The General Line

Eisenstein and Aleksandrov try to bolster Soviet Agricultural policy in The General Line

Sergei Einstein and Grigori Aleksandrov's The General Line (also known as Old and New), from 1929, is a hymn to the Soviet farm collective. That Stalin's farm collectivization program resulted in a famine which killed millions casts a shroud on the artistic achievement of this film, much as Griffith's championing of the Klan stains The Birth of a Nation. I bring Griffith up because he is the main influence on Eisenstein, traces of A Corner in Wheat, Broken Blossoms and Way Down East haunt this film. Eisenstein moved beyond the Victorian melodrama of Griffith to a wider appreciation of the possibilities of film as a more plastic, dynamic and visual medium. Dialectical montage was just one of his tools. Eisenstein interjected a dash of the futurism of 20th Century Russia. This is evident in the film's paeans to technology which exalt the progress of industrialization.

The General Line is hamstrung by its ideological requirements. It is an early example of Socialist realism and even includes a tractor ballet as part of its coda. However, the General Line's status as a propaganda does not conflict with Eisenstein's sensibilities. Much of the film's satire is that of a sophisticated urbanite (Jewish, Marxist and gay) poking fun at rural Russian rednecks. The bearded peasantry (beards had been viewed askance by the Western leaning elite since Peter the Great) are portrayed as drooling sheep deluded by the Church and ripped off by fat kulaks. Because of his talent, Eisenstein gets away with broad cartoons in the service of the state. As with Griffith, an artist's touch with children and animals soften the manipulative nature of his art.