Eisenstein on the Play of Objects

This publication presents Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished draft essay, referred to in film scholarship as “Igra predmetov” [The Play of Objects] (1925–26). As film historian Naum Kleiman has emphasised, this early text expands Eisenstein’s concept of cinematic imagery beyond editing alone, foregrounding the expressive agency of objects, the role of the frame and intra-frame material, and the “pictorial processing” of matter through light, optics, and associative perception. All footnotes and scholarly annotations accompanying the text are by Naum Kleiman. The English translation of Eisenstein’s draft and Kleiman’s commentaries was prepared by Irina Schulzki for the workshop “Sergei Eisenstein and the Play of Objects”, held in Potsdam from 22 to 24 November 2018.