Strike

  1. How are the factory owners depicted in the mise-en-scene (setting, props, staging, etc.)?
  2. And how are the factory owners depicted?
  3. Strike, the story of a strike by factory workers in the Tsarist Russia of 1912 that was brutally suppressed, was shot almost entirely on location so that it seems like a reconstruction of genuine events. What about the film though seems theatrical, and what characters as well as events seem unreal?
  4. How are children used in this film? Are there any scenes with children that you find distasteful?
  5. Like other Soviet Montage filmmakers, Eisenstein was interested in depicting the masses as a collective character rather than individuals (note the opening quote from Lenin, which supports this). But are there any individual characters that stand out to you? If so, who? Why?
  6. Eisenstein has said that he doesn’t “make films to be watched by an impassive eye”; rather, he’d “prefer to hit people hard on the nose.” Which scenes in Strike support the director’s intention?
  7. Strike includes several cinematic techniques that, some argue, are both stunning and exhausting. First, point to at least three scenes in which these techniques are present. Second, explain what the critics mean by “both stunning and exhausting.”
    • lyrical tracking shots
    • poetic use of reverse motion
    • striking silhouette compositions
    • double exposures
    • an upside down puddle reflection
    • shots through windows
    • reflections in mirrors
    • shots of distorted reflections in a glass ball
    • low angle shots
  8. What is Eisenstein trying to get across with his “his weird penchant for animal imagery,” as one critic notes?
  9. With what/whom are animals juxtaposed? What kinds of animals are with what kinds of people?
  10. Some have noted that Eisenstein repeatedly uses circular objects to connote the endless continuity of time. Where do you see this notion displayed?
  11. It has been argued that Eisenstein’s films, although progressive in technique, “lack a certain humanity.” One critic from The Guardian, however, suggests that Strike shows the director’s “basic humanity, and it is arguably his best because of it.”
  12. Based on the film, what is your opinion on this?
  13. Why does Strike perhaps seem more modern than Hollywood’s silent pictures? Or does it?