

Anna Kaenina (Tolstoy), , Ss

Ansich Von Kalchreut(watercolor: Durer),

360

Antokols, Mar 290

Apocalypse,lhe,TT
rabesques, l0

Archimedes,2gl
Aristotle,384
Arndt, Walter.327
Anoio, Venegas,24S
Arsena/ (Dovzhenko), 2 1 3
At of the FiIm, Ie ( journal), 293
Art of WaIt Disney, The,39l
Asquith, Anthony, 259

419

Bayreuth (opera house), 3g5

Bazan, Don Caesa de, 97
Beaumachais, pierre Augustin, 295
"beefeaters," 37g
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 2g2,2gs
Belasco, David, g

Belins, Vissarion Grigo/evich,

lO4, ZZ2

Beily of Paris, The (Zola, I Ventre de

Pas), B

Index
Bely, Andrey, 165,307

cabt, Etienne,372

Benckendorff, Count, 182

Benoit, Fancoise,357
Berger, Ludwig,32
Berkeley, l7

Calvinist,377

Cambridge Universiry,
Canterbury Tal.es,222

Belin,47
Berman, S. (actress), 32
Bernardin, L. M., 34
Berton, Pierre, 97, 99, 70O

Bezukhov, Piere(Tolstoy),
, Biece, Ambrose, 96
Bizet, Georges,9T

& I,t/ite (Mayakovsky),

+ Blanc, Louis,372
BLack

Blaue Reite Der,2l7

Bloom, Mrs. (see U.lysses)

Bodhisattva, l5l
Bolshoi (theater), 349, 401
Bon Joyeux, 75
Borgia, Alexander, 182
Bouchot, Henri,357
Boutet, Anne (pseudonym- Mars), 202

Bowery,379
Boyarina Morozova (Surikov) , 23-4,26
Boyars,530
Bozhenka, 394
Bramante, Donao,277
Breughel, Peter, 73
Bronze Horseman, Te (Pushkin), 329

Brooklyn,379
Brothers KaramaVov, The (Dostoyevs),

Brown, Father,34

2l

Buson, Yosa, 150

Byron, Lord, l19

l,

Cruikshan George,227

Circe,72
Cicular Staicase, The, 266
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles), 264,

CivilWar,

l,292

27 3

dadaism,2Bg
Danse Macabre(Saint Sans),
3g9

Danre Alighieri, tB2, 2ZS_7

Daumier, Honor, lg3, 226_7,
2g3
David, King (psalms), 3lO

l3

DeadSouls(Gogol), 3, t1g, 162

Cockroach, Te (by Eugene Sue), 297

Delaunay, Roben,243
Demiurge,379
(Mikhaet Vrubel), 307
lemons, Te
Dent, John yerbury, 1S7
Deputy o the Baltic, 2lg
De Quincey, Thomas, I%,160
dervishes, ll,l7z

Derzhavin,
'

27

2, 33g

Dobchins,207

Don Juan (Mozart),2g2

Don euixote, l9E

Dordrecht Synod, 34S
Dorval, Maie,202

oor,^o::u:y,Fyodor,

BB, rO3,

206,261,356,373

r04, r38, t7,

Dovhenko, A. p., 40, 213, 230

Doyle, Conan, lg4

"Drama on the euanerdeck,,, 13

Trial, g4
fuliette,3g
fils, 97

Alexande (pre), 97, 202, 267

uncan, Isadora,335
Dungeons (piranesi), 124_,
l2g, 131 _2,
134_5, 144, r48

dadaists,22l

Day ofthe Dead, The, 380

"Dead Man Appeals, The,,,

l44

Dmitry (Boris Godunov),

Dnieper River, 23O,2Bg
Dnieprosnoy Dam, 2gg

Dreyfus
Drouet,
Dumas,
Dumas,

Bing,20t

Cuba,309
Curie, Marie, lg1,3g4

Christ, 29,280

Churlyanis, Nikolay Konstanrinovich, 234

Dickens),29g

Crosby,

deisises, 280
Delacroix, Eugene, 30
Delassements Comiques, Des,
34

Ch-jan,233
Chukovs, K,L,U2

Burger,137,364

Bushell, Stephen W., 2K)

