ABSTRACT
Eisenstein’s unfinished work Rezhissura (Direction) occupies a unique place in his writings. Instead of an a posteriori analysis of his own work or that of other artists, this book offers something different. It is concerned with the minutest practical details and problems of mise-enscène-the turning of the head, the raising of a hand, the size and shape of a window. But at the same time Sergei Mikhailovich is searching for solutions and means of solution-in different art-forms and sciences, in the diaries and letters of artists and scientists, and in his own experience. The breaks in the narrative (the line of solution) provide pleasure and increase our excitement. They give this book something of the form of a detective novel, a form which Eisenstein very much loved. But this whodunit has no simple, unique solution, since the deed is not done. We merely review different ways of doing it. It combines, so to speak, the crime with the psychology of crime, action with reflection. It is as if the imagination had left a fluorescent trail as it flitted from flower to flower.
