"October"

Richard Taylor asks to what extent the film can lay claim to "authentic" history. He then examines "October"'s relationship to the politics of the period and explains the theory and its application, as well as placing "October" in the wider context of Eisenstein's career.

Sergei Eisenstein's "October" (1927) is a testament to his technical genius, as well as being one of the most remarkable works of propaganda cinema. With sequences such as the storming of the Winter Palace, Eisenstein recreated the 1917 October Revolution as a heroic spectacle, thus furnishing the fledgling Soviet Union with its founding myth. In this analysis of "October", Richard Taylor asks to what extent the film can lay claim to "authentic" history. He then examines "October"'s relationship to the politics of the period and its contribution to the reinforcement of the Lenin cult and the emergent Stalin cult. Taylor explains both the theory and its application before situating "October" in the wider context of Eisenstein's career.