The Thing

I spent several hours, recently, getting acquainted with that Thing which we will all know better before long. I went to see two of Sergei Eisenstein’s classic films, Ten Days That Shook the World and Alexander Nevsky. The story of Lenin’s triumph, and of Nevsky’s, are spun out by the film-wizard in visual patterns and rhythms that wake an answering music in the viewers. The technical mastery of both films distracts the mind for a while, so that one is startled when, at last, he realizes what inner roar has answered the visual turmoil. It is one of the oldest sounds in history, one which—to our peril—we have long ignored. It is the Thing—a hatred of form, of life and beauty, of Civilization.

The only value endorsed by these films is Russian earth; in its name, every sign of order, religion and culture is wrecked. Strength punches out brains. Great stupid men join armored viragos in smashing chandeliers, statues, palaces and the Cross. Love is presented as comradeship-inarms, and admiration is given only to raging brawn. We see Man asserting kimself by destroying his own achievements, smashing his claims to glory as rivals to himself. The ideological purpose of such wreckage is swallowed up in the Energies that have been summoned to do the particular tasks of overthrowing the Czar or the Teutonic Knights. In the joyful celebration of Nevsky’s triumph, the Prince throws the picture’s villain to his happy, singing peasants; and they rend him with their bare hands. What will he give them to wreck after that? Another nation? Perhaps the world?

GW

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Garry Wills

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I spent several hours, recently, getting acquainted with that Thing which we will all know better before long. I went to see two of Sergei Eisenstein’s classic films, Ten Days That Shook the World and Alexander Nevsky. The story of Lenin’s triumph, and of Nevsky’s, are spun out by the film-wizard in visual patterns and rhythms that wake an answering music in the viewers. The technical mastery of both films distracts the mind for a while, so that one is startled when, at last, he realizes what inner roar has answered the visual turmoil. It is one of the oldest sounds in history, one which—to our peril—we have long ignored. It is the Thing—a hatred of form, of life and beauty, of Civilization.

The only value endorsed by these films is Russian earth; in its name, every sign of order, religion and culture is wrecked. Strength punches out brains. Great stupid men join armored viragos in smashing chandeliers, statues, palaces and the Cross. Love is presented as comradeship-inarms, and admiration is given only to raging brawn. We see Man asserting kimself by destroying his own achievements, smashing his claims to glory as rivals to himself. The ideological purpose of such wreckage is swallowed up in the Energies that have been summoned to do the particular tasks of overthrowing the Czar or the Teutonic Knights. In the joyful celebration of Nevsky’s triumph, the Prince throws the picture’s villain to his happy, singing peasants; and they rend him with their bare hands. What will he give them to wreck after that? Another nation? Perhaps the world?