Film Appreciation Interlude: The Battleship Potemkin [1925].

To clear my head of the hideous films I've already mentioned (i.e. Titanic, Batman & Robin, and The House of Flying Daggers), I've decided to write an interlude and talk about a good film.

The Battleship Potemkin [1925] was a silent film directed by Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein. I was first exposed to his work when I was an undergrad taking a film class, and he pioneered the intellectual use of camera angles, particularly the montage. Contrary to the plain meaning of "silent film," films were not literally shown in silence, but were usually accompanied by records of orchestras, sound effects, etc.

Keeping in mind that this was a propaganda film, it focuses on the 1905 mutiny of Russian sailors against their officers. In the real Potemkin mutiny, the sailors enticed other navy vessels to defect, and after layovers in Odessa (in modern day Ukraine but was a part of Imperial Russia in 1905) and Romania, were eventually forced to surrender. Even though the Bolsheviks hadn't seized power yet and the Russian Revolution was 12 years away, the Soviets basically framed the story of the mutiny (which was in response to poor conditions of the Tsar's navy), into a class struggle.

The Odessa Steps Sequence is among the most famous and influential clips in cinema history. I've taken the liberty of embedding it below.

The context is important. Basically a gathering of people from all classes with no visible social cleavages have gathered to wave to the Potemkin (sailed by the mutineers). The Tsarist forces appear to clear the crowd, and begin to massacre the Russian people (Editorial Note: the massacre actually never happened).




The scene was essentially reproduced in The Untouchables [1987] at the Union Station in Chicago. Click here to watch the Union Station shootout (or a young Andy Garcia).

And speaking of montages... Team America: World Police [2004] has probably the best montage in recent cinema history. If you haven't seen it - you should definitely check it out.