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Now why should the cinema follow the forms of theater and painting rather than the methodology of language, which allows wholly new concepts of ideas to arise from the combination of two concrete denotations of two concrete objects?
Sergei Eisenstein
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Eisenstein suggests that cinema should innovate beyond traditional arts like theater and painting, using language's ability to create new ideas from combining different concepts.

In this quote, Sergei Eisenstein advocates for cinema to develop its unique methodology distinct from that of theater and painting, emphasizing the potential of film to innovate by employing language's capacity to generate novel ideas through the juxtaposition of different objects or concepts. He believes that cinema, as a medium, should harness this linguistic approach to convey complex narratives and express innovative ideas, rather than relying solely on established artistic forms.

Themes

CinemaLanguageArtTheaterInnovation

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a film studies class to illustrate the relationship between different art forms.

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Language is much closer to film than painting is.
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