Eisensteins Mexican Film Episodes for Study (1955)

Eisenstein journeyed to Mexico in late 1930 to begin shooting a film With backing provided by Upton and Mary Craig Sinclair the great Soviet auteur planned to make an epochspanning pageant of Mexicos political history and cultural iconography moving from the preColumbian era through colonization and finally revolution with the project running over budget the film was shut down Sinclair eventually deposited the film materials at MoMA in 1953 at which point the scholar Jay Leyda assembled and annotated the shots ordering them according to the filmmakers plans and presenting the images just as they had been shot unedited here one is given the opportunity to attend to Eisenstein in an entirely different way and aspects that might otherwise be overshadowed come to the fore the way he works with nonprofessional actors for example or the striking miseenscène MoMA