Strike!
Sergei Eisenstein (1925)
Eisenstein rejected the use of narrative centred on a key protagonist as bourgeois. In Russia’s factory region during Tsarist rule, there’s restlessness and strike planning among workers; management brings in spies and external agents. After a worker hangs himself after being falsely accused of theft, the workers strike. As the strike drags on and management rejects demands, hunger mounts, as do domestic and civic unrest.
Provocateurs are recruited from a bizarre underworld gang and work in league with the police and the fire department to cause trouble for the strikers. The military arrives to liquidate strikers.
Key Scenes:
- The opening scenes of planning the strike
- juxtapositions with animals
- the firemen
- the strikers are massacred
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