Revolutionary Soviet Russian film director and film theorist (1898–1948) noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin, and October, as well as historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. Very rare ALS in French, two pages both sides, 7 x 9, Moscow, September 22, 1933, boldly signed at the conclusion in purple artist’s pencil. Letter to Renaud de Jouvenel, in full (translated): “My dear little Renaud, please accept before anything else, once and once more, the assurance that your place in my heart still belongs to you and keeps its usual temperature, which, as I told you before, has even warmed after our separation! Now that we belong to two countries that are united by an understanding as cordial as what exists between USSR and France, my feelings toward you can only flourish further. How do you like my nice sentimental start? My silence is much easier to explain. I was recovering the rest of my health in the Caucasus where I had protected myself from many correspondents for almost two months. As I came back yesterday, I found your letter that could have been much more friendly and less like a businessman engaged in great literary projects… in any case, I will do everything within my reach... that means I will send you an article on my next film ‘Moscow.’ I impose one condition, that before that you help me to get informed on what happened in France. You have to send me some magazines and newspapers that would give me an idea where one stands on the glorious path in the midst of this final standstill in literature, art, cinema…There are all sorts of glossy and loud magazines of that sort in Paris. I have a few, I have recently lost my notion of what fills in the so-called ‘artistic’ Paris. To apply some more lyricism in your next letters to your old friend who still loves you.” In fine condition, with a single horizontal and vertical fold, one passing through the beginning stroke of signature. Returning from an extended trip to Mexico and the American South in early 1933, and giving up on his troubled project Que Viva Mexico!, Eisenstein spent the two months prior to this letter in a mental hospital in Kislovodsky—where he was “recovering the rest of [his] health.” Finally returning to Moscow, he took a teaching assignment at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography and began work on his next project, Bezhin Meadow. Resuming his friendship with writer Renaud de Jouvenel, Eisenstein addresses the “standstill” in the arts, hoping for news to fill him in on “the so-called ‘artistic’ Paris.” A remarkably rare and interesting letter from one of Russia’s greatest filmmakers. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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