EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO

Netherlands, 2015, 105 minutes, Colour.
Elmer Baeck, Luis Alberti.
Directed by Peter Greenaway.

Peter Greenaway’s films are an acquired taste. With expertise in Fine Arts, and after many short films, he began making features in the 1980s, beginning with an exercise in design and architecture, The Draughtsman’s Contract. He continued his artistic vein, but with narrative, during that decade.

However, his films of the 1990s were less accessible to the general audience, more esoteric in theme, and more packed with visual design, even crowded pictures around the framework of the image. This was the era of Prospero’s Books, The Baby of Macon, The Pillow Book. He then retired to make more experimental films although he did do a study of Rembrandt and now this rather more straightforward film on Russian director, Sergei Eisenstein.

Eisenstein had become celebrated in Russia, especially with his films October and The Battleship Potemkin. He received invitations from Hollywood to visit and did so, making friends with Charlie Chaplin, and there are a allusions to this visit in this film. However, he moved on to Mexico with the intention of making a film, a documentary. He did film an enormous amount of footage for Que Viva Mexico.

While this film does focus on his ability as director, this is a more personal portrait of a Russian absorbing some of the culture of Central America. He comes across as a rather boisterous personality, partly uninhibited in manner, but inhibited in his own sexual orientation which is put to the test, especially through his Mexican guide, an ethnological professor, married with a family, who seduces Eisenstein. Eisenstein is shocked by the experience but also begins to feel liberated. It can be noted that the seduction sequence is fairly explicit.

Greenaway does not use a lot of his expected techniques. This is a much more restrained film, using the split screen to great advantage, sometimes putting actual photos of celebrities on the margins of the screen to highlight the realistic background of this narrative.

Eisenstein is played by a finish actor, Elmer Baeck, who gives a performance that is a blend of the uninhibited extrovert and the quieter introvert who is on a voyage of discovery, of himself, of his film career, of a different country and culture from what he was used to.

There are some verbal interventions by Stalin and Eisenstein had to return to the Soviet Union and to the furthering of his career, although, by his visit, he seems to have lost some of the esteem that he experienced in Russia.

Whether the film is accurate or not, it is so well made, capturing audience interest, that we feel that we have got to know Sergei Eisenstein.

1. A Peter Greenaway film: his career, style, aesthetics, his subjects, themes?

2. Audience knowledge of Eisenstein, his films, Russian, his career, before Mexico? His films about the Russian Revolution? Going to Mexico, the possibilities for a film?

3. Eisenstein as a person, aged 33, his films, hopes, his visit to Hollywood, being defeated? The visit to Mexico, possibility for a film? His personality, sexual orientation and the significance of the Mexico visit?

4. The period, the early 1930s, Mexico, the visuals, the towns, outside the towns? The musical score? The three men, on guard, dressed as if for a spaghetti western?

5. Greenaway and his adopting a narrative, a timeline? A more direct presentation of his theme? But his visuals: the split screens, the dramatic effect, the photos of actual celebrities, their insertion at the edges of the screen? The drawings and pornography?

6. The character of Eisenstein, his films, the excerpts, his reputation in Russia, outside Russia? No scandals? The Moscow visit of Nicholas Schenk, the Hollywood contract? In Hollywood, walking with Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks? His development of his film technique, montage?

7. The Mexican city, the buildings, the colour of the buildings in the vistas, the church, the belltower, the hotel, the lavish room, the shower, the phone, the luggage, packing, his walks around the city, the underpass and the sleazy aspects? Going to the accidental catastrophe, holding the child?

8. His photos, the maid, taking them, the manager, the issue of pornography, the police? The significance of the press – and the reporting of his holding the child at the disaster, and the various interpretations? The camera, the look, the stereotyped Mexican locations?

9. Eisenstein and his temperament? His white suit, given by Chaplin? His shoes and no socks, allowing them to be cleaned by a boot-man, comparisons with life in Moscow? His phone calls to Pera? Life in Mexico and Moscow, running water, wearing underwear…?

10. The emotions, his arrival, the issue of the flies in the close-ups? Flamboyant style, the car, his room, the maids and the staff, on the bed, his eccentricities, walking around naked, unable to start the shower?

11. Palomino, as guide, presentable? His background in ethnography, to comparative religion, losing his faith? His wife, children, the meal and the talk?

12. Eisenstein going around the town, the detail, his becoming sick, vomiting, Palomino fixing him, calming him down, the discussions?

13. Eisenstein and his sense of his body, ugly? Stripping, on the bed, the shower, the talk, on the phone in the shower? Palomino and his talking, stripping, facing him, the arousal, on the bed, the penetration, the blood, the effect, masturbating him? This transition in Eisenstein’s life, his talk about his sexuality and Moscow, restrained? Palomino and his response? Eisenstein falling in love, not wanting to be?

14. Upton Sinclair and his wife, producing the film, Hunter and the photos? The contract? The hopes of the film, capturing Mexico? Scenes of the shooting of the film, the enormous amount of footage, the budget, his extravagance? Mary and her arrival, dominant, upbraiding him? His wearing only a shirt? Her reaction? her attack on Palomino? Her ultimatum? Upton Sinclair in hospital?

15. The issue of the Visa, the limit, his passport close-ups? Mrs Palomino and her talking with him, persuading him to leave? The phone call to Pera, lying on the floor? In the car, leaving at funeral pace, on the Day of the Dead? On the roof with Palomino, throwing down his shoes?

16. The hotel staff, taking the photos, her parents, the manager, promotion, life at the hotel?

17. Symbolic character of the bellringer, blind and deaf, the ringing of the bell, having his meals, the symbol? Eisenstein going in, sitting with him under the bell?

18. The final information, the footage, the Russian films, his career in Russia during the 30s and 40s, anti-homosexual laws in 1936, his death in 1948, his banging on the pipes, his not being heard?

19. An interesting portrait of a film genius? An eccentric personality?