Classic And Influential Russian Silent Movie Of Revolt Against The Tsar

Rating: 5/10 (7 October 2011)

In 1905, the crew of the Russian Black Sea fleet warship Potemkin mutiny against their harsh treatment. Docking at the port of Odessa, the townspeople cheer their brave stance but tragedy awaits ...
Produced at the famous Mosfilm studios, this is one of the most intriguing and influential silent films ever made, particularly in terms of its editing. The Odessa Steps sequence in which the boy is shot and trampled and his mother picks him up and carries him towards the Cossacks is an object lesson in how to cut a scene for maximum dramatic impact. It's hard I find to watch films as old as this and imagine what cinema was like in those days, when we live in an age where computers can airbrush the crow's feet from an actress' face. But the technical achievement of this film alone is immense, not even considering its artistic merit or propaganda value. When I see quite a lot of modern films which are very poorly or lazily edited (a recent example is The Invasion), directors really need to study the basics. Cinema is an art, but it is also fundamentally a technical craft which must be learned and continually re-appraised. Eisenstein's talent in creating this picture eighty-six years ago shines down that gulf of time and reminds us what good storytelling in movies is all about. All the more remarkable to me is that he was only twenty-seven when he made it - notably the same age as Spielberg when he made Jaws. Many directors have inserted references to it in their work (often the iconic baby-carriage image) - one I've always wondered about is the shot of Luke Skywalker dangling helplessly from the mast at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, which looks eerily similar to the shot of the wounded Vakulinchuk dangling from the hook at the end of the Drama On The Deck section. Purists please note - this movie exists in quite a few different versions with different scores and has been restored several times (notably a re-release in 2004); this review is of the 1976 print supervised by Sergei Youtkevitch. Even if you don't like silent movies, there are five I'd really recommend you should see - The General, The Lodger, Metropolis, Nosferatu and this film. English title - Battleship Potemkin.