Spring 2015 #17: Battleship Potemkin (1925) - S.M. Eisenstein

Happy First Day of Summer! I finally completed my Spring 2015 Moviecation List. The theme was “IMDb Top 250, AFI 100 Films, and Best Picture Winners on Netflix.” 

Battleship Potemkin. I saved the shortest film for last, thankfully. At 69 minutes it’s barely longer than an episode of Orange is the New Black. Except instead of being about a prison, it’s about the 1905 mutiny by the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin. Russia was operating under a Tsarist regime at the time, and the crew of the ship finally took a stand against their officers, resulting in an even larger rebellion in the Ukrainian town of Odessa.

The film is actually an experiment in the theory of Soviet Montage, or the belief that the well-planned juxtaposition of shots can create an emotional response in an audience. Here we have three separate lion statues, but the response created from their alignment is one of growing fear and concern. Eisenstein, originally a film theorist, applied these ideas to his film to create one of the most powerful propaganda films of all time.

Here, in one of the most famous sequences in this film and possibly in any film, the citizens of the town run from a hired militia and are massacred by their own government. A combination of shots of robotic military men, dying children, and weeping women expertly come together to move the audience, making “The Odessa Steps” as influential today as it was back then.

One thing that amazed me was the sheer number of extras in this film. It reminded me of the Babylonian scenes in Intolerance. I guess people back then were really excited to be apart of this new medium called film.

Of the film’s five parts, three of them take place aboard the Battleship Potemkin. In Part 2, “Drama on Deck,” a fierce battle between the commanders and the crew takes place over the quality of the food served on deck.

I’m still not sure if this is God or just the ship’s priest like Wikipedia implies. He looks weirdly magical?

Anyway, Battleship Potemkin is a beloved exercise in montage and political manipulation. Orson Welles listed it as his favorite film (he died four years beforeThe Little Mermaid). But the film has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I guess it’s a big deal.

Thank you for following along as I work my way through every important film of the past 100 years! Summer 2015 Moviecation List is in the works!