A publishing landmark: the first comprehensive book on the extensive, yet rarely seen, graphic works of cinema’s greatest pioneer, Sergei Eisenstein.
This landmark publication presents, for the first time ever, 500 of the very best and previously unpublished graphic works by cinema’s master of film. Created in collaboration with RGALI – the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts – this book traces Eisenstein‘s extraordinary life and career through the distinctive yet evolving styles of his drawings, from early childhood sketches to set and costume designs, and from surreal psychoanalytic drawings to late abstract works.

Foremost Eisenstein scholar Naum Kleiman brings fresh and incredible insights into the motivation and purpose of the drawings, and reflects upon excerpts from Eisenstein’s own discursive texts, some published here for the first time. Comparative frames from Eisenstein’s movies – scanned from the original film – together with a biographical introduction by film historian Ian Christie complete the revelatory and arresting picture.


An Observer Book of the Year