Moscow Film Museum

Tarkovsky would have appreciated this deep metaphor

The highlights of visiting Moscow State Central Film Museum from my humble tempted POV. Either you start the visit with the basement and then ground floor and Eisenstein's exhibition or vice versa, it doesn't matter, but don't skip the basement, it's a must!

Oksana Belousova

CEO & Founder of MY KINOROOM, Film Director

The exposition is organised the way you will always see reflections on exhibits, coincidently or not, they interestingly represent some films: "The Cranes Are Flying" (1957) by Mikhail Kalatozov became "experiment" (I immediately thought of revolutionary subjective camera style by Sergey Urusevsky); "Hamlet" (1964) by Grigori Kozintsev got "poetry", how accurate, and "Ivan's Childhood" (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky was marked by "confession", another exact match!

It was especially pleasant to see a corner dedicated to Sergei Parajanov and his film "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" (1965) which brought him fame but didn't help against Soviet authorities which eventually put Parajanov in jail either for his cinematic style, or political views, or sexual orientation, or all together, but at least he managed to make a few films which we now have access to.

Poster to Alexander Sokurov's debut film "The Lonely Voice of Man" (1978) which was supposed to be destroyed! If the cinematographer Yury Yurizditsky hadn't saved it, we would have lost the film forever! Sometimes cinematographer and film director can be friends!

If you visit the upper floor, you'll find an exhibition dedicated to Sergey Eisenstein a world known film director and a pioneer in film editing theory. His legendary "Battleship Potemkin" (1925) is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. At the museum you're invited to Eisenstein's study to see where the genius created his masterpieces.

Besides family photos and letters, there are some unique personal things such as a crusifix and a baby sock (where else would you see Eisenstein's baby sock?!). What do we see in Eisenstein's library? Books on art, literature, history, psychology, biology, philosophy and, of course, music that was a key element for Eisenstein film editing theory and principles of connecting image and sound. The books are not only in Russian, but in English, German and French that Eisentstein could speak fluently and what helped him to travel abroad.

If you visit the upper floor, you'll find an exhibition dedicated to Sergey Eisenstein a world known film director and a pioneer in film editing theory. His legendary "Battleship Potemkin" (1925) is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. At the museum you're invited to Eisenstein's study to see where the genius created his masterpieces.

Eisenstein travelled to Japan and was impressed by Japanese culture and especially by poetry that reminded him of rhythm and tempo of film editing - in fact, if you turn haiku into a film, it will be educational to practice poetic rhythm and composition. Some Japanese influence can be seen in "Ivan the Terrible" (1944). Besides Japan, Eisenstein travelled to Europe to learn about sound pictures, to Hollywood and Mexico where he was supposed to make films, but the projects were never finished due to disagreements. Nevertheless, Mexican culture and people impressed Eisenstein a lot, he met Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

Eisenstein wrote a number of books on film and film editing, unfortunately, his famous book "Montage" and "Selected works" is a challenge to find in Russia, at least you can see them at the museum! I still wonder why. I guess Eisenstein has an answer to all the "why" questions. Here is his drawing of people in 21st century about where everyone and everything is heading…

Back to the beginning, if Tarkovsky had visited the basement of Moscow Film Museum, he would have appreciated this deep metaphor (they say he had a good sense of humour)! The wall scetch for his film "Stalker" (1979) leads you to the room which makes your wishes come true… aka the bathroom!