MovieChat Forums > Aleksandr Nevskiy (1939) Discussion > Eisenstein's first sound movie? Why?

Eisenstein's first sound movie? Why?


I just finished playing a run of Alexander Nevsky in concert with the New York Philharmonic, of which I'm a member. The music is great, the photography unbelievable (I was lucky enough to be able to see the screen from my place in the orchestra, and watched whenever I wasn't playing), but the acting is over-the-top silent style, and the foley effects brought some big laughs. (Examples: the kaboom when the horse slips on the ice, the sudden appearance of swishing sword noises halfway through the battle scenes, the way the background noise fades in advance when a character is about to speak during the fight.)

Eisenstein knew about the new sound movies from his time in Hollywood in 1930--did he just not have access to sound technology during the 30's after he went back to Russia? Seems amazing that this film was made in the same era as Gone With The Wind; at a glance, I would have guessed it from the late 20's.

It was a great experience to play it with the film. We've done excerpts in concert form, but the music is too repetitious to stand well on its own, as are most film scores.

Would love to hear from anybody who knows something about Eisenstein's history.

Judy

reply

At the beginning Eisenstein was very critical of the new technology.
He saw sound as an opportunity to widen the possibilities of montage,
i.e. to use sound ironically contrapunctually but not the way
we know sound films today. He expressed his fear that sound film
might destroy the artistic expressions of the montage silent movies
in his so called Sound Film Manifesto (1928), which he created together
with V. Pudovkin and G. Aleksandrow.

Having that in mind it's easy to understand it took him quite some time
to make a sound movie that, where people talk and you hear them
talking the same time you see them talking. (This seems so natural
for us, but when Sound film came up, this seemed to be almost
ridiculous for Eisenstein)

Hope, I helped you,
Cinemator (Germany)

reply

I'm the principal trombonist in the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds and, yesterday, we performed just the "Battle on the Ice" segment to video at our concert.

I have seen the film in its entirety many years ago, and I had always thought that, being a "silent" film, it was made in the 1920s. How strange to discover that it came out at the same time as "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz".

Not everyone embraced the "talkies" -- remember Chaplin!

reply