Don Quixote

Eisenstein's struggle for a community of independent filmmakers

The first book that ten-year-old Sergei Eisenstein bought for himself was a monograph of Honoré Daumier’s drawings. The great French artist's irony, laconic social caricatures and dynamic line influenced Eisenstein’s drawings and later echoed the director's compositions. Eisenstein collected several prints of Daumier’s works, among them one of a painting of Don Quixote. The print is not preserved. We do not know which of the many variations which Daumier painted Eisenstein chose for his home.

In September 1929 Sergei Eisenstein would become a Don Quixote himself, fighting against the windmills of Commercial Cinema.

On their trip through Europe, Eisenstein, his assistant Grigori Aleksandrov and his cinematographer Eduard Tissé travelled to Switzerland to join the Congress of Independent Filmmakers at the Chateau La Sarraz from September 3-7 1929 as the Russian delegates.

It was a meeting of avant-garde filmmakers, film critics and film enthusiasts from all over the world. The Congress can be considered the first film festival – professionals and film lovers presented films in order to discuss and network (or at least, that was a goal of the Congress). Ivor Montagu writes in 1969: “The conference was, I suppose, the very first precursor of all the festivals of cinema which are now such a familiar feature of the landscape, such an occasion for manoeuvring and junketing.” (Ivor Montagu: With Eisenstein in Hollywood, International Publishers, New York, 1969, p. 13)

Indeed Eisenstein formed friendships and collaborations in La Sarraz that would last throughout his life. Following Ivor Montagu’s invitation Eisenstein gave a number of lectures later that year, and more importantly Montagu joined the Russian group on their travels to Hollywood, co-writing the scenarios for the unrealized projects ‘Sutter’s Gold’ and ‘An American Tragedy’. Léon Moussinac, whose acquaintance Sergei Eisenstein made already in 1927 in Moscow, was his host during his trips through France. In Hans Richter’s film ‘Everyday’ Eisenstein would play a small role of an English policeman, the “Bobby”, when visiting his set in December 1929.

The participants of the congress were:

Soviet Union: Sergei Eisenstein, Eduard Tissé (his assistant), Grigori Aleksandrov (his camera man)

Germany: Béla Balázs (film critic and film theorist), Hans Richter (abstract filmmaker), Walter Ruttmann (abstract filmmaker)

France: Robert Aron (film critic and organizer of the congress), Jean-George Auriol (film critic and founder of La Revue du cinéma), Janine Bouissounouse (film critic and secretary of the Congress), Alberto Cavalcanti (film director), Jean Lenauer (film critic at Close Up and La Revue du cinéma, translator at the Congress), André R. Maugé (film critic at La Revue du cinema, translator at the Congress), Léon Moussinac (writer and film critic)

Great Britain: Jack Isaacs (London Film Society and lecturer and King’s College), Ivor Montagu (founder of London Film Society)

Italy: Enrico Prampolini (futurist painter and scenographer), Alberto Sartoris (architect and representative of italian cine-clubs)

Japan: Hiroshi Higo (Prokino (Proletarian Film League of Japan) and cinema owner), Moichiro Tsuchiya (film critic at Kinema Junpo)

Netherlands: Mannus Franken (film critic and cine-club Filmliga)

Austria: Fritz Rosenfeld (editorial journalist at Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung)

Switzerland: Robert Guye (Ciné club de Genève), Arnold Kohler (film critic and Ciné club de Genève), Alfred Masset (film producer and Ciné club de Genève), Georg Schmidt (Schweizerischer Werkbund (association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists))

Spain: Ernesto Giménez Caballero (surrealist writer and Cine Club Español)

US: Montgomery Evans (writer and collector, temporarily cinema owner)

During the Congress – according to Eisenstein’s memoirs it was the 5^th of September – the participants decided to not only talk about film, but produce one together. The resulting film ‘The Storming of La Sarraz’ itself is lost. Accounts on the fate of the film negative differ. But a number of surviving photographs give an impression of the  process of film making and its central  scenes.

Eisenstein – either together with the German filmmaker Hans Richter or on his own – directed the film, and also took part as an actor. His collaborators Grigori Aleksandrov and Eduard Tissé particiapated as cinematographers and actors.  Photos of Walter Ruttmann with a handheld Kinamo camera suggest that he, too, was part of the crew. Another photograph suggests that Eisenstein, Aleksandrov, Tissé, Jean-George Auriol and Jean Lenauer could have made up the production crew.

With or without the consent of hostess Madame de Mandrot the participants used the castle’s decoration and suits of armour to tell a heroic tale: The struggle between Independent and Commercial cinema.

Janine Bouissounouse representing the Spirit of Independent Film is captured by henchmen of Commercial Cinema and rescued by the knights of Independent Film. The side of the villains consists of Béla Balász as the army commander of Commercial Cinema (no photographs seem to be preserved of him in costume), Jack Isaacs as Knight Bluebeard and Moichiro Tsuchiya as the samurai Spirit of Japanese Commercial Cinema, who after his defeat has to perform hara-kiri. To the rescue of Independent Film come Hans Richter as the Knight of Independent Cinema, Léon Moussinac as D’Artagnan, Jean-George Auriol and of course Sergei Eisenstein high on his film-projector-horse as the army commander Don Quixote.

Eisenstein’s route of travel after the Congress first through Switzerland, Europe and then to the US and Mexico is well known. However it is difficult to trace the whereabouts of the footage of ‘The Storming of La Sarraz’.

The film’s supposed directors Hans Richter and Sergei Eisenstein accused each other of taking and losing the footage, but there is evidence that Hiroshi Higo showed it to Japanese Communists under the title ‘Kokusai Dokoritsu Eiga Kaigi’ at an event of the Proletarian Film League of Japan which he belonged to. In fact the film even got a Japanese censorship number (E 7612), that can be found in the inventory of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo – just without the film. As a further curiosity this number refers to a 16mm film copy, while Eduard Tissé shot on a 35mm film camera in La Sarraz. So whether the original material ever made it to Japan, too, remains unclear.

Source: In the Master’s Home, https://whoknowspresents.blogspot.com/2017/08/ritter-eisenstein-ersturmt-la-sarraz.html, https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2019/10/the-lost-film-of-sergei-mikhailovich-eisenstein/ and Publications by the Cinematheque Suisse)