Has aged somewhat, but still must see for film buffs

Rating: 5/10 (27 January 2008)

Sergei Eisenstein's landmark film, from 1925, alerted western audiences that something important was happening in the Soviet Union in terms of film-making (Lenin: "Cinema to us is the most important art"). The film itself deals with the 1905 uprising of the battleship of the title, how the crew of the ship rebelled against the czarist officers when they were asked to eat rotten meat, how after the mutiny the ship landed in the port of Odessa in the Black Sea (receiving the support of the population), and how the rebellion was suppressed by troops loyal to the regime. To achieve its effects, the film used the then new technique of rapid cutting. Elected in a film congress in 1959 as the best film ever, and still considered a classic, it hasn't aged that well. There is the famous scene of the repression at the Odessa steps, repeated so many times in TV, that are famous to even those who hadn't seen the movie. Whatever its failings, every film buff should see this movie at least once. Personally, I think Eisenstein made better movies, for example, "Alexander Nevsky" or "Ivan the Terrible". It is unfortunately true that cinema ages much faster than other forms of art. For example, one can read a novel written in the 1930s without much problems, yet most movies made in that decade look terribly dated now (I think many movies made in the 60s and 70s look dated). This has to do with cinema being an art supported by technology, and technology can get outdated quickly, of course. But there must be something else that I'm not able to define that make movies age so quickly.