Strike (1925 film) instance of film
Strike (Russian: Стачка, romanized: Stachka) is a 1925 Soviet silent drama film directed and edited by Sergei Eisenstein. Originating as one entry out of a proposed seven-part series titled "Towards Dictatorship of the Proletariat", Strike was a joint collaboration between the Proletcult Theatre and the film studio Goskino. As Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, it marked his transition from theatre to cinema, and his next film Battleship Potemkin emerged from the same film cycle.
Arranged in six parts, the film depicts a strike in 1903 by the workers of a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia, and their subsequent suppression. It is best known for a sequence towards the climax, in which the violent suppression of the strike is cross-cut with footage of cattle being slaughtered, and similar animal metaphors are used throughout the film to describe of various individuals.
Upon release, Strike received praise from critics, but many audiences were confused by its eccentric style. It received little international distribution until its reappraisal during the 1950s and 1960s. It is now recognized as one of Eisenstein's more accessible works and a major influence on many of his contemporaries.Style and themes
Strike applies Eisenstein's principle of "montage of attractions". Developed during his work in theatre, the principle stipulates that each moment of a work should be filled with surprise and intensity. His influential essay, Montage of Attractions, was written between production and premiere.Eisenstein's editing is rapid, even compared to other Soviet filmmakers of the era. Strike has an average shot length of 2.5 seconds, less than half that of a typical Hollywood film. Dissolves, traditionally used to indicate the passage of time between shots, are used instead as a visual effect. In some scenes, the aspect ratio is dynamic, with masks in front of the camera being added or removed to change the framing of a shot. The film also makes use of multiple exposures and iris shots.Eisenstein uses multiple visual motifs that, after being established with one side of the conflict, change over the course of the narrative arc. Early on, animal identities distinguish the police spies, and pushing goat in a wheelbarrow is equated to throwing out the factory manager. At the end of the film, shots of a bull being slaughtered are used to symbolize violence against the workers. Images of puddles and swimming link water to the workers early in the film. Later on, a heavy rain appears during the capture of the first leader, and firemen attack the workers with large jets of water. Circular shapes are originally associated with the workers, through images of spinning flywheels and turbines. During the strike the wheels are stopped, and the motif reappears as the barrels in which the provocateurs live and the wheels of the fire truck.
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