An analytical assessment of the audio-visual structure in Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky" which utilizes both primary and secondary sources. I focus on the functional and conceptual aspects of the film's score by contextualizing it within the framework of Eisenstein's theory of sound-film and the nature of Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration.

Summary:

Merritt divides up his essay into three distinct parts: an introduction with historical background, a formal musical analysis of the score, and an assessment of the Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration. In the first part, he delivers a harsh criticism against both artists. He accuses Eisenstein of “inconsistencies, contradictions and confusions” in Nevsky and condemns his tactics of manipulating the epic compression and ellipsis in order to reinvent Nevsky for war propaganda purposes. These ellipses in the narrative are underscored by Prokofiev’s music, which opens up “fissures between the soundtrack and the images, commenting on and occasionally even contradicting what is seen on the screen” (36). The analysis of the music is very formalistic and examines the interplay of audio and visual forms, eventually arriving at the conclusion that sequences in the movie work through “principles of irony and denial” – the sound denies the evidence before our eyes and there are no attempts to resolve these contradictions (39). The third part is the most interesting one and it does a superb job in integrating Prokofiev’s experience in Hollywood with the conditions for sound-production in the Soviet Union, claiming that Nevsky is “the greatest film score ever written trapped inside the worst sound track ever recorded” (44). It also reiterates the fact that “by all accounts, the Eisenstein/Prokofiev collaboration was a remarkably creative and congenial one” (42).

Evaluation & Analysis:

The most interesting aspect of Merritt’s essay is the influence of Walt Disney on Prokofiev and thus on the sound design of Alexander Nevsky. Other secondary sources tend to either overlook this fact or assign only a minor importance to it. The Eisenstein/Prokofiev occasional operational method of shooting film to a pre-recorded score has been frequently – albeit incorrectly – labeled as first director/composer collaboration where the composer composed a score before the images were filmed. Merritt does a brilliant job in pointing out that Prokofiev’s visit of the Walt Disney studio in 1938 – the most ignored one in all of Prokofiev’s studies - had intrigued Prokofiev, particularly the fact that Disney’s animators synchronized their drawings to the comic scores and were able to an create an absolute, close synchronization (in fact, the term is “Mickey-mousing”). Ergo, Prokofiev witnessed for the first time a branch of film-making where music was recorded before the images were animated. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that the relationship between music and visuals created by Eisenstein/Prokofiev in Alexander Nevsky are almost devoid of minute synchronization, because the music does not accompany or punctuate the action, but merges with the structure of the film and thus comments on the images. Merritt acknowledges this fact, but asserts that there is something “Disneyesque” in the comic effects of Prokofiev’s score, which is basically a very sound argument, but unfortunately, Merritt designates only one short paragraph to it and the argument therefore remains in its embryonic form.

Summary:

Seroff’s book is another biography of Sergei Prokofiev. Chapter 26 of his book opens up with Prokofiev’s journey to the US in early 1938 and ends a year later when Prokofiev himself conducted the first performance of the cantata Alexander Nevsky, which he adapted from his score for the movie. The chapter is heavily based on primary sources - Prokofiev’s and Eisenstein’s statements about each other, their quotes and letters about their collaboration on Nevsky, but it also includes an article that Prokofiev wrote later on about his journey to the US, which includes his opinions on contemporary American music. Seroff gives a full picture of the character of Prokofiev’s composition, ranging from the “upside-down” means of orchestration, to placement of the microphones and mixing experiments in the studios. He also examines the “exceptionally harmonious relationship that stemmed from Eisenstein’s understanding and knowledge of Prokofiev’s works, and of Prokofiev the man” (217), but also asserts that “the two collaborators, however, did not always agree” (219). Seroff also talks about Prokofiev’s “nationalistic” music, but agrees with Eisenstein that through his “true originality in the Hegelian sense, Prokofiev was both national and international” (218).

Evaluation & Analysis:

    Seroff’s discourse on the nature of collaboration between Eisenstein and Prokofiev is exceptional, although Seroff mistakenly dates Prokofiev’s visit to United States to 1939, instead of 1938. Unlike Robinson, Seroff acknowledges the fact that Prokofiev bought home with him some technical knowledge in sound-film production, which he had acquired while visiting film studios in Hollywood. Although they both explore Prokofiev’s guiding principle in using Russian folk music of the 13th century by recomposing it with the instrumental possibilities of the 20th century orchestra, Seroff adds another dimension to his music by convincingly presenting Prokofiev’s score not only as profoundly nationalistic, but also as very international, due to the variety of his musical language that incorporates not only purely national, historical or patriotic themes, but themes of Renaissance Italy and Shakespearean England. This logically implicates that there was also a temporal juxtaposition in Prokofiev’s score on various levels – using contemporary orchestra to recreate the Russian folksongs of the 13th century but also drawing the inspiration from the past, from the heroic deeds of Russia in 19th century (defeating Napoleon), while simultaneously subtly integrating into the score the elements from the Byzantine and European cultures of medieval times. Based on this, the affinity between Eisenstein and Prokofiev has a common ground; one that might be labeled paradoxical synchronization. For Eisenstein, it would be the non-synchronization of sound to visual images (music not as mere accompaniment) and his endorsement of the contrapuntal use of sound, while for Prokofiev it would be a two-layered paradoxical synchronization of a huge variety of musical themes (old & new, national & international).

Summary:

This lecture, entitled “Problems of Composition”, was delivered by Eisenstein to his class of student-directors on Christmas Day 1946. Although almost the entire presentation focuses on the composition of frames and shots in the process of filming an adaptation of a novel or poem, at the end of the lecture Eisenstein offers a very interesting insight into Prokofiev’s working methods as a composer of his film scores. He expresses high esteem for Prokofiev’s astonishing ability for “contrapuntal development of music which fuses organically and sensually with the visual images”, after Prokofiev saw the edited material just twice and knew only the number of seconds allotted to him. According to Eisenstein, Prokofiev was able to find “structural and rhythmical equivalents for the edited piece of film” and when working with an unedited material, Prokofiev was capable to “discover the potentialities of structural laws inherent in it” (181). He also reminds the students that although the director doesn’t have to possess a musical talent, he/she needs to have at least an ability to envision some organic congruence of the movement of the music with the movement of the visual contour.

Evaluation & Analysis:

    Upon first sight, this printed primary source (Eisenstein’s lecture preserved in a stenographic record) evidently contradicts Eisenstein’s other accounts about the collaboration between him and Prokofiev. Although Eisenstein repeatedly throws compliments at Prokofiev’s prodigious musical talent, here he carelessly degrades the role and function of his composer in the film-making process. The cooperation between the two, according to this presentation, limited Prokofiev’s role to a quasi Hollywood-style composer – a composer who gets the edited version of the film and/or chunks of unedited footage and then simply makes the score, without having any impact on the visual structure of the film. However, it is a known fact that Prokofiev had a significant say about the composition of shots in several scenes of Alexander Nevsky and it is therefore more than likely that this unfair “degradation” is totally unintentional one on Eisenstein’s part. The illustrations and examples he uses in this case are, nonetheless, very vivid re-creations of Prokofiev’s working techniques and enable us to understand how his music accomplishes to permeate Eisenstein’s montage structures in Alexander Nevsky and create an organic compound with the visual images.