Count de Rizor, V. Sardou, 9

Courbert, Gustav,3ST
lovgtoys KniSh Te (puskhin), 90

"Chopin," 389,391-3
Chopiniana (ballet), 392
Chuang Tse, 348

Buddha,355
Buddhists, 373
Bunin, lvan,272

Burliuk, David,247

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 3g4

Craig, Edward Gordon, 33S

"Cricket on the Hearth, The,,(Charles

Christianity, 377

Brutus,30
Buber, Martin,348

Burke, Kenneth, 87

Cope, Francois,3g

Chartres Cathedral, l0, 110, 139

Chatslq (character in Wit Wos Woe), 329
Chaucer, Geoftrey,222
Chekhov A. P., 2O3, 237, 295, 296
Chekhov, Michael, 203, 333
Cherkasov, N. K.,28f , 5
Cherry Orchard, The,237
Chesterton, Gilben K., 309, 34
Chichikov (Dead Souls), 3
China, 182, 221, 229, 238, 295, y2
Chinese, 155, 4L 343, 348
"Chinese Flute, The," 221
Chiveau, Georg,250
Choko, l5O

Bocage (actor), 202

Buidan,97

Conrad, Joseph ,222,222, 2Zz

Cook, SirFrancis, l12
Cooper, James Fenimo rc, 262,
356

Chapayev,208-72,322

Bobchins,207

119

ter,

Champollion, Jean Francois, 3gZ

Chapin, Charlie,5

bobbies (policemen), 378

Disney, Walt,3g9

1+

Chaliapin, Feodor I., 280

Boaz,37l

Burial of Count Orgaz (El Greco), 1 10-

Comdie Franaise (theatre),

34

Carlyle, Thomas,29
Carotte, Poil deQ. Renard), 319
Cathedral(Monet), 0
Cavalcanti, Alberto, 2lB
centaur,370
Central Asia, 288
Czanne, Paul, 13, 137
Cezanne und Holder (Fritz Burg er), 364

SB

Diderot, Denis, 2g2

Dietrich, Marlene, 20
Diez, Ernst, 232,293
Dintses, L,, 37
Dionysius, zl4

Communards, TT

31 1

Carcere oscura,130-2, l3S,

l8l

421

Collins, W illse, 262, 2Z 3

Collomb, Joseph, 3zt
Cologne Cathedal, 16l
Columbia pictures, 399

Caesar, fulius, 30
Celifornia, 383, 384
Callot, Jacques, 130

Benols,4., 722, I32

.8ethe, Hans, 221

Index

420

gl

Devils, The,, (Dostoyevsky), 35

Dupin,34

Drer, Albrech t, 2g, 2ZZ

,359, 30
Dzigan, E.,213
Eanlr (Dovzhen ko), 40, 44, 64

Efros,4., 2l

Eiffel Tower, 243

Elizabeth, eueen, 324

Encycopedia ofKnots and.

Fancy Rope
Work The,270
Engels, Friedrich, 1 1, lg, 213,
Z7O, 37

rngland,379

Entstehung Der Baock_Kunst

(4. Riegt),37
Ermolo (actor), 20

in

6, 383

Rom,

Die

Elon College, 37g

Etudes suJe Thtre Basque (G.
Heelle),
251
Eugene Onegin (pushkin), 2l 1

Devil's Dictionary, The, 9

Exaltation des Elemen ienestres,

40

Lllckens, Charles, 222, 2gg

Expulsion oAdam and Eve, IIS

Expulsion of the Moneylenders fom
tfre

Cocteau, Jean,164
Cohn, William,232

Dialectjcs_ofNarure, Tje (Engels),

I l, l g

Colbert, Claudette,9T
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 146, 759, L60
Colin (actor), 209

Dickins, F. V. (author prr.m ifive and

_ Medievd JapaneseTexts),329
Dictator, The Great, 56

Expressionism, 2g9

Temple, Tlre (El Greco),

Fairbanks, Douglas, 4lO

ll2,

116,

l3S

Index

,.'

