Sergei Eisenstein, one of the towering geniuses of world cinema, was not only a leading practitioner of his art, but its principal theorist. His landmark films - from the "dynamic montage" of The Battleship Potemkin to the baroque magnificence of Ivan the Terrible - are still watched, admired and taught the world over, regarded as pioneering classics of the medium.

Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict tells the dramatic story of this great director's life and his groundbreaking work - from his precocious childhood to his explosion on the revolutionary art scene, through his landmark film career and relationships with artists as diverse as James Joyce and Walt Disney, to his untimely death at age fifty.

Drawing upon recently released material from the Soviet archives and from psychologically revealing personal letters, diaries and sketches, Ronald Bergan sheds new light on the influence of Eisenstein's parents, his childhood and his ambivalent sexuality on his life and work.