Where a social revolution and cinematic revolution merged.

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2015)

A study in heroics. A call to violent revolution. A propaganda piece. A work of homo erotic art. A story for the ages. A commercial success only in the west....
Sergei Eisenstein's first full-length feature is all of those. It's also the movie that brought his name to international audiences, forever. Arguably, few movie directors reach that pinnacle of fame so early in life - Eisenstein being only twenty-seven when Battleship Potemkin (BP) was released. Such is artistic genius.
The story, largely based upon the actual facts of history, follows no single protagonist; for Eisenstein, the working class is paramount, represented by the sailors and the people of Odessa. The visual narrative shows the sailors taking over the ship, steaming on to Odessa, gaining the support of the local population and finally venturing forth to sea again to meet the Tsar's opposing naval forces who, against the odds, did not fire a single shot in anger, allowing BP to pass through the cordon to freedom. The mutineers had won, a metaphor so strong that, at a later time, Lenin called the entire incident "a dress rehearsal" for the 1917 revolution.
On the other hand, although some of the local Odessa population were in fact killed by Tsarist troops, the massacre on the Odessa steps - a seven minute, seminal montage of exquisite action forever copied by others - was entirely Eisenstein's fiction. Moreover, the mutineers did not truly win: after sailing through the opposing fleet, BP was eventually retaken by Russian authorities at a Romanian port on the Black Sea. Other minor aspects of the story were also changed to suit Eisenstein's creative inspirations. Good storytellers, though, never let facts hinder creativity.
Of greater visual importance, I think, is the long, slow sequence of thousands of local people descending to the dockyards to file past the body of Vakulinchuk (Antonov), the valiant leader of the mutineers, who was shot to death by one of the officers. Regardless of how many turned out in reality, Eisenstein's cameras capture the mood and reality of those times with a mix of sharp, extreme close- ups and long shots of staggering complexity and a cast of thousands.
I saw this movie first in 1968 or 69. Forty-five years have not dimmed the imagery I recall so vividly when I saw it again recently. It's that sort of movie. Along with Strike (1925) made soon after BP, these are cinematic icons you cannot afford to miss, especially if you consider yourself a movie aficionado.
No movie ever gets a ten from this reviewer. If I could give this 9.9, I would, however. Recommended for all.
April 5th, 2015.