Dance of Values

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Eisenstein’s adaptation of Marx’s Capital remains an unrealized yet influential vision that continues to inspire filmmakers and scholars, notably in works like Kluge’s News from Ideological Antiquity. The first glimpse of Eisenstein’s project came from a fragment of his diaries, highlighting the absence of his visual materials. Dance of Values seeks to resurrect this phantom by utilizing the extensive archival body of Capital, which includes over 500 pages of notes, drawings, and theoretical reflections. This work examines the formal necessity behind Eisenstein’s choices, suggesting that the visual complexity and epistemic efficacy stem from the diverse themes and fragments within the material. Archival sequences, presented for the first time, serve as visual arguments rather than mere illustrations, deepening the understanding of Eisenstein’s engagement with Capital as a visual theorization of value. By closely analyzing Eisenstein’s archive, the work reconstructs elements of Marx’s theory of value while addressing a broader crisis in political-medial representation that resonates today. Utilizing a morphological approach, Eisenstein’s montage sequences create a unique surplus value, generating a semiotic excess that reflects Marx’s concept of “petrified conditions.” This polymorphic language, akin to Joyce's stream of consciousness in Ulysses, embodies Eisenstein’s vision for cinema’s critical and affective potential.