Soviet era film director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein began collaborating with Alexander Luria and Lev Vigotsky, key figures in neuropsychology and developmental psychology, in 1925, the year he released his most famous film, Battleship Potemkin. Julia Vassilieva, after studying psychology in Moscow, got the opportunity to study the papers of Luria and Vigotsky, both of whom had a long term collaboration with Eisenstein. We talk about them, their work, Eisenstein's involvement in their research and what he took from them. Julia outlines the perilous times they lived in, Luria means of surviving the various purges and how out of favour Vigotsky was perhaps spared execution by dying of TB in 1934. We talk about what Eisenstein regarded as his life's work, the still largely untranslated 'Method' uncompleted when he died in 1948 and future directions for Eisenstein research. Another great transdisciplinary Brainland conversation.

Participants:

Julia Vassileva, Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/julia-vassilieva/

Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History, Birkbeck, University of London. www.ianchristie.org

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Papers by Julia: EISENSTEIN AND CULTURAL-HISTORICAL THEORY,  2017, 

The Flying Carpet. Studies on Eisenstein and Russian Cinema in Honor of Naum Kleiman

https://www.academia.edu/40926187/

"The Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria Collaboration", 2019, Projections

https://www.academia.edu/100293838/The_Eisenstein_Vygotsky_Luria_Collaboration

"Psychological Humanities, Sciences, and the Arts in Russia"

in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology,2020

https://www.academia.edu/100293865/Psychological_Humanities_Sciences_and_the_Arts_in_Russia

"Sergei Eisenstein", in Screening the Past, December 2017  Great DirectorsIssue 85

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2017/great-directors/sergei-eisenstein/

Oksana Bulgakowa’s biography of Eisenstein: https://europe.potemkinpress.com/products/oksana-bulgakowa-sergei-eisenstein-a-biography-1

More on Eisenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein

Julia and Ian's recent book 'Eisenstein Universe'. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eisenstein-universe-9781350142091/

More on A.R.Luria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Luria

A. R. Luria's 'The man with the shattered world': https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674546257

Lev Vigotsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky

Vigotsky's 'Psychology of Art': https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262720052/the-psychology-of-art/

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown. 

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Portrait sketch by KB

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