NB&P: Dustin Condren - An Imaginary Cinema

The hosts chat with Dr. Condren about his recent book An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (2024, Cornell University Press).  Eisenstein directed some of the twentieth century's most important films, from the early classic of montage, Battleship Potemkin, to his late masterpiece, Ivan the Terrible. Alongside these, however, the Soviet filmmaker also toiled over a compelling array of unrealized projects, from ideas that never grew beyond complex, passionate notebook scrawls and sketches to productions that were mounted and shot to some degree of completion without ever being finished. Working from the archival remnants of several of the director's most fascinating unrealized projects, Dr. Condren's book reveals new aspects of Eisenstein's genius, showing the filmmaker in a constant state of process, open to working toward impossible and sometimes utopian ends, and committed to the pursuit of creative and theoretical discovery. Interview by Public Humanities intern Logan Pizzeck.