Sergei Eisenstein designed the two bedside tables he commissioned from the carpenters of the woodshop at MosfIlm himself for his apartment on PotYlikha Street. The director has purposefully mixed a lot of styles in his apartment. The armchair and chair in the library were crafted in Chippendale style of the second half of the 18th century; the mahogany bureau secretaire in the bedroom reflected the Empire style of the early 19th century; all these items existed side by side with BAuhaus-style furniture on metal legs and Eisenstein’s own project: simple, functional and elegant shelving and stepladder in the library, and bedside tables in the bedroom.

On the right bedside table the filmmaker kept an alarm clock, medicine bottles, and a reading lamp which he placed on top of three thick books for convenience. Original medicine bottles were not preserved. Similar vintage vials were presented to the Museum of Cinema for this exhibition by Peter von Dervies, a master from the State Research Institute of Restoration.

Paper sheets and a pencil were always right by the bedside — if a thought came in the middle of the night, it could be promptly written down. Director’s creative thoughts never ceased; they didn’t even pause during the night rest. Eisenstein jokingly wrote that he was very lazy: when he should have been drawing, he would instead read, when he should have been reading, he would write, and when should’ve been writing, he would draw.

On the left bedside table, there was a telephone and a Bauhaus lamp, and in the back, an Aztec ceremonial stone hatchet that the director brought from Mexico was leaning against the wall. Eisenstein jokingly compared this ancient stone profile to the head of his friend and colleague Viktor Shklovsky.

Above the nightstands, to the either side of the Mexican carpet on his wall, Sergei Eisenstein hung photographs of the action moments of his unfinished film ‘Que viva Mexico! ’: from an episode of the Easter scene in the Fiesta novel and from the Maguei novel. Above it all he placed sheets of Japanese graphics: the works of Utamaro and his contemporary Tōshūsai Sharaku. Mexico and Japan were two of the filmmaker’s favorite countries. To the left of the bed was a large mahogany Empire bureau with a folding table top. A striped robe brought from a foreign business trip hung behind it.