A few thoughts on a widely regarded masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (12 October 2015)

NOTE: This is not a conventional review; this is my required response to Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin for my college course Intro to Film & Screen Studies...
Cinema, both domestic and foreign, owes a lot to Sergei Eisenstein for creating not only one of the most successful propaganda films with Battleship Potemkin, but one of the most successful examples of montage in history. Eisenstein employs a wide variety of subversive montage styles here, some considered tonal ones that string together a continuous feeling that rubs off on an audience, some for the purpose of continuity and consistency in events, and some for the purpose of putting grandiose, large-scale sequences into a specified perspective, though all significant in their own right.
One of the most jarring inclusions of structurally conflicting shots is the famous shot of the statue of the lion, which is shown sleeping, awakening, and rising all in the matter of about two seconds. These static images, when strung together, inspire the kind of momentary shock we, the audience, have upon watching Eisenstein concoct a film so raucous and battle-hungry that it's as if the lion is replicating our personal feelings whilst watching the film. The conflict established is more or less a circumstance of reactionary response to the disobedience of order; order which is constantly affirmed throughout the entire first chapter of the film.
Then there's the scene in the second chapter where the passengers aboard Potemkin begin to rebel. Eisenstein utilizes his montage theory to establish the events occurring before zeroing in on specific people fighting and specific blows in a way that shows the conflict between the two parties whilst showing a more concise focus on a large-scale playing field. The effect is unique because it's rare we see a large battle (or even a large battle conducted in a small area) specified so humanly by way of close-ups and intimate shooting techniques that Eisenstein employs that make the sequence so personal.
As far as alternative logic goes – where Eisenstein creates some sort of visual poetry or distinction without the use of his beloved montage technique – there's the scene early in the film where one of the captains goes to observe the actions in the bunkers. Eisenstein's camera observes the actions of the captain while interjecting cuts of pots and pans precariously placed atop boards of wood that are strung up and suspended to the room's ceiling. These scenes establish what the captain is looking at and what his environment is composed of in a manner that relates greatly to Kulesov and his own personal effect.
Then there are scenes that are more concerned with fleshing out a specific event, rather than encapsulating the horror and the messiness of other events (the uprising aboard the Potemkin and the famous Odessa Steps sequence just to name a few). One scene is the final straw for the workers, of sorts, when they are persuaded to believe that rotting, maggot-ridden meat is okay for consumption, despite being viewed by everybody on board, even the cooks, as otherwise. Eisenstein keeps things grounded more-or-less in a real-time here, allowing his camera to go back and forth between the workers and the captains in a manner that doesn't shortchange or rapidly look for a way out of this event in order to interject other scenes and create a compilation of "last straws" for the workers. This scene in particular establishes the logic that Eisenstein uses can be equal parts broadly observant, as seen in his montages, or decidedly focused.
In a way, I feel Battleship Potemkin was a film made for the masses to, for once, look introspectively at their situations in Russian and observe the treacherous, unfair living conditions and the willfully oppressive nature of the rich and able. Eisenstein had to combat the fact that most of the commonwealth Russian population was illiterate and unknowing of their own exploitation, which made him make a film like this that, despite being able to be dissected in numerous ways, almost demands a response of any kind. The complete and total disregard for the health and wellbeing of humans should at least warrant some response from people, and Eisenstein's images reflect the horrors of oppression without getting lost in symbolism or any kind of discernible auteurism. His montage elements only add to a film, rather than being stylistic distractions that work to muddle the themes at hand.
Starring: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barksy, and Grigori Aleksandrov. Directed by: Sergei Eisenstein.