Cinema: Boos & Bravos

In a Moscow hospital bed, Russia's Dionysian cinema genius Sergei Eisenstein rolled and roared with joy. The cause of his delight was the medical opinion that he was dead. He had died, according to doctors, during his celebration of the completion of Part II of his three-part chef-d'oeuvre, Ivan the Terrible. Dancing with a young girl had been too much for his heart and he had collapsed.

"I am dead right now," he told the New York Times's Brooks Atkinson, chuckling. "The doctors say that according to all the rules I cannot possibly be...

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