SOURCE: "Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today," in Film Form: Essays in Film Theory and The Film Sense, edited and translated by Jay Leyda, Meridian Books, 1957, pp. 195-255.

In the following essay, originally published in 1949, Eisenstein explores Griffith's innovative use of montage as well as film techniques which can be traced in literary form to the works of Charles Dickens.

"The kettle began it.…"

Thus Dickens opens his Cricket on the Hearth.

"The kettle began it.…"

What could be further from films! Trains, cowboys, chases… And The Cricket on the Hearth? "The kettle began it!" But, strange as it may seem, movies also were boiling in that kettle. From here, from Dickens, from the Victorian novel, stem the first shoots of American film esthetic, forever linked with the name of David Wark Griffith.

Although at first glance this may not seem surprising, it does appear incompatible with our...