Faulkner, William, 2l
Faust, 123, 134
Fayer, Yuri Fedorovich, 7
Ferganslcy Canal, 153, lS4
Ferrari, Giulio, 124
Feuchtlvanger, Lion.329
Feval, Paul,267

Field, Dumnt (author), 391

Fiery Furnace, Ie (mysrery play), 2gO
I :Film Sense,288, 339
, Film Technik (journal),44

.Finland, 155
First Cavry, Ie (Isaac Babel), 2S9
Fischer, Kuno,330

1 Flagetlants,The,Sl
Fokine, Michel (ballet dancer), 392
Ford, Ford Madox,2Z3
Four Evangelis, The (Zola), BI
Fourier, Franois Marie ChaIes, M,372
France.372
France, Anatole, 283, 369, 379
Francon Theatre, 34
Franz, Joseph (emperor), gg

Frick Colection, I l2
Fruittulness (Zola), 82, 83
Frunze, Mikhail Vasil, evtch, 347
F ug ue, The (8. Ptout), 2Z B, 324
Fujiwara Takay oshi, 242

futurism, 250
Galvez, Count,269
Gance, Abel,209

Gautier, Theophile, gT
General Line, The, see The Old and the New
Genius and Character, 87
Germinal (Zota), 66,2O,72, 82
Gentle Breath (K. Bunin), 272
Gerould, Prof. H.,298

Gertovich, Joseph Frantsevich, 335

Gershwin, George, l7
Gibson, Walter 8., 278
Gieseche, AIbert, 122, 146

Gilles, H. A.,222,23O
Gillene, King S., 384, 3Bs
Glaser, Curt, 231
Gleize, l3

Glinka, Mikhail lvanovich, 133

Gliner and Povefty of a Couftesan, The
(Balzac),267
Godunov, Tsa Boris, 272
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 109, 123.

422

ry,

I40.,255,306,36
Gogol', Nikolai Vasil,evich, 3, g4, 123, l3g,
160_5,279,230,261
GoIdRush,384
Golden Section, lB
Golovin, A.1a.,394
Golovnya, Anatoli (cameraman), 2lB

Gonzago, Pieuo,221

"Gopurams,', 141

Godian,272

Gor, Maxim,

309, 37, 375

Goryunov, V,V.,2Z9,2gO
gothic, 122, L4., t4t, t4S

Gourrront, Remy de, 347

Goven and Simerden (V. Hugo,s Nrerythird Year), 3B
C,oya, Francisco Jos de,

Grander (Balzac). 3
Granet, Marcel,23B

l3Z, 3O

Index

423

Herelle, Georges, 251

Hesiod,40
H iawath a (Longfeltow), 93
Hindu Temples (.,Gopurams,,), 142
Histoirc du Crnema (Bardeche), 39,44
Histoire du Paysage en France,3ST
History of Russia, N. Riazanovsky, lS3

Hodler, 137
Hoffrnan, 8.T, A.,2&
Hogarth, William, 243, 266, 2B

Hokusai,224

Holbein, Hans,24{-

Holdler, 137
Holland,377
Holmes, Sherlock,341
Holy Family, The, lgO
Homer, 17

Graumont,270

Horatii, 103
Houdini, 276,222

Gray Shadow, The,2O4

Greco, El, ll0,tl2,1tg, llS, tl6,ltg_21,
723, 126, 128, l3/^, 135, 138, 185, 227,

Houdini's Escapes (Walter B. Gibson), 27g

359-l

Greeks,25-B
Gregory, H. (rnnslator), 2Sg
Griboyedov, Alexandr Serg eevich, 295
Griboyedov Priz e, T}re 206

Grieg,232

Grif.th, D.W.,4,25t
Grimm, Brothers,3TZ
Grimm, Professor, lB
Gross, Ernst, 25
Gsell, Paul,38
Guatamokh,380
Guemica (Picasso), 13
Guildenstern ( Hamlet), 331
Guizot, Franois,372
Guyau, Jean M. (prob,lmes Esthtiques),
279

Houdini-His Life Srot/ (Haold Keliock),

277

House of Envy, The, 2O4,

3lS

Huang Ch'an (painter), 3SS, gg2

Hue Tse, 348
Hugo, Vior, 97, 99, 16l, 966, 36g, 375
Hui Tsun, 375
H u m an-Beas t, The (Zola), e, 39 s
Human Comedy, The, g7, 269
Huxley, Aldous,309

Huysman, Joris Karl, 299

Impressions er Souvens (G. Sand), 357

India, 151

Inspector General, The, 2O?

