에이젠쉬테인의 '성자전' : 『알렉산드르 넵스키』

Abstract

Alexander Nevsky is a landmark in Sergei Eisenstein's filmography, marking not only his first sound film but also his first cooperation with Prokofiev and Nikolai Cherkasov. This film also serves as a fertile ground for discussion, since it reveals the shift of Eisenstein's film aesthetics. This article aims at investigating one aspect of Eisenstein's new aesthetics by looking into the ways the director utilizes in dealing with a historical theme. Even though Alexander Nevsky is a revered historical figure in Russian history, the Nevsky created by Eisenstein is, as I try to prove, far from being faithful to historical truth- In the first place, few historical sources passed down to the twentieth century. Yet, the apparent difficulty did not pose an obstacle for the director who took advantage of the scarcity of historical sources. In brief, Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky is a product born out of the social demand, rather than a historical figure. To continue his career in the middle of Stalin's Great Purge in 1937, Eisenstein had to conform to the state policy on arts and Alexander Nevsky is by all means his response to the so-called Socialist Realism. Thus, I examine Eisenstein's film from the perspective of genre, tracing its characteristics of Socialist Realism in parallel to those of hagiography. What is interesting is that Eisenstein relied on the images of Christ in creating his Alexander Nevsky. All in all, Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky can be regarded as a film version of Soviet hagiography with the implicit allusions to Christ, crystallized particularly in the character of Alexander Nevsky.