BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN Movie Review
Potemkin Bronenosets Potemkin
1925 Grigori Alexandrov, Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein's unembarrassed propaganda is one of the silent screen's first international hits. Short and swiftly paced, it remains a remarkably watchable work, too, for at least part of its running time. Contemporary audiences new to the film will be astonished at how often its big scenes have been copied and borrowed. Though the film was commissioned by the Soviet government and is very much an “official” version of history, its politics don't get in the way.
In 1925, the Soviets ordered an eight-part series of films about the glorious revolution of 1905. This is the only section that was ever produced. It tells a simple five-act story of the mutiny of the crew of the battleship Potemkin, the reaction of the citizens of Odessa when the ship docks there, and finally, its encounter with the rest of the Russian Navy. The immediate inspiration for the mutiny is rotten meat that the sailors refuse to eat. That act precipitates a tense confrontation between the crew and their officers, dramatically staged on the ship's foredeck beneath massive cannon barrels.
The scene that everyone knows is the justly famous six-minute massacre on the Odessa steps where Cossacks attack the citizens who are supporting the mutineers. Boots, baby carriage, umbrella, woman carrying her son's body, lady with the glasses, horrified lions’ reaction. The fact that the images have become cinematic cliches is an affirmation of their power. But the sequence has been reworked so often that now it seems somehow unfinished or unsatisfying. The most obvious example is the woman and the boy. If the film were made today, we'd know more about them before they arrived at the steps and we would see their deaths. But times have changed and so have audience expectations of cathartic violence. The intent of the scene has not changed. It means to involve viewers on one side of the action and to show that side in the most sympathetic light possible. If imitation really is the most sincere form of praise, Eisenstein succeeded beyond any expectations.
In a larger historical sense, it may be more useful to think of Battleship Potemkin as a young nation's first image of itself, the cinematic equivalent of The Spirit of ‘76, Archibald Willard's famous painting of the three American Revolutionary War veterans marching with fife, drum, and flag. At the painting's debut, a gallery owner called it “an embodiment of the hardships of the Revolution” and the filmmaker probably wouldn't have been too disappointed with that blurb, either. Eisenstein was a believer, a son of the revolution who was trying to tell a different kind of story, one largely without individual characters. His stated purpose was to make “the proletariat” the hero of the piece. The single named protagonist, Vakulinchuk (Alexander Antonov, who eerily resembles football coach Mike Ditka when he calls for “direct action”) makes an early sacrificial exit. Tellingly, the officer-villains do have sharply etched, mustachio-twirling personalities. Even if Eisenstein wanted his audience to identify with the heroic masses, he gave them an individual enemy with a recognizable face to hate.
The rest of the story is told through the masses. Almost all of the big scenes are built around carefully orchestrated shots of large groups of people. Judged by any standard of any era, these are really complex, large-scale crowd scenes, almost always involving opposing or bidirectional mass movements on different planes. Whatever one thinks of the film's politics, the screen is often filled with striking shapes and movements.
In the second half, the film loses its strong kinetic energy when the action involves ships instead of human beings. At the same time, Eisenstein allows his politics to undercut the drama and the film comes to a comparatively weak conclusion. Today, the film's importance is historical and political. Eisenstein's ideas about characters and dramatic structure have proved to be about as popular and enduring as Marxist economics.
The Republic Pictures tape retains the Russian title cards with English translations. Some others do not.
Cast: Alexander Antonov (Vakulinchuk), Vladimir Barsky (Capt. Golikov), Grigori Alexandrov (Chief Officer Gilyarovsky), Mikhail Gomorov (Sailor Matyushenko), Sergei Eisenstein (Ship's Chaplain), I. Brobov (Sailor), Beatrice Vitoldi (Woman with baby carriage), N. Poltavseva (School teacher), Alexandr Levshin (Petty Officer), Repnikova (Woman on the Odessa steps), Korobei (Legless veteran), Levchenko (Boatswain); Written by: Nina Agadzhanova Shutko, Sergei Eisenstein; Cinematography by: Eduard Tisse; Music by: Dimitri Shostakovich. Producer: Goskino. Russian. Running Time: 71 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV, DVD.