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New Google doodle honours Soviet film visionary Sergei Eisenstein

New Google doodle honours Soviet film visionary Sergei Eisenstein
The Google Doodle in honour of Sergei Eisenstein

22 January 2018

US tech giant Google has celebrated Soviet film icon Sergei Eisenstein with a special doodle dedicated to the “father of montage”.

The tribute marks the 120th birthday of the visionary avant-garde director, who was born in Riga in 1898.

Eisenstein was best known for his pioneering montage technique: a method of editing which combined fast-paced shots in order to suggest a certain theme or feeling. He showed the power of montage in revolutionary films such as Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin, (1927) and The General Line (1929).

A scene from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin

Initially lauded by the Soviet elite, Eisenstein later fell out of favour with Stalin. His penulitmate work, Ivan the Terrible Part II was not released until a decade after his death in 1948, while much of his final work, Ivan the Terrible Part III, was destroyed.