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A Companion to the War Film

historical project. While they are not arranged in any particular order, the focus of these texts can be distinguished in terms of their scope. Essays by Francois Albera, Jane Gaines, Masha Salazkina and Natalie Ryabchikova, among others, extend the framing work of Somaini’s introduction, situating the notes within historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts. This type of essay addresses the notes on the level of a conceptual project, considering what concepts of film history Eisenstein puts forward, the pertinence of the notes to the ‘historical turn’ in the field of film and media studies, along with the historical conditions that influenced Eisenstein’s work on the notes such as the founding of the Cinema Section of the Institute of Art History of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1947–1948. Other essays, such as those by Luka Arsenjuk, Georges Didi-Huberman, and Abe Geil focus on particular theoretical issues such as Eisenstein’s theory of typage, the dynamic composition of his images and his connections of pathos to revolutionary praxis. Such essays limit their references to specific elements of the notes in order to consider their wider implications to film theory, history and aesthetics. Addressing the way Eisesntein conceived the relationship between the film and the audience, Nico Baumbach traces the relationship between aesthetics and politics through Eisenstein’s desire to turn film viewing into a form of productive labour. In his contribution, Philip Rosen delineates the convergence between Eisesntein and Bazin regarding the problematic idea of time, which for both theorists is fundamentally generative for art and culture as it motivates attempts to reenact that which has occurred and preserve that which is lost in time. Given the breadth of the notes, all 13 essays provide valuable models for productively engaging with Eisenstein’s project. More explicit organization of the accompanying essays would have improved an already impressive combination of Eisenstein’s notes and contemporary reflections, but this is the slightest of quibbles. This volume, to its great credit, expands productively the study of Eisenstein’s film theory as well as prompting new approaches to film history through discontinuities, jumps, and the resonance of past and present developments in art.