Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein
1925/USSR
Goskino
Repeat viewing
#27 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Opening Intertitle: Revolution is war. Of all the wars known in history it is the only lawful, rightful, just, and great war. . . In Russia this war has been declared and begun – Lenin, 1905.
The sailors of the Battleship Potemkin are fed up with their diet of rotten, maggoty meat and refuse to eat their borscht. The officers threaten to kill them for insubordination and the sailors revolt. The citizens of Odessa rise up in support of the rebel sailors and are slaughtered on the Odessa steps by tsarist soldiers. The rest of the squadron closes in on the Potemkin and the crew gets ready to fight. At the last minute, victory! The sailors on the other ships allow the Potemkin to pass safely.
While this movie does not exactly make my heart sing, there is no arguing that it taught the world a lot about how to tell a story and manipulate audience emotions through editing. The famous Odessa steps sequence is still one of the most powerfully horrific scenes in film history. This time around I noticed some pretty exquisite cinematography in this film at well. The restored print brought out the ethereal ships in the harbor when Vakulinchuk’s body is brought by boat to the docks at dawn. The sequence of the fleet of little sailing boats taking provisions to the battleship is also lyrical and quite lovely. It is easy to forget such interludes in a film that seems to determined to brand shocking images on the brain.
2011 Kino High Definition release trailer
Its historical import is clear but that doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable. This could be said about many a film….
Too true. It doesn’t help that this one is force fed to many people or that we are not the masses for which it was intended! I wonder whether Soviet audiences of the day found it stirring.
Most people know this film because of the Odessa steps sequence but probably can’t tell you much more about it. It is historically important but leaves me pretty cold. I have to say I got a chuckle of the re-use of the steps sequence in Kevin Costner’s The Untouchables
Those early Soviet films are certainly problematic. These guys probably would have been as great as the Weimar Germans if they hadn’t been handcuffed by ideology.