Theory of Expressive Movement

Eisenstein began work on the theory as early as the 1920s, during the time of the Proletcult . A strong influence on the director was exerted by the work of Ludwig Klades “Expressive movement and image power”, the ideas of which he rethought in his own way, and the concept of biomechanics of Vsevolod Meyerhold . In 1923, S. Eisenstein and S. Tretyakov wrote the article “Expressive Movement”, just at the time when the concept of “new anthropology of the actor” Lev Kuleshov gained popularity and the “left” theater front, which contrasted itself with the academic theater, gained momentum. The idea was to rethink the role of the theater, turning it from a mirror of life into life itself, creativity. The proletarian theater assumed the blurring of the boundaries between the audience and what is happening on the stage, and the actor himself was called upon to ensure this merger, having, in addition to the theater attributes, only his own expressive means. Eisenstein saw the main goal of theatrical action, and subsequently the cinema, in influencing the viewer, so the task was to find the ultimate acting expressiveness ^[1] .

Key Points of the Theory of Expressive Movement

Despite the fact that in Eisenstein’s theory there are borrowings from various physiognomic models, namely L. Klages’s theories, the director himself did not fully share these concepts and talked about the fallacy of some provisions, explaining this partly by the author’s socio-historical context. Eisenstein believed that it was necessary to understand "what are these errors and what is the positive contribution of each of them in approaching the exhaustive (to this day) provisions on this issue" ^[2] . Nevertheless, Eisenstein singled out for his theory several provisions of Klages ^[3] :

• The distinction between a “merely useful” movement and a “proper” expressive movement;
• The difference between “data”, “intentional” sign (signa data) and “unaccountable”, natural sign (signa propria);
• The concept of "organic movement" and "organic" as a prerequisite for art in general

Eisenstein believed that the impact of cinema art primarily consists in reproducing the actor’s movements, i.e. in the form of mimic reactions or internal impulses. To cause a similar reaction in the viewer, the actor must act as organically and naturally as possible, otherwise the viewer's reaction will turn out to be unnatural. The director divided the expressive movements into three groups:

1. Simple targeted or automated movements (coming from the first);
2. Forms with a complex orientation of movement;
3. Motor expressions of “struggle of motives”.

Eisenstein considered the following extremely important remarks: expressive movement cannot be static, it is always a moving moment; in any expressive movement, there is a so-called “fixation” moment, which will be followed either by a new action or a state of rest. Eisenstein and Tretyakov in their article “Expressive Movement” cite the following example as an illustration: “Jaws that grin in fury will either bite or lips will close over them; a hand with crooked fingers symbolizing grasping, or will grab or fingers will soften and will return to normal” ^{[ 4]} .

Biomechanics as the foundation of expressive movement

The term theater biomechanics was created by V. Meyerhold and introduced as a stage mastery course in 1918 in Petrograd. Since the early 1920s, Meyerhold began teaching this course in Moscow. Biomechanics suggested a qualitatively new system of acting training. According to Meyerhold’s own definition, “biomechanics seeks to experimentally establish the laws of the actor’s movement on the stage, working out the training exercises of the actor’s game on the basis of human behavior” ^[5] . In accordance with the principles of biomechanics, the actor must with full consciousness approach the implementation of physical and psychological actions and fully control them. In the process, acting in accordance with the laws of biomechanics, the actor develops the reflex dependence of emotions on the physical action so much that he is able to control his expressive capabilities.

Eisenstein was a student of Meyerhold and recognized the role of biomechanics as the basis of expressive movement. However, in contrast to Meyerhold's biomechanics, Eisenstein used the term "bimechanics", which was the actor’s ability to combine instincts and will equally. That is, Eisenstein sought to synthesize the bodily-mental and spiritual-rational processes, which would lead to the absolute organicity of the action ^[3] .

