The second screen: S. M. Eisenstein and the cinema of violence

Abstract

Abstract This story is as old as the hills: a father, mother, and son. With Mama Qeaning towards her in search of shelter and care, longing for a caress). With Papa (abandoned, melancholic, standing apart at some distance from him, though holding onto his hand). Now all together: detached, estranged, different, and at the same time so alike, as if united by common suffering: a family scene of early childhood. And finally — the last photo — a kind of emblematic witness to the art of domineering as practised by Father: on the settee, the boy, dressed as a miniature Lord Fontleroy — Papa's ideal come true. Notice the easy grace of the pose, which could have altered in a split second were it not for the mirror, hidden, yet clearly there. The gaze of self-inspection is that which affords (or ought to) naturalness and ease to the pose of the newly made little lord.