Sergi Eisenstein`s Unfilmed Adaptation of Theodore Dreiser`s An American Tragedy

Abstract

The general critical consensus on Eisenstein’s unfilmed adaptation of Theodore Dreiser`s An American Tragedy presents Eisenstein as a great artist, thwarted by the Hollywood studio system at Paramount. However, a new look at both the circumstances surrounding this fiasco and an examination of Eisenstein’s later writings about this episode reveal a more interesting and complicated story. Eisenstein had mixed feelings about Dreiser`s novel, he preferred to use collective rather than individual heroes at this stage of his career, and his view of Marxism only partially overlapped with the ideas of Thorstein Veblen relevant to Dreiser’s depiction of capitalism in America. Despite his appreciation for Balzac and later authors who worked in the mode of critical realism extending from Balzac (a tradition in which we should place Dreiser), Eisenstein never made a complete film in the critical realist mode.