A World Redrawn: Eisenstein and Brecht in Hollywood

An exploration by the artist and scholar Zoe Beloff of Sergei Eisenstein and Bertolt Brecht's experiences in Hollywood in the Thirties and Forties with a focus on the unrealized films "Glass House" by Eisenstein and "A Model Family in a Model Home" by Brecht. The book reproduces many important and little-known documents from the period including a large selection of previously unpublished drawings by Eisenstein discovered by Beloff in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow. Also included is documentation of three films by Zoe Beloff inspired by "Glass House," "A Model Family in a Model Home" and the writings of Eisenstein and Brecht as they contemplate the politics and culture of Hollywood. Two essays scholarly essays have been commissioned for this project: an essay by Hannah Frank on the affinities of American and Soviet animation during this period and a meditation on the role of laughter in the work of Bertolt Brecht by the Walter Benjamin scholar Esther Leslie.