SOURCE: An excerpt from Movies and Methods: An Anthology, edited by Bill Nichols, University of California Press, 1976, pp. 17-20.

In the following essay, which first appeared in the Soviet journal New Lef, Brik charges that Eisenstein's October falsifies historical facts.

Sergei Eisenstein has slipped into a difficult and absurd situation. He has suddenly found himself proclaimed a world-class director, a genius, he has been heaped with political and artistic decorations, all of which has effectively bound his creative initiative hand and foot.

In normal circumstances he could have carried on his artistic experiments and researches into new methods of film-making calmly and without any strain: his films would then have been of great methodological and aesthetic interest. But piece-meal experiments are too trivial a concern for a world-class director: by virtue of his status he is obliged to resolve world-scale problems and produce world-class films. It comes as...