ABSTRACT:
Both pathos and irony prevail in Eisenstein’s films representing the Russian revolution (that is, the immediate past of the films). The spectator of today whose relation to history is characterized by an ironic attitude (Hayden White) is more and more responsive to the ironic elements of Eisenstein’s October (1927). For us, for example, the movements up and down do not express the abstract notion of religion (which is Eisenstein’s own interpretation) or the mythos (heaven and hell, as Northrop Frye put it), but give an ironic visual image of the fight for power. In the present paper particular pictures, shots and montages of the film are analyzed in detail.
