Eisenstein’s Mexican Film – Episodes for Study

It’s hard to overstate the influence of Sergei Eisenstein’s films on both the 1930s and Jay Leyda himself. Yet for Eisenstein, this decade was actually an era of forestalled film projects. The failure of his “Mexico film” has had such a multi-faced afterlife in books, film and other art forms that it’s almost been forgotten that ¡Que Viva Mexico! doesn’t exist. Jay Leyda’s EPISODES FOR STUDY is an exception among the many films made from the material shot by Eisenstein and Tissé in Mexico. The nearly four-hour “study film” is an experiment likely without parallel in the whole of film history in that it presents the raw material for a film while eschewing any specfic narrative arrangement to structure it. Leyda hoped that this would enable “the development of particular ideas to be studied as they are taking form, including the attempts, the mistakes, even the moments of fun that form an indispensable part of any work, even that of a genius.” This rare cinema experience will be enriched by film scholars Oksana Bulgakowa and Elena Vogman and their insights into their own research on Eisenstein. Pianist Eunice Martins and percussionist Simon Berz have also been invited to provide an accompaniment to the silent images.

There will be a 30-minute break halfway through the movie (approx. 6.30). A small snack will be provided.

A 35-mm print from the Deutsche Kinemathek, which the DFFB acquired from the Museum of Modern Art in 1968 on the initiative of Ulrich Gregor, will be shown.