Oktyabr (Oktober)

From spring to October 1917. Eight months: the history of the Russian Revolution. For this film, commissioned by the Moscow Politburo to mark the tenth anniversary of the upheaval, Eisenstein has 500,000 roubles, 10,000 extras, the Winter Palace, the city of St. Petersburg-Leningrad, the armoured cruiser ‘Aurora’ and – at the height of the energy crisis – a myriad of kilowatt hours of electricity. Instead of a monumental piece of propaganda, however, he made his wildest, most intellectual, most experimental, most baroque and most daring film. In an endless cinematic transformation of time, the Neva drawbridge rises, the hair of the dead glides over the edge of the bridge, and the horse carcass dangles over the depths. According to Eisenstein, the hieroglyphic language of film is capable of articulating every idea, every system, every political slogan purely from within itself, i.e. unreservedly cinematically. No sooner said than done in 1927. A triumphant year in terms of self-confidence, willpower and the capabilities of the seventh art. (H.T.)

At the piano: Gerhard Gruber