This article analyzes the unique historical collaboration between
the revolutionary Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), the cultural
psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), and the founder of contemporary
neuropsychology, Alexander Luria (1902–1977). Vygotsky’s legacy is associated
primarily with the idea that cultural mediation plays a crucial role in the emergence
and development of personality and cognition. His collaborator, Luria,
laid the foundations of contemporary neuropsychology and demonstrated
that cultural mediation also changes the functional architecture of the brain.
In my analysis, I demonstrate how the Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria collaboration
exemplifies a strategy of productive triangulation that harnesses three disciplinary
perspectives: those of cultural psychology, neuropsychology, and film
theory and practice.