Estasi ed “efficacia simbolica” nella teoria del pathos di Sergej M. Ejzenštejn

This article focuses on the research conducted by Sergej Michajlovic Eisenstein on the artistic representations of ecstasy and their specific effect on the spectator. Relying on historical and philological reconstructions of Eisenstein’s theoretical writings, the article intends to examine an aspect of his pathos theory whose implications are yet to be analyzed in depth: the idea that the ecstasy of representation constitutes a tool capable of achieving maximum persuasiveness and efficacy but also an aesthetic and epistemic turning point, a moment of self-disclosure of compositional strategies that ensure the efficacy itself. Reading and comparing different passages of the Eisensteinian theory of ecstasy and considering the structural affinities and differences with the analysis of shamanic rituals conducted by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the article investigates the relationships between the representation of ecstasy in visual arts and the anthropological and semiotic phenomenon of “symbolic efficacy”.