Que Viva Mexico!

Along with Griffith and Welles, Sergei Eisenstein is basically responsible for inventing the film form and technique that we understand today. As a filmmaker and theorist, he was an innovater and a genius. This is an unfinished film he made for Hollywood in 1931, but had to abandon due to lack of funds. It's strikingly similar to Welles' later, It's All True. Forty years later, one of his colleagues armed with the footage and Eisenstein's extensive set of notes and memos about the film, edited it together as the director probably would have wanted. The result is fascinting. What Welles did with South America, Eisenstein first did with Mexico. There's even a climactic sequence that Sergio Leone would be proud of. It's still not one of Eistenstein's masterpieces, but from the opening frames, it's clear that a master craftsman is behind the lens.