Ada Ackerman links Eisenstein's cinema to Daumier's caricatures

Art historian Ada Ackerman's new book "Eisenstein et Daumier" (Armand Colin) explores the profound influence of French caricaturist Honoré Daumier on Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Drawing on unpublished documents, Ackerman reveals that Eisenstein was captivated by Daumier's drawings from childhood. A 1902 illustrated book on the Paris Commune featuring Daumier's lithographs sparked what Eisenstein called his "first revolutionary impressions." Ackerman argues that caricature shaped both the political and comedic dimensions of Eisenstein's staging, through grotesque deformation and subterranean violence. She links this sensory impact to intellectual cinema, showing how caricature served as a catalyst merging "fist cinema" and "intellectual cinema" (Eisenstein's terms). The book also examines an erotic dimension in Eisenstein's comparisons between Daumier's drawings and Atget's photographs, both envisioning the city as a site of "commodification of desire." A chapter on pedagogy highlights Daumier, alongside James Joyce, as a key reference in Eisenstein's teaching. The volume is reviewed by Dork Zabunyan.