Ivan the lernbie (Eisenstein), Sg, g4, 230,

316_20, 322, 325, 335, 339, 350, 359,

387,388,394

Ivanov, Pierre, 194

Izvestia,

l5l

Ha2,182
Hagia Sophia (cathedral), 139
Hamlet,29,33O, f ,37S
Harria, Enriqueta, 113
Hea-rst, William Radolph, 309, 3f 0
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 19,362,
33

Hellrnan, Llllian,274
Hensel,270
Heraclea, 103

Jamais, Firmen,
James,

lol,,lO3

William,39

Janin, Jules, 97

lapan,22t,229
J azz (P

aul Whiteman), 201

Jean, Father,97

leremiah,ST
John the Baptist, 120
Jonson, Ben, 10b
Joseph Conrad (F. M. Ford), 273

Jourdain, Monsieur, 213

Joyce, James, 249, 2SO
Judas, 281
Kachalov, V.,342

Kalinin, M.L,76
Kant, Emmanu el, 176, 296
Kapitsa, Peter Leonidovich, 3l I
Kalamazov, Ivan, 103
Karamzin, N. M., 17
Katerian (The Storm), l0Z
Katusha, l5
Kazan,324
Kean, Edmund,97
Kehrer, Hugo,31
Kelloc Harold,2ZT
Kerbela (Iraq), 5t
Kerens, Alexande Feodorovicb, 7, t46
Khlebnikov, Velimir, 337
Khlisry (Russian religious sect), ft4
Kindeund Haus Marcben (Brothers

Grirnm),377
Kino Malaya Dmitovka, 2O4

Kinogazeta (journal), 393

Kirsanov, Semen,223
Klages, Ludwg,340

Klein, Colonel philip 8., f 58

Knipper, O. L., 203
Korolenko, V. G,, 370, 372,373
Kosmatov,393
Kraus, Krasna, zl4

Krestovs,

V .V

,,262

Keutze Sonata (Tolstoy),

S, g

Kukhelbeke, V.K., N2
Kunstdes Geco, Die(Dr. Hugo Kehrer),
31

Kunstgesclric te Gru ndbeg ri ffe, 340

Kuo Hsi,23l
Kurbs, 302,3t2,323, g2S, g3g

Laclos, Chodelos de, 260, 261, 264

Ladies' Delight (Zola, Au Bonheu des

Dames),67

Lake Chad, 124

Laocoon, Ie(El Greco), 1 13

Iast Supper (Leonardo da Vinci),
Laube, Henry (aurhor), 377

Lautreamont,3B4

Lawrence, D. H.,356

Lazarus,371
Iar, King,29

207

425

Index

424

Leconte de Lisle, Charles, 38

Le Corbusier,

l5

Lematre, Fdick, 29,98,99, l0, IlO,

1t9,283
Lemaitre-coppe (publisher), 3B
leMois (French periodical), 40
: Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich,ll,37O
Lenin in 1918,213
Lenin in Octobe\ 213
.Leningrad,288
, Le Nolre, Andre (landscape designer for

Versailles),30
Lens, Alexander Pavlovich, 20S, 206
Leonardo da Vinci, 17, l2O, 123, l4l,
+ 19-8,207,270,277
Lepic, Monsieur, 319
Leskov, Nikolai Semenovich, 89, 90

Lessing, Gonhold Ephraim, 1

Li Ssu-hsun, 232
Liaisons Dangeeuses, tes (by C. de
Laclos),20
Liddell, Mark H., 27
Liszt, Eranz,232

Lithuania,280
Long, John Luther, 9

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 93

Lord Jim (loseph Conrad), 273
Louis Philip, 372
Louvre, 378

Ludwig, Emi| 87, 120

Lyrisme dyonisiaque d'Eisenstein, 40
Macaire, Roben,97, 283

Macbeth,96,272
Macf,272
Madame ButteIy,256
Mademoiselle Fifi,9
Madonna, The,796
Magarshack, David, 3
Mahler, Gustav,88
Maikov, 103
Malevich, Kazimir, 34, 54
Malyuta, 313, 315- 17, 320 -2, 325
Mamaev,29
Man lrom Pskov, The,280
Manet, Eduard, 4
Manhattan, 379
Mantegna, Andrea,48

Marinetti, Emilio Filippo Tomaso, 221

Marins Theatre,392
Marivaux, Piere, 295
Markov, V., 221

Marlowe, Christopher, 10S, 13S

Marot, Daniel, 124
Marr, Nikolai Yakovlevich, 229
Marriage la Mode or The Rake's Progress

(Hogarth),243

Mars, Mme. (French actress), 202,217

Marseillaise, The, 7 4, 75
Marshall, Herbert (actor), 32,92
Marx, KarI, , l8O,376
Maspero, Gaston,387
Masterp iece, The (ZoIa), 68
Masters, Edgar Lee, Bb, 2l

Matrshkas, 191
Maupassant, Guy de, 9 , 268, 269, 357 , 374,
375
Mauraut, Father, 1
Maxrm (Trilogy), 213

Mayakovs, Vladimir, 58, 99, 162, tB2,

Index

Melville, Herman,262
"Men and Maggots," 13
Mendelssohn, Eelu,232
Mendes, Catulle, 38
Mephistopheles, 280

3t7,359,393

Morhe, 57, 218, 2L9, 360, 31, 394

Moussorgs,50

Messac, Regis, 27

Metamorphoses (Ovid), 2S7

Metropolitan Philip, 280, 323
Metzinger, 13
Mexico, 741,156, 193,225,378, 380
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 232
Meyerhold Theate,47
Meyerhold, V .8., 2O7
Michelangelo, 122, 255, 277, 366, 368
MickeyMouse,39O

Mikhailov,29
Ming poch, 232

Minneapolis, 112
minotaur, 278,370
Moby-Dick,262
Molire, 295
Mona Lisa,720
Monet, Claude, 0, f08

Money(ZoIa),395
Mongol, 151, l5
Monjas Palace, Las,142
Montabo Hall (theate), 34
Mont-Orid (Maupassanr), 357

Mozart and Salier (Pushkin), I

itir"", w"rrs"ng Amadeus, I' 2' 232' 297
Mozartian, 1
Mozhaika,338
Murasaki Shikibu' 387
Mureau,394
My Life in Art (Stanislavs)' 100
aYakovs)' 351
Te @ugene Sue)' 180'

267

Nana(Zola),9, 1,395
NaPoleon, L23'2O9
Napoleon (Gance), 209

lII,

1, 191
Naiional GallerY (London), 112' 113' 115

20
Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir I''
Neva River, 285,286

New York, 343

Nicholas Ist, Tsar, 139,373

Nigt on Bald Mounain (Moussorgs)'
50

(!'

Ninery Third Year, The

Nouvelte EquiPe, La,4O
Novalis (Poet), 370

Hugo)' 38

Novgorod,280
Nozdrev (Dead SouJs), 3

252'
"Octobef' (Ten Days), 40, 6, I45' 272'
7

282,283,346'393
Ode (Confucious), 225
Odessa, 74, 22O, 228,230
259'
"Odessa Steps," 10, 30, 32, 113' 22O'

284,293,322
Oka Rive, 153
Old and the New, e (also The General
6'
Line), 39, 4O, 44, 45, 49' V' 58' 70' 7

745,152,253,260'393
OliverTwist,22T
OlymPus,384

(Hokusai)'

Orpheus,258
Osaka,24
Osiris, S

Ostrovs, A. N., 11, 29

Ostyzhev, Alexander, 298
Overcoat, The,278,279

Ovid,257

Mowgli(film)' 389

NaPoleon

uj iama

Ormazd, 0

Moses,50,297
Moskvin, Andrey Nikolaievich, 279' 281'

Medea,IO3

o1 F

243
Ophelia,375

Moscow,2SB
Moscow Art Theatre, 329

332,351
"Meeting the Squadron," 13
Mei Lan Fang, Dr., 250
Meisel, Edmund, 32,33, 314
Mellan, Claude,29

One Hundred View s

Moonstone, The' 263

Morelle, Abbot' 344
Morocco,2O6

Pars, 59, 1, 378

parliament, 378
Parnasse ( journal), 3B
Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich, 342
Pasteur, Louis, 195
pathos, 10, 22, 26 -30, 32, 34- 6, 38, 40' 45'
5S-9, 66, 69, 7 0, 86, 154,
46, 49

-52,

t62,766,347
Pavlenko, P.4., 153
Petersburg, 219
Petrograd, 282
Phaedra, 103
Philosophy of Nature,
Phoenix, The, 8

the (Hege),

32

Physic Characteristics of Speeclr Sound

(Liddell),27
Picasso, Pablo, 13, 15, 31, 364-7,375
Pimen, 302, 310, 313, 316,377 ' 320, 323

isa,722,124' 126-8'
44,146-9,151,159'
10, 185, 186,278,347
Pitkin, Walter,85
Pitd Palace, 139
Pixercoun, Guilbert de, 97
Planche-Valcour, 34
Plato, 17
Plekhanov, G. v., 38
PlinY, 103
Pliushkin (Dead SouJs), 3

Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Petrovich' 373

Poe, Edgar Allan ,94' 346
Pogodin, Nikolai Feodoovich' 400
Point Counterpojr (A' HuxleY), 309
PoIevoY, Nicholas, 105

Potava (Pushkin), 21
PomPeY,30
Poor F oR (DostoYevsky),

PoPov, AlexeY Dmitrievich, 1

Posada, Jos Guadalupe, 24

Index

426

Potemkin, see Battleship potemkin

Poulain, Reverent pre, 172
Priestley, 1.8.,274
Prokofiev, S. S., l7, J26,332_4,338, 34

,'

Proletkult Theatre, l4g

Proudon, Maa, picasso(Max Raphael), 34
Prout, E.,324
Pskov, 288

Puccini, Giacomo,256
l,Pudovkin, Vsevolod lllarionovich,

283,394
' Puification of the Temple, The,

'
,
'

57, 226,

ll3

90_2,94,118,138, l0, 176,t82,272,

t}t,

106

Que Viva Mexi"sr.,2S3

Rabelais, Franois, 70,23, l4S

Rachel,97
Rank, Otto, 278

Raskolnikov, 103
Rasputin, Gregory E., Sl
Ratapoile, 6l
Ray, Man, 218
Read, Sir Herben, 2Ss
Red Army, 292
Red Army Theater, l
Reizov, V.,82, 83
Rekame,

Die,22S

Rembrandt van Rijn, 394

Remington, 309,310
Renard, Jules,3l9,3g2
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 39b
Repin, Il'ia Efimovich, 2g0

Resunection from the Gnve, The, 116

Rhine River, 377

Riazanovs, N., l53

Richeau, 332

Riegl,l9.,,37
Rigaulbouch, 1
Rinehan, Mary Roberts, 266,262
Roa China (Tretiakov), 47

Robespierre,2ls

RobinHood,2M
Robson, E. V. and M.
Rodin (sculptor), gg

M.,293

Rolland. Romain, 2lS, 366

Rome, 159
Romeo

and Julie (baller), 393

"Roscius of the Boulevatds,,, 97

abaneyev, Leonid Leonid ovich, 7 6

427

Scribe, Eugene,26g
(Dicke ns),
272
'cJooSe

Stresernan, Gustav,
341

seifullina, L., 147

srxe,204,259

Seie, D.

67,297

Selvins, Ilya,3l9

;:,"",

Ruy BIas,gB

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich, 20, 21,

277,327
Pyat, Fetix, 97,

Rothenstein, John Kewstub, 365

Rougon-Macquaft (Zola), 7, Sg, 7g, 24, g2
Rozenov, E. K.,4, SO
Rubens, Peter paut, Z3
Ruslan and Liudmil.a (pushkin), 20
Russian futuists, 34
Ruth,371

lndex

rsan (Minisrer),

i:,i::,ffi"J,,' ir,"u,
.r,,

24I

289

Sesshu,231

Sade, Marquis de,3g4

Sahagun, Father,380
Sahara,3B3

SaintAngelo,171
SaintAnne, 19
Saint Barbara (patroness of coalminers),
70
Saint-Beuve, Charles Augus tine, f,44
Saint Crispin (paon of shoemakers), 70
Saint Eloi (patron ofiron workers), 70

Saint Ignatius Loyola, l7I, 172, IZZ _g

Saint John of the Cross, l5l
Saint-Just, Louis Antoine, 21S

i;::i';:,i,?;!,eg1ocatwse,lherro

shakespeare,

Wiltiam,

386-9

Saint-Simon. Claude Henri, 372

SaintTheresa, l7l
Salieri, Antonio, 1,2
Sallust, Don,98
Slmony, Atfred,23
Samarkand,307
Samson (actor- directot), 97
San Francisco, 384
San Gines Church (Madrid), I 12
San Xeronimo, Father, 29
Sand, George, l7B, gS7, 322
Sardou, Victotian, 9, 9Z

Sarochinsky Fair,

SO

Saroyan, William,2B
Savina, Maria Gavrilovna, 20b
Schonberg, Arnold,277
School ofEnsigns oftle Engineer Corps,

285
Schreider (Mayor) on Bankovs Brictge,
Potemkin,26O
S chubert, E ranz p ete, 2lZ
Schunann, Roben,232
Scon, Sir Walter, 27
Scriabin, Alexander, 38

Ig2, 330,

el,

mard,,4Z

),230

t3,274
ov-Shchein),

,73
t,341_3

322

Taking ofthe Fifth

Seat, The,77J
Ie (by princess

biku),242

Borisovich,30g

ki\),222
ovich, l
e,

191

(author), 36
ngton, g0

lS1

SaintMatthew,34

St. Pete/s Cathedal, 122

St. Pelage (prison), 357
Saint-Sans, Camille, 2gl, 326, SgS,

29, 96,

Ig2

236

Tatiana,2ll

*i,.i:,,ii::i,;,"i;f

j;,'ole"""

32,233

(cogot),230

89

27
ts Comiques, 34

uls),63

ah,Z7
85,8
gfellow), 94

a) 395
e,204,389
311,19s
1,82

378
261

ys(J. B. priesttey),
274

ntin Sergeyevich,
l0O,

359,393,3s4

322,323,325,326
ich,337

al),lv

4, r41, 176,262,264.

73,375
piene
D.,97

61

eun,379

87,789

s, Orto Rank,
2Zg

,272
,107
reco) I20, 12I,227,

3,i,lXli;ff,:i"7i

dge Univesity,
3l
72

i:i:,[:g

3]4- I z 320-s

Index

428

Tse-Yun-Chan,M.,2n
Tsiolkovs, K. E.,406
Tuileries P alace, 61, 77

Wanderings through Lombardy

Turgenev, I. S..20
Tynyanov, Yuri Nikolayevich, 9l

I
'
"'

We

United States of America, 378

Uspens Cathedral, 280, 324
Uxmal, 142

Vakulinchuk, G., t4, 2I9, 220, 242, 293,

302,34

(William

James),39
Vasil'ev (brothers), 1, 208
Vasnetsov (painter), 280
Veresayev, V., 7

Vernadsky, George, 5l
Verne, fules, 20

Veselovs, A.W.,329
Q

fom Konstadt,2l3

Weber, KarlMana,232
Webster, John (playwright), f 0S

Ur-carceri, l35, f4
'Urcheng, 153

Vie

Engels),

Warnocl Robrt, 1l

U Leang-rse (romb), 240

Ulysses (loyce),249
Uncle Toby, 22S
luntermeyer, Louis, g3

Valasquez, 3
van Gogh, Vincent,360
Vaieties of Religious Experience

(E .

383
Wang Wei.232
Wat and Peace CLev Tolstoy), 3S7

Michet-ange (Romain Rolland), 3

Virgil,40

Vishnevs, Vsevolod, 213

Vizetelly, Ernest,83
Vladimir,323

VoIs, Boris Alexeevich, 33

Vorontsov, Count, 283
Vrubel, Mikhail,307
Vorontsov Palace, 283
Vulgate, The,37
Waetzoldt, Wilhelm, 269, 960
Wagner, Richard, 83, 84, 216, 282, 949,
3-8; Die Walkre, 1O9,34,36
Walzenraum (Ludwig Beger), 32

Welles, Qrson,264,277
westemers,372
Wettlin, Margaret, S
Whistler, James, 238
Whiteman, P ar:J ( J azz), 2Ol
Whinan, Walt,80, B5-8,95, 138, t4S
WII to Believe, The,369
Winckelmann, Johanne Joachim, 382
Winkler, fohn (author of Vl. R. ffeasr), 310
Wit Works lar'oe (Griboyed ov), 2O7, 329
Wolf, Hubert(German painte), 3S9

Wolfflin, l22,yO
Woman inWhite,262,263
Women's Happiness, 394
Wordsworth, 143
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 15
Wu Ch'ao-ch'u, 230

Xesus, Father Pablo de, 269

Yangtse (river), 230, 232
Yasnaya Polyana (lrv Tolstoy's home), 20
yin and yang, 235,23A,239,24O

Yutkevich, Sergei,325
Zaza,97
Zeuxis, 103
Zmin, S.L, 124
Zimrok, Carl, uK)l
Zola, Emile, 7, 9, 30, 60-6, 69,
81

-5,

ZO, 73, 75, i 6,

123, t38, 260, 360, 394_6

Zucrow, M. J., 158

Zweig, Stefan, 88, 90, 94, 95
Zydow, Ekhadr Von, 3