Sergei Eisenstein's first film is, without doubt, one of the most astonishing debuts in film history. His introduction of dialectical montage--which included then-innovative shock cuts to such violent images as a raised club, a bloody face, and a bull's throat being cut--both disturbed and galvanized contemporary audiences. .. Read more
| Starring | Maxim Shtraukh, Grigori Alexandrov, Mikhail Gomorov |
|---|---|
| Director | Sergei Eisenstein |
| Genres | Drama |
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Sergei Eisenstein's first film is, without doubt, one of the most astonishing debuts in film history. His introduction of dialectical montage--which included then-innovative shock cuts to such violent images as a raised club, a bloody face, and a bull's throat being cut--both disturbed and galvanized contemporary audiences. Combined with the expressionistic compositional style Eisenstein had absorbed from French and German films, it established its director as a new force in world cinema. Commissioned by the government to commemorate the first, failed Bolshevik revolution, the film covers a 1912 strike at a metalworks factory whose workers have been bullied and humiliated by the plant management. When a fired worker commits suicide, the workers organize a peaceful strike. But the plant bosses make use of agents provocateurs and eventually bring in the czar's troops, who crack down on the strikers with maximum brutality. Aside from his editing innovations, Eisenstein pioneered the concept of the collective group as a character, influenced by the example of the newly formed Soviet Union, as well as the Constructivist art of the period.
| Starring | Maxim Shtraukh, Grigori Alexandrov, Mikhail Gomorov |
|---|---|
| Director | Sergei Eisenstein |
| Studio | EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 35 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 17 Jul 2000 Production year: 1924 |
| Format | DVD |
Originally commissioned for an eight-part history of the Revolution, Sergei Eisenstein's debut feature was an electrifying testament to the dramatic and intellectual power of cinema. It chronicles the pitiless suppression of a 1912 factory uprising after one of the workers had committed suicide. The bold decision to focus on collective heroism invests the film with a scale and energy that is intensified by the brilliance of Eisenstein's rhythmic editing of Edouard Tissé's starkly realistic visuals. Juxtaposing images to give them satirical, metaphorical or emotional weight (the massacre being intercut with slaughterhouse scenes), Eisenstein transformed kino-eye footage into the kino-fist he hoped would inspire revolutionary endeavour.
Eisenstein's first feature also remains his most watchable; if his theories of montage and typage were already much... read more on Time Out
Repulsive in purpose, enthralling as a study of propaganda and the twisted values of soviet society.
A very good film. Not as good as Battleship Potempkin or Ivan the Terrible but worth seeing in its own right.
Eisenstien's first and perhaps best film along with Battleship Potempkin. Made when he was only 25, Strike has a lot of the anarchic energy you would associate with other brash debuts such as 'Citizen Kane' and 'A Bout de Souffe' however there is a strong ideological message as well. I would watch this first as it is and then with the commentary which is really illuminating. This is a true testament to the sheer power of a purely visual cinema.