Battleship Potemkin

 Year:  1925

Director:  Sergei Eisenstein

Screenplay:  Nina Agadzhanova, Sergei Eisenstein, Nikolai Aseyev, Sergei Tretyakov

Starring:  Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barksy, Grigori Aleksandrov

Running Time:  70 minutes

Genre:  Drama

In 1905, the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin endure a miserable existence in cramped conditions, with harsh punishments and bad food.  A consignment of rotten meat eventually proves the breaking point and the crew mutiny, successfully taking over the battleship.  The mutiny proves the inspiration for the people of the port of Odessa to turn against the tsar, but the tsarist soldiers retaliate with extreme ferocity.

Intended as Soviet propaganda, Battleship Potemkin has been hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, and is certainly one of the most influential.  The justifiably famous "Odessa Steps" sequence in which soldiers march mechanically down the steps gunning down fleeing civilians, has been initiated and referenced in countless films, including The Untouchables (1987), Star Wars: Episode III - revenge of the Sith (2005) and Dune (2021).  Aside from its purpose as propaganda, director Sergei Eisenstein used the film to test his theories of "montage".  Montage theory is that the juxtaposition of certain sequences of film  can either create an emotional response in viewers or convey information in a quick and effective way: for example training sequences in sports or action films where montage is used to compress time to show how the training is progressing in a quick and effective way.  Eisenstein intended the way that Battleship Potemkin was edited to fire up his audience's revolutionary zeal.  In fact, Eisenstein was disappointed that the film was not a huge success in its native Soviet Union, but the film was highly praised internationally.  It has been controversial for its politics and, for the time, graphic violence.  The film is simplistic in it's plot, with the characters quite crudely drawn, as may be expected for a propaganda film, the audience is left in no doubt who they are supposed to root for, but in terms of style it is still effective, even almost 100 years later.  There are unforgettable images such as the looming guns of the battleship, the baby carriage rolling down the steps, the face of a woman shot in the eye, the red flag being hoisted (a vivid splash of colour in an otherwise black and white film), and three separate stone lions shown in quick succession as if a slumbering lion statue is awakening.  Even if you disagree with the film's politics, it is an important work and a required viewing for film fans.  

   Battleship Potemkin