The principle of failure movement

“The movement, which, in order to be able to perform it in a certain direction, is preliminarily made in the opposite direction (partially or completely), in the practice of scenic movement is called the“ movement of failure ” ^[3] . The principle of the movement of failure involves a preliminary analysis of the action taken, during which the trajectory is set, and the use of force by the actor, including centrifugal , which makes his movement more expressive and saturated. In this way, a strong dynamics of movement is created, which ultimately leads to the desired result: the psychophysical reaction of the viewer.

A feature of this principle, which is key to the whole theory of expressive movement, is that awareness of the moment is characteristic only of the initial stage of the movement of failure, since then it is automatically performed according to the laws of biomechanics. So, unlike the difficulties that one has to face in the theater (for example, an actor needs to simultaneously associate physical movements with speech), in the film the director can achieve the necessary expressiveness of the movement, working even with inexperienced actors, resorting to editing.

Changes in the life of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the era of Soviet sound cinema influenced both Eisenstein’s installation theory and his theory of expressive movement. As the actor’s tasks became more complicated, Eisenstein, previously known for using non-professional actors, decided to abandon non-professional types. Vivid examples of using the principles of expressive movement in cinema are such films by the director as “ Alexander Nevsky ” (1938) and “ Ivan the Terrible ” (1944).

So, in “Alexander Nevsky”, for a more complete depiction of the main figures, the director resorted to the exact construction of choreographic scenes, in which the principles of expressive movement, necessary to provide a strong emotional effect on the viewer, are viewed. Using a special expressive language of body movements and costumes, Eisenstein emphasized the positive qualities and characters of some heroes (Nevsky and his troops) and the negative images of others (German crusaders, whose movements were angular, emphasized their soullessness and facelessness).

Already in Ivan the Terrible, such pictorial moments were shown more complex and diverse. The scene where the king makes a speech against the Mongol-Tatar yoke , attracting attention with an energetic gesture - a circular wave of his hand, turning into a vertical blow with his fist, is indicative. This movement of the hand, given by an internal impulse emanating from the entire body of the actor , is organically combined with the delivered speech, and, as Eisenstein believed, is an element that can be conditionally imitated and reproduced by the viewer. Thus, the correctly calculated strength and trajectory of a gesture makes it precisely that organic expressive movement that most powerfully affects the viewer.

If Meyerhold’s biomechanics was criticized for the extreme rationalization of actions and the “machinization” of the actor, Eisenstein was mainly reproached for the fact that he consciously constructed the movement so that it possessed the power of expressiveness. That is, the director allegedly draws certain crisis moments from the movements and then artificially pushes them together to achieve an emotional reaction from the audience. They also claimed that he called these moments "pathos" ^[6] . Gilles Deleuze singled out the so-called privileged moments, under the category of which the aforementioned moments selected by Eisenstein fall. But in the modern world, anyone can be a privileged moment, since the director himself decides to choose a remarkable or ordinary movement for him. Moreover, Eisenstein himself defined “pathos” as organicity, an organized set of randomly taken moments where breaks should go ^[7] , which means that he did not think that the naturalness of the movement was lost.

• Vyach. Ivanov. Selected Works on Semiotics and the History of Culture, Vol. 1. - Moscow, 1998. https://books.google.com/books?id=0QJTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA313&dq= ideas + biomechanics + expressive + movement + Eisenstein & hl =en& sa =X& ved = 0ahUKEwiA447SgMPeAhWI20EdIone_one8D8 % 20 Eisenstein & f = false
• Theories of the actor’s new anthropology and article by S. Eisenstein and S. Tretyakov “Expressive movement”. Publ. Art. and note. A.S. Milyakh // http://teatr-lib.ru/Library/Mnemozina/Mnemoz_2/#_Toc226879029 </
• Jörg Bokhov. Eisenstein — the pathognomic? Physiognomic aspects in the theory of expressiveness and in films by Sergey Eisenstein. / Cinema Notes, No. 47, 2000 // http://www.kinozapiski.ru/ru/article/sendvalues/381/
• The film "Alexander Nevsky": https://www.culture.ru/movies/391/aleksandr-nevskii
• The film "Ivan the Terrible": https://www.culture.ru/movies/444/ivan-groznyi
• Sergey Eisenstein on the website of the magazine "Session"