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Eisenstein: The Little-Known Russian Influence on George Lucas

22/1/2018

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Parentless baby carriages, wintry battles, cowled monks, and stormtrooper helmets on faceless villains are enduring images from Soviet film director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein.

Yesterday’s Google doodle commemorated the 120th anniversary of his birth. Since this movie pioneer’s works were always a huge component of Russian culture courses I taught at Ohio State, I’d like to use this opportunity to share some uncommon observations I’ve made over the years.

His Battleship Potemkin, depicting rebelling sailors and civilians following the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, is best known for its “Odessa Steps” scene, in which tsarist troops crush the uprising. The image of a baby carriage rolling down a multitiered outdoor staircase, the child’s caretaker having apparently been shot, has become thoroughly embossed on the world of cinematography. It is at once heartrending and an iconic textbook example of early, innovative technique.

It has also been widely imitated. Director David Lean tips his hat to Eisenstein in Dr. Zhivago, in a scene in which protestors are shot in the (failed) 1905 Russian Revolution. Their beat of their march is banged out of a parade-style bass drum, but after soldiers on horseback fire into the crowd, the instrument rolls, bereft of its player, down the street. Madonna seems to have taken a cue from The Odessa Steps in her 2013 short, Secret Project Revolution, co-created with Ste. In one shot, bare-chested males dance in front of a burning pram. With its large, old-fashioned wheels, it looks a century old, it just had to allude to the old Soviet director.

Probably Eisenstein’s most enduring influence was on George Lucas. As a student at UCLA’s film school in the late 1960’s, the budding director would have had plenty of exposure to Potemkin. As well as Alexander Nevsky, about a 13th-century saint/warrior who repelled an incursion by the Teutonic Knights into the Republic of Novgorod, an autonomous Russian city some two hundred miles inland from the Baltic Sea. The German monastic order was much reputed for pillaging and raping rather than for any Christian charity, yet Eisenstein ramps up the imagery to epitome-of-evil proportions. The military leaders of the Knights wear helmets topped by twisted talons and ram’s horns—perhaps only a slight exaggeration. The foot-soldiers’ headgear completely obscures their faces, dehumanizing these Crusaders. And they throw Russian babies on a fire!

Swastikas adorn the miter of the bishop who accompanies them—certainly an unhistorical smear. He holds Mass while a cowled monk plays a droning organ—doubtless brought by sleigh across the snow as part of the entourage, in spite of all the logistical problems it entails. This unrealistic detail, I suspect, is meant to heighten the contrast between Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, whose traditional liturgies have only a cappella music. They’re a dark Other from the West. The dirge-like music is part of the score by Sergei Prokofiev, whose sinister half-tones serve as boos and hisses every time the evildoers appear onscreen. As the 1938 film was shelved under Stalin’s orders after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and not released until the 1950s, the soundtrack became damaged. But the scratchiness actually improves the effect—though a remastered version has come out in recent years.

The German and Russian camps finally duke it out on the frozen Lake Peipus, and the Crusaders plunge ingloriously into the water, weighed down, of course, by all that chainmail. The wintry battleground is widely regarded as the inspiration behind the battle on Hoth, the ice planet, in Star Wars 5. If you need further evidence of the Eisenstein-Lucas connection, consider that Skywalker Ranch, George’s hundred-million-dollar pad in Marin County, has an Eisenstein suite.

Finally, consider the side-by-side stills of Alexander Nevsky and Star Wars characters and scenes in this blog entry’s slideshow. I submit that both Darth Vader and the Emperor owe their costuming to the Eisenstein film. In any event, Eisenstein’s legacy in indisputable.
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Galloping Highlights 2017

1/1/2018

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​2017 was a very, very good to me, I might say in the role of immigrant Pasquale. Here are some of the things that delighted me most.

​January

Did a major translation of 120 pages, a private contract of a book of days for a Czech serving in the Austro-Hungarian army from 1906-09.
 
February
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​Played the role of Pasquale in The Most Happy Fella, my first time in a musical.
 
July
​Appeared in Young Frankenstein: The Musical as Inspector Kemp. This summer production by North Street Playhouse was fun and hard work. The professional actors/singers/dancers hired for the program also served as mentors to the young people interning. While I was “local adult talent,” their presence really raised the bar for me. I was flattered to have the opening lines – well, the first of any length, that is, and the ones the get the opening laughs and set the tone. I also had the vocal solo in the opening number to Act II, which challenged me with holding a high F for six measures.
 
August
​In another translation job, I had to decipher hand-writing in a letter from the 1960s, written by an elderly lady in Rusyn, in an old, Hungarian-style script (nowadays it’s written in Cyrillic). I’ve had zero instruction in Rusyn and it was in a thick dialect, but I was able to interpolate from my knowledge of neighboring languages. For the most part—some phrases were too difficult to figure out reliably. But it was enough to give the client a picture of life in the Old World—and to make contact with previously unknown relatives here in the States.
 
Began work as Chess Coach at the Eastern Shore Community College.
 
September – finally figured out all the words and chords of the Russian Gypsy song “Poy, zveni, moya gitara.” I couldn’t find guitar tabs, and even the lyrics I located online didn’t quite correspond to the version I’d seen on YouTube that I liked so much. Anyway, after three years of off-and-on attempts, I finally got it and premiered it at the (Cape Charles, VA) Lemon Tree Gallery’s open mike night on the 15th.
 
November
​Played three (small) roles in “The Man Who Came to Dinner”

Gave a talk at the Science and Philosophy Seminar at Eastern Shore Community College: “Travels with Franz Ferdinand: Or How WWI Kicked Off.” It was a mix of slide show, video, and history on my trip around the former Austria-Hungary in summer 2014.
 
Finished a first draft of my book on that trip, “Travels with Ferdinand and Friends.”
 
December
​Added several songs to my Christmas repertoire and played a really nice Christmas Eve gig in Bizzotto’s restaurant in Onancock, VA, in addition to three open mike appearances.
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    Musical & Literary Wanderings of a Galloping Gypsy

    Mark Eliot Nuckols is a travel writer from Silver Beach Virginia who is also a musician and teacher.

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