The Battleship Potemkin
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- For the real-life battleship, see Russian battleship Potemkin.
Film style and content
Deliberately written as a revolutionary propaganda film, Eisenstein used this film to test his theories of "montage". The revolutionary Soviet filmmakers of the Kuleshov school of filmmaking were experimenting with the effect of films on the audience, and Eisenstein edited the film in a way that would produce the greatest emotional response, so that the viewer would feel sympathy for the rebellious sailors of the battleship Potemkin and hatred for their cruel overlords. In the manner of most propaganda, the story was written in a very simplistic fashion, so that the audience could clearly see whom they could sympathize with.
Eisenstein's experiment was a mixed success and at the time Potemkin was not a hit with Soviet audiences.. "[Eisenstein] was disappointed when Potemkin failed to attract masses of viewers." It was also released in a number of venues around the world, where audiences responded positively. Although, in both Soviet Union and overseas, the film also shocked audiences not because of its political statements, but because its use of violence, which was considered graphic by the standards of the time. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels called Potemkin "a marvellous film without equal in the cinema ... anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film." [link]
The film was composed of five episodes: "People and Worms" (Люди и черви), "Drama at the Harbor" (Драма на тендре), "The Dead is Appealing" (Мёртвый взывает), "The Odessa Staircase" (Одесская лестница), and "The Rendez-Vous with a Squadron" (Встреча с эскадрой).
The Odessa Steps sequence
The most famous scene from the film is the massacre on the Odessa Steps (Primorsky (Potemkin) Stairs), where the Tsar's cossacks in their white summer tunics march down a seemingly endless flight of stairs in a rhythmic, machine-like fashion, slaughtering a crowd of civilians as they attempt to flee down the stairs before the troops reach them.
The scene was perhaps the best example of Eisenstein's theory on montage, and ironically may have influenced many of Leni Riefenstahl's similar images in Triumph of the Will. It has been endlessly referenced in many motion pictures, with famous homages occurring in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Brian De Palma's version of The Untouchables, and ' (except the troopers marched up the stairs). It was also spoofed in Woody Allen's Bananas, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, ' and the anime series Ergo Proxy.
There is some uncertainty as to whether the massacre on the steps took place as portrayed by Eisenstein.[[Citing sources citation needed]] Certainly there were widespread demonstrations in the area sparked off by the arrival of the Potemkin in Odessa Harbour and troops did fire on the crowds.[[Citing sources citation needed]] The Odessa Steps still exist. But the massacre on the steps is fictional. p. 24 "...fictional bloody massacre on the Odessa Steps..." p. 29 "That there was, in fact, no czarist massacre on the Odessa Steps scarcely diminishes the power of the scene...It is ironic that he did it so well that today the bloodshed on the Odessa steps is often referred to as if it really happened."
Previous censorship and recent restoration
After its premiere in Soviet Union, it was later shown in an edited form in Germany, with some scenes of extreme violence edited out by its German distributors. A written introduction by Leon Trotsky was also cut from Soviet prints after he ran afoul of Josef Stalin. The film was banned under the Nazis in Germany. It would also be banned at one time by the British, Spanish and French for its revolutionary zeal.
In 2004, a three year restoration of the film was completed. Many excised scenes of violence were restored, as well as the original written introduction by Leon Trotsky. The previous titles, which had toned down the mutinous sailors' revolutionary rhetoric, were corrected so that they would now be an accurate translation of the original Russian titles in the film.
Legacy
The original score was composed by Edmund Meisel. A salon orchestra performed the Berlin premiere in 1926; its instrumentation was flute/piccolo, trumpet, trombone, harmonium, percussion and strings without viola. Meisel wrote the score in twelve days and nights due to the late approval from the censorship board. Due to this problem, Meisel would repeat large sections of the score, unchanged, in an effort to complete the project. Composer/conductor Mark-Andreas Schlingensiepen has reorchestrated and improved the score based on the original piano score and has adjusted it to fit the reconstructed version of the film available today.
In its commercial format (on DVD, for example) the film is usually accompanied by pieces of classical music that have been subsequently added. In an attempt to make the film relevant for the 21st century, Pet Shop Boys composed a new soundtrack in 2004, accompanied by the Dresdner Sinfoniker orchestra. Their soundtrack, released as Battleship Potemkin in 2005, was premiered in September 2004 at an open-air concert in Trafalgar Square, London.
See also
- List of films
- List of actors
- List of directors
- List of documentaries
- Films that have been considered the greatest ever
External links
- [Free download] on the Internet Archive
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