As Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein

Summary: A dramatised account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resulting street demonstration which brought on a police massacre (ImDb)

Synopsis:

Summary: Perhaps yje most famous example of Soviet propaganda cinema as it was ordered by the new Soviet government to commerate the 1905 Revolution, a movement that was instrumental indicting to Lenin that the military could be relied upon to support the proletariat in over throwing the Tsarsist regime.

The movie was the brain child of Eisenstein who was a student of the soviet montage theory argued that images within a film had the biggest impact not by mearly unfolding in front of the audience but by their juxtaposition. As esteemed film critic quotes “Sometimes the cutting is dialectical: point, counterpoint, fusion. Cutting between the fearful faces of the unarmed citizens and the faceless troops in uniform, he created an argument for the people against the czarist state. Many other cuts are as abrupt: After Potemkin’s captain threatens to hang mutineers from the yardarm, we see ghostly figures hanging there. As the people call out, “Down with the tyrants!” we see clenched fists. To emphasise that the shooting victims were powerless to flee, we see one revolutionary citizen without legs”(Ebert, 1998)

This Montage style is clearly shown in the often referenced/copied Odessa Steps section:

“As the troops march ahead, a military boot crushes a child’s hand. In a famous set of shots, a citizen is seen with eyeglasses; when we cut back, one of the glasses has been pierced by a bullