Eisen­stein in Sacramento

A year before the Ukrain­ian war esca­lat­ed, I had the good for­tune of vis­it­ing Odessa and its grand steps, made famous by their appear­ance in Sergei Eisenstein’s Bat­tle­ship Potemkin. I mar­veled at Eisenstein’s eye and abil­i­ty to engi­neer the shots with his cam­era­man, Eduard Tisse, and assis­tant Grig­ori Alek­san­drov. It was a typ­i­cal pil­grim­age for The­o­ry or Film stu­dents seek­ing inspi­ra­tion – espe­cial­ly for me being a bit obsessed with the auteur. 

But there was real­ly no need to trav­el so far for such inspi­ra­tion. All that’s required of me as an Eisen­stein admir­er is to dri­ve 10 min­utes from my home in Sacra­men­to, Cal­i­for­nia. In the mid­dle of my sub­ur­ban errands, in the cen­ter of Mid­town, is anoth­er land­mark that inspired Eisen­stein: Sutter’s Fort.

Grow­ing up in or near California’s cap­i­tal, a field trip to Sutter’s Fort is as typ­i­cal as learn­ing to ride a bike, and John Sutter’s dis­cov­ery of gold is a sta­ple in Cal­i­for­nia edu­ca­tion. I vague­ly remem­ber the long bus ride that took my class there from the Bay Area, then I vol­un­teered for my son’s field trip when he was in sixth grade, and will prob­a­bly do so again for my oth­er two chil­dren. But despite its grand name, the fort neigh­bors a hos­pi­tal and office build­ings. Tree lined streets lead to cafes and a laun­dro­mat. How did Eisen­stein come to vis­it what I iden­ti­fy as such an ordi­nary space?

In short, Stal­in sent him. 

In 1929, Eisen­stein, Tisse, and Alek­san­drov were assigned to trav­el – first to Europe and then to Amer­i­ca – to study sound tech­nol­o­gy in film. Bat­tle­ship Potemkin was world famous, and every­one want­ed to meet the genius who direct­ed it. Even if the aver­age per­son didn’t under­stand his film the­o­ries, Eisen­stein was some­body every­body was talk­ing about. When the Sovi­et trio reached Hol­ly­wood in 1930, Para­mount con­tract­ed Eisen­stein for three thou­sand dol­lars a week. Now he just need­ed an idea. 

Para­mount and Eisen­stein agreed to devel­op an adap­ta­tion of Blaise Cen­drars’ nov­el ​“L’Or” about John Sut­ter and the Gold Rush. For research, Eisen­stein and Alek­san­drov trav­eled from Los Ange­les to San Fran­cis­co and then to Sacra­men­to to see Sutter’s Fort and Hock Farms, where John Sut­ter first set­tled among the Native Americans. 

I do not know what Sacra­men­to looked like at the time of Eisenstein’s vis­it in 1930; it was prob­a­bly not too inter­est­ing. The fort today, even with its his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance, is fair­ly unim­pres­sive. When view­ing Eisenstein’s sto­ry­board­ing for the fort, I see he added minor flour­ish­es to what would oth­er­wise be a straight wall with lit­tle depth. Eisenstein’s set, to be built on Lasky Ranch, added what appears to be a look­out and two side build­ings. I won­der if he was unim­pressed by our hot, flat val­ley, and per­haps this is the rea­son why, in notes for dif­fer­ent scenes, he added details not seen in our area such as sequoia and red­wood trees. His vis­it to Hock’s Farm may have been fur­ther disappointing. 

Fac­ing a cre­ative block, I drove to Hock’s Farm, an hour north of Sacra­men­to. In a depres­sive rut, I sought inspi­ra­tion – instead I found a stretch of road lined with fenced prop­er­ties con­tain­ing large res­i­den­tial lots, rem­i­nis­cent of the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty Sut­ter found­ed in 1841. The occa­sion­al orchard was inter­rupt­ed by the sight of above-ground pools and bro­ken-down farm equip­ment. Per­haps this was nature’s destruc­tion Eisen­stein high­light­ed in his treat­ment for ​“L’Or”. 

Arriv­ing at Hock’s Farm, I came to the end of the road that split into a T. The road was qui­et, but the occa­sion­al truck and car passed at a pre­car­i­ous speed. I crossed ner­vous­ly, com­ing to a struc­ture paint­ed bright red. It was too small for a barn, but most stor­age sheds do not host a his­tor­i­cal plaque. Bul­let holes (a dis­tinct­ly Amer­i­can touch) van­dal­ized the sig­nage. Between the traf­fic and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being shot, I won­dered, am I going to die for this minor curios­i­ty? I briefly stud­ied the sign announc­ing John Sutter’s con­tri­bu­tion: ​“The advent of white set­tle­ment in the Sacra­men­to area.” 

Reflect­ing on the pho­to­graph of Eisen­stein at the site – found in his mem­oir – he appears unim­pressed. I don’t blame him. Like me, he strug­gled cre­ative­ly dur­ing his brief time in Cal­i­for­nia and hoped to find answers in Sutter’s sto­ry, trav­el­ing hours to find him­self at a lack­lus­ter location. 

Eisen­stein want­ed to make an Amer­i­can pic­ture. Inspired by every­thing, from Joshua Trees to peach orchards near Fres­no, he strug­gled to focus, jump­ing from one idea to anoth­er. He became over­whelmed and depressed. Like many genius­es, he was mis­un­der­stood and dis­ap­point­ed by Amer­i­cans’ focus on mate­ri­al­ism – in ​“With Eisen­stein in Hol­ly­wood,” Ivor Mon­tagu describes Eisen­stein meet­ing Harold Lloyd: ​“To us he [Lloyd] was qui­et and cour­te­ous but talked of noth­ing but real estate.”

Eisen­stein also faced anti-Semi­tism and dis­crim­i­na­tion as the first Red Scare began. Mem­bers of Con­gress, fear­ful of a com­mu­nist takeover, held tri­als ques­tion­ing cit­i­zens’ loy­al­ty, while fear-mon­ger­ing around Eisen­stein pres­sured Para­mount to can­cel their con­tract. William Faulkn­er took over the treat­ment and the Sut­ter project lagged until its pro­duc­tion by James Cruze six years lat­er. The film flopped.

Eisen­stein returned to the USSR, where he con­tin­ued to face hard­ship under Stalin’s purge and then the dev­as­tat­ing Sec­ond World War. But his most out­stand­ing work exper­i­ment­ing with sound, and even col­or, was yet to come. Even though he lan­guished in Hol­ly­wood, the West­ern influ­ence upon him remained, such as the cos­tumes in Ivan the Ter­ri­ble, inspired by Disney’s Snow White.

Cir­cling Sutter’s Fort for anoth­er errand, I appre­ci­at­ed Eisenstein’s brief pres­ence – a reminder that life as an artist is priv­i­leged, but has its chal­lenges. The cre­ative process is an unre­ward­ing time of lim­bo. Progress appears incal­cu­la­ble. His­to­ry and pol­i­tics are pests. We ben­e­fit from liv­ing on the out­skirts of the social con­struct, but often are the butt of its hard­ships. As a cre­ator and moth­er, my ambi­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ties often com­pete – afford­able child­care isn’t eas­i­ly avail­able and most like­ly won’t be avail­able in the near future, and artis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ties under cap­i­tal­ism remain elu­sive. Self-expres­sion too is under threat as America’s incom­ing con­ser­v­a­tive admin­is­tra­tion begins, two days before Eisenstein’s 126^th birth­day. Yet con­sid­er­ing Eisen­stein while trav­el­ing on such ordi­nary ground, here in Sacra­men­to dur­ing our unusu­al times, inspires focus and perseverance.