Eisenstein’s concept of film is guided by his concern for the study of the forms of bliss. This concern stemmed from the one for the pathetic. From the film "Potemkin" at least, the pathetic was still the purpose of his research. The pathetic can be reached, meditated the artist, through the sudden birth of all passions directed towards a single goal. But explosions don’t happen every day and it’s not possible for the same "Potemkin" to be remade concerning dozens of other similar riots.
His searches thus had to be directed differently. Towards the creation of the pathetic in relation to everyday life. Meaning polarization, in an anodyne fact, of all passions of men, of all of their hopes. Thus, the image, becoming the fixation of an ideal or of a paroxysm will be able to include bliss, the latter being the highlight of the ideal in cause. Thus, emerges the milk separator in "The Old and The New". It has no importance as an object, but rather only through what it signifies: a moment of transformations of consciousness, of the overturning of the peasants’ life meanings.
Jean Mitry, with which Eisenstein spoke about this very thing, recalls as such the ideas presented by the filmmaker: "to transform into pathetic what is not or does not appear to be, to reach bliss, to determine a sort of bliss through which the spectator – with his consciousness seemingly paralyzed – enters a state of immediate responsiveness and participates emotionally (and, hence, mentally) to the presented action. He dreamed of a kind of hypnosis through film…" *
The process of developing and transforming value judgments that take place in a certain context of research leads to the birth of a work later dealt with objectively, whose deficiencies you manage to expose with the help of artistic reflections. Through this process one can find a junction between what delights you through the contemplation of the complexity of creation and what concerns you by connecting this creating to a higher meaning can be seen.
If spiritual teacher Osho was right when he said that bliss is the goal, and awareness is the path towards it, then creation becomes, by extrapolation, not only a motivational factor that gives meaning to the searches of surpassing yourself, but a sort of experience of using the means of expression that express your unique personality. And the artistic ideal of this personality resonates with the emotional expression of art vibrations as an instrument of expression of significance given to events and experiences that can profoundly shape a reality in time.
Above all, leadership consists of a suite of continuous attempts of finding those meanings of creating something that produce the state of responsiveness, by formulating completely different judgments on the shape and depth of the transmitted messages. In cinematography as well as in leadership, what you are conveying must capture a moment of transformation of consciousness, the overthrow of the meanings of life, which maintains people’s receptivity to a particular subject, to their inner being, to a possible revelation, to certain spiritual aspects, etc.
If what the great philosopher Kant said is true, the fact that a judgment is the idea that one thing is known for certain qualities or attributes, then the unmistakable fixation on the notion of “masterpiece” in the universe of creation is the image that you are projecting about a reality that is less known to the world, but which reveals itself clearly in the facts of the present life.
Leadership is subordinated to the understanding of the complexity of the “integrated whole” of a creature that gains receptivity through the sudden birth of all passions directed to one purpose: transforming each event into a memorable moment, an emotional pause, a moment of transformation of consciousness, of the overthrow of the meanings of life.
Leadership is subordinated to the understanding of the complexity of the "integrated whole". Therefore, the assessment of the dimension of producing meanings that facilitate the promotion of creation and a better understanding of the transmitted message is imposed.
To transform into pathetic what is not or does not appear to be, to reach bliss, to determine a sort of bliss through which the spectator – with his consciousness seemingly paralyzed – enters a state of immediate responsiveness and participates emotionally (and, hence, mentally) to the presented action – is an important means of valuing the essence of your own identity, transposed in creation, but in a way that no one expects.
To try and reconfigure a world that only you know, in the great equation of leadership, which corresponds to the overturning of meanings of the promoted creation, later becoming the fixation of an ideal, can be equivalated with arguing something that by its nature can never be demonstrated. Be mindful of what meanings you produce !
Shape And Transformation highlights the final result of the development of the artist’s methods of determining new meanings of transfiguration of creation.
In what direction do you have to direct your searches to define a new understanding of the concept of "whole", or rather, a new understanding of understanding, one that articulates the prime or ultimate meaning of creation?
* Note: Ion Barna - Eisenstein , Youth Publishing House, 1966.