Indeed, Battleship Potemkin is one of the most influential propaganda films of all time!

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2014)

Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, the movie presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. Eisenstein divided the plot into in five acts: Act I: Men and Maggots, Act II: Drama on the deck, Act III: The dead man calls for Justice. Act IV: The Odessa staircase and last, Act V: One against all or Rendez-Vous with the Squadron. While the masterpiece has remained one of the most influential silent films of all time, influencing such directors like Terry Gilliam, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma's later works. The movie also have a negative side with the Revolution Will Not Be Vilified attitude. While it is certainly a classic it's nonetheless still, an old Soviet propaganda movie that help keep tyrants like Joseph Stalin in powers for years. Soviets seized upon the mutiny as a propaganda symbol for their party and unduly emphasized their role in the mutiny. In fact, the people that lead the mutiny on the boat, were Socialists of one type or another and cared little or nothing for Communism. The Bolsheviks had little to do with it, despite the movie saying so. Eisenstein made other changes to dramatize the story, ignoring the major fire that swept through Odessa's dock area while Potemkin was anchored there, and showing a tarpaulin thrown over the sailors to be executed. So I wouldn't say, the movie is historical accurate. It had a heavy-handed message that Communism is good. Anything else is bad. After all, the local Cossacks are portray so negative here, as over the top shadowy evil villains who shots women and children. You're really feed force to feel this great sympathy for the downtrodden sailors and workers. Clearly, the movie is very manipulate. A good example of this is one of the dead sailor corpse being display, with the sign about him having been killed for a plate of soup, instead of inciting a mutiny. He wasn't even the leader in real life. The real leader of the mutiny continue with life with the ship, finally settling in Dublin and silly as it is, open a fish-and-chips shop. Yes, that's really did happen. Another is the famous Odessa massacre, it never did happened. It was just made up so that the revolution would look more justified. Yes, there were reports of demonstrations being put down by troops on that day, but it was greatly exaggeration of some of the real events. In fact, Joseph Goebbels said that this film was the greatest propaganda film ever, and really help influence him on Nazis propaganda films. You really see a glance of what, he was talking about, with the film making a crude characterization of the Russian Orthodox priest. By showing him, it was meant to show how religion is used to support the status quo and reinforce authority. It was clearly an anti-religion comment. Later, Nazi films would use the same tactical in their media war against Jews, portrayal them as the greedy authority that kept the German people down. It's clearly haunting. The movie was often banned from countries like United Kingdom, France, Germany, and even Soviet Union at one time, because how much, it influence people to overthrow the government. While, not a huge hit, when it came out, the movie has received extremely positive reviews from critics, over the years. A lot of this come from how great the montage editing techniques were. Sergei Eisenstein learned/discovered cutting clips in experimental Soviet film workshops with his teacher, Lev Kuleshov. It shows in the powerful, and violent Odessa Steps sequence. I love the epic rush of how it was film. Added with the music from Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony and you got something powerful and disturbing. Suppressed anger. A dangerous and distressing time. I particularly like the fact that the fate of the infant in the baby carriage is left to the imagination of the audience. The baby represents the fragile hope of progress. At the top of the steps are the advancing forces of imperialism and autocracy, at the bottom a wild mess of violence. The people are caught between great forces of destruction, to which there is no appeal. Does the baby survive? We do not know. Even the action scenes on the boat were pretty intense. It was really surprise to see the splash of color in the end of this movie. It really work in the symbolism department. Then, there is ship scenes, where people notice some phallic and sexual imagery. Who knows!? Maybe, there is. After all, most propaganda film at the time are pretty homoerotic. Maybe, sometimes the cigar is just a cigar. The faults of the film could be its pacing. By modern standards, this is a short film; but for 74 minutes. Yet it felt like forever. It had a lot of slow moments and repetitive recycle shots of nothing happening. Then there are oddly cut shots that don't match up, what happening on screen. Since the old Soviet production company is no more, Mosfilm released a selection of its classic films online for free viewing. It's shouldn't be, too hard to find. The movie is indeed in the public domain under a free license Creative Commons. If not, try to find the various DVD edition. Most video transfer are pretty good with few scratches and speckling. A lot of them are restored. Since the movie is indeed a silent film. There are several film scores. The best one to watch it is under Shostakovich. Edmund Meisel & Mark-Andreas Schlingensiepen works as well. Other film composers versions, Nikolai Kryukov, Chris Jarrett, Eric Allaman, Del Rey & the Sun Kings band, and Pet Shop Boys are worth checking out. Just stay away from the avant-garde jazz version. It's really bad. Overall: A must watch for any silent film fan or film student. A alright watch for everybody else.