The best exercises for creative concentration
Eisenstein finds authoritative confirmation of his theory of composition in Stanislavsky's teaching on supertasking and end-to-end action. He considered the path from a super—task to a piece task and from an end-to-end action to a specific act an indisputable necessity, not only when working on a role. He expanded the meaning of this path to the principle of creating the compositional structure of the entire work: all parts and particulars proceed only from the main point and are solved depending on it.
Eisenstein reminds students of how Mikhail Kedrov, in acting classes, teaches them to first identify the end-to-end action, then break the scene into pieces and set tasks for each participant. Eisenstein says that's what a director does when he decides on the whole production. "Leftist" or not "leftist", "artistic" or not "artistic", because you are the author of the production, you always do that." This is also, according to Eisenstein, the process of creating a work of art in any kind of art.
Eisenstein's attitude to Stanislavsky's term "subtext" is interesting. He believed that this concept refers not only to the text of the role and even not only to the actor's performance, but to every artistic component of the performance, to every expressive means used in the process of its creation.
Eisenstein specifically dealt with the problems of creative concentration: "To be able to summon an idea in oneself in concentration is a whole complex of developed techniques. When this element is present, a peculiar technique of fixing it and unfolding it comes into action. But it is important to be able to immediately get into the right state, into the right primary message, urge. It's a matter of a whole complex technique, the education of a creative person, a creative worker in general."
He got acquainted with a variety of methods of concentration of attention, from the ritual beating of a drum and various theories explaining a person's descent into a state of religious ecstasy to hypnosis sessions and the latest data from psychology. However, he considers the best exercises for fostering the ability to concentrate creatively to be those offered by Stanislavsky.
Eisenstein attached particular importance to the "Proposed circumstances" section of the system: "The proposed circumstances,— Eisenstein said, —serve as auxiliary elements to ensure that there is an outbreak of the right feeling."
In "Montage" he analyzes one of the stages of Stanislavsky's work on the sketch "Burning Money" (from the book "The actor's Work on himself") — the moment when the actor has the right attitude towards his partner. Eisenstein concludes his analysis by saying that "the image of their relationship" was born from the actors' true experience.
Eisenstein talks about the means by which the "image of feeling" is conveyed to the viewer, tracing Stanislavsky's work on another sketch — "The scene with Diapers from Brand."
Here Eisenstein drew attention to the fact that Stanislavsky rejected those definitions of pieces and tasks that do not accurately and correctly guide the actor's actions, and to the fact that Stanislavsky selected only verbal definitions to denote the tasks facing the performers. Eisenstein unreservedly supports such a selection. The verb, he says, is a noun in the formative stage, and the metaphor also contains a "mode of action"; after all, the very word "metaphor" means "to carry", which suggests that the formation of each metaphor came from direct physical action. There is a chapter in the manuscript of the Montage that is called "The Verbality of metaphor."
Analyzing the art form as a whole, Eisenstein in the 30s, thus, came to the same conclusions that Stanislavsky made when studying the creative process of the actor.
It is no coincidence that Eisenstein fully accepted Stanislavsky's famous term: "the fourth wall." https://mostbets-hu.com/
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