Sergei Eisenstein and Jean Painlevé: science is animation

International audienceEisenstein's Parisian time is crucial in helping us to understand certain fundamental aspects of his surrealist vision of Mexico, as well as to grasp the influence of his conceptualisation of the principle of 'intellectual and conflicting' montage within 'heterodox' surrealism. The dissident branch of surrealism was predominately represented by Georges Bataille and his journal Documents. 2 In response to André Breton's Second Surrealist Manifesto, published in December of 1929, 3 which directly criticised certain members of the movement, the 'expelled' surrealists (Jacques Baron, Jacques-André Boiffard, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Robert Desnos, Georges Limbour, Michel Leiris, Jacques Prévert, Roger Vitrac, etc.) published on 15 January 1930 a pamphlet entitled A Corpse (Un cadavre). In his Memoirs, Eisenstein claims his proximity to the 'left democratic wing of Surrealists, which had broken away from the Breton faction. They were my friends.' 4 This leads us to identify a common method between Eisenstein and the dissident branch of surrealism, first and foremost through a convergent approach, i.e., said 'conflicting and dialectic montage'. 5 The convergent method was most effectively explained, on the one hand, through the concept of montage developed by Eisenstein in four essays written during the course of 1929 ('Beyond the Shot', 'Perspectives', 'The Dramaturgy of Film Form