Episode Details

Sergei Eisenstein invented modern film editing with Battleship Potemkin and then spent the rest of his career trying to survive a dictator who understood exactly how powerful cinema could be. Stalin alternately praised and persecuted him, approved and banned his films, and kept him alive only because his talent was too useful to waste.

This episode traces Eisenstein from his engineering background through the revolution, his Hollywood misadventure, and the impossible task of making great art for a tyrant.

• The Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin became the most studied scene in film history
• He developed the theory of montage that became the foundation of modern film editing
• He spent time in Hollywood and Mexico but was unable to complete projects in either place
• Stalin personally censored Part II of Ivan the Terrible and banned it from release