OCTOBER

Commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 1917 revolution (but released a year late due to production delays), OCTOBER is Eisenstein's most elaborate and ambitious film, both for the historical scope of its narrative and for the wide-ranging application of his montage theories. The film begins with the toppling of the Tsarist regime, but the central conflict is between the bourgeoisfied Provisional Government under Kerensky and the righteous Bolsheviks under Lenin. Eisenstein's no-expense-spared recreations of battles and demonstrations are so convincing that they often pass for the real thing in documentaries on the Russian Revolution. 35mm. (MR)

Silent film with live piano accompaniment by David Drazin on Sunday; recorded music score on Thursday.