Pars Pro Toto

Learn to capture the part that reflects a new dimension of the already-known, using that sequence of transformations that contribute to the maturing of the relationship between the particular and the general.

But more than that, Eisenstein uses the close-up and in a way similar with what poetry calls a synecdoche. It is the ability of film to recreate within the consciousness and feelings of viewers a whole through one of its parts. The entire representation of the medic Smirnov is in the detail of that pince-nez of his, remained hanging from a rope, after the uprising of the sailors.

This detail has a greater emotional power than representing the doctor himself and his throwing overboard. Pars pro toto, the part acts here for a whole and is included in an ensemble in which, in turn, the likeness of the doctor is shown, in its particular, a general idea, the idea of the social class he is part of, the role of this class. And further, the uprising on the "Potemkin" is the part that reflects the entire revolution of 1905.*

Can you create in the consciousness and feelings of people a WHOLE through one of the components of your artistic creation, so that the whole representation of the reality that you are about can be embodied in one single detail?

In the case of the most complex form of artistic production, also called an authentic creation through which a certain theme is imagined, analyzed and constructed, with great relevance to events more or less significant, there are two different systems that operate in series.

In the first system, called however for personal reasons "Extractor", more suggestive and concrete details are extracted from the perspective or experiences of certain personalities towards an illustration that goes from image towards a certain type of reality, sometimes in a deductive guise, breaking down into acts and deeds anything that falls under the incidence of an order of the primordial. Here are filled the gaps created by the shortage of information which the subject has, for deciphering, understanding, interpreting a new phenomenon, an isolated case.

The second system, called "Reactor", that for every image decomposed, different options of customization are used, includes the key elements perceived as being benchmarks for comparison with what exists outside of personality, through a series of transformations that contribute to the maturation of that segment of the relationship between the particular and the general.

For leadership to be labeled as a means of personal expression through the very participation to an original act of creation, susceptible on a certain level of depth and integration of the being to a certain reality, first you need to capture that part that reflects a new dimension of the already-known, a parallel one, which translates life or events in a different composition – an artistic one.

The whole representation of the reality you create can be contained in one single detail when the reasons of the theme chosen to be exposed highlight, particularly, a general idea.

Basically, the most relevant part that mirrors a particular aspect of the historical moment in Eisenstein’s film is not given by that stormy period of revolution in which spirits and currents evolved in an unprecedented acceleration, vertiginously. But, above all, it is given by that vivid torch of the Revolution which, tragically, makes the connection between what happened in the souls of men and the event that has triggered profound and substantive transformations, making the image of the future be open to an attractive, up-to-date experience.

Pars Pro Toto is that part of overlooked reality that, containing all the steps of a story, fuels the entirety of what you want to transmit.

Film directors are the biggest modelers of the world, succeeding in creating within the consciousness and feelings of people a whole through a component part of their artistic creation.

The argument of a certain idea is an integer expressed in a complex manner, which can be placed between any "brackets", interposed in the attractions and challenges of the real or unreal world. The representation of that idea needs to be included in the significant detail of an event, of a character, or of a milestone.

* Note - Ion Barna - Eisenstein, Youth Publishing House, 1966.