“Synthesis” of the Arts or “Friendly Cooperation” between the Arts? The General History of Cinema According to Eisenstein

In his incessant theoretical reflection, Eisenstein lingers more than once over the historiographic question of where to locate cinema within the modern system of the arts. His well-known thesis is that cinema meets all the requirements neces- sary to occupy the very top of this system. Though the thesis remained constant throughout the years, one cannot say the same for the argumentations used to expound and justify it. Two different formulations of this thesis merit particular attention. According to the first, widely diffused throughout the whole of Eisen- stein’s theoretical writings, cinema would perform a “synthesis” of the arts pre- ceding it. The word “synthesis” entails some presuppositions that are anything but innocent, of which Eisenstein is well aware; I will examine them in the first part of this text. The second formulation of the thesis on the primacy of cinema is less structured and therefore more plastic, more open to reconsideration and significant reformulations. One of these reformulations can be found precisely in the Notes for a General History of Cinema published in this volume, the vast historio- graphical project on which Eisenstein worked between 1946 and 1948, during a period of forced inactivity following his first heart attack. Here, Eisenstein speaks of cinema as “the heir of all artistic cultures”; ¹ and, in a paragraph entitled “A Synthesis of the Arts” (sintez iskusstv), he uses the expression “friendly cooperation” (sodruzhestvo iskusstv) with great emphasis (he places an exclamation mark next to it): “A friendly cooperation of nations as basis for a friendly cooperation of the arts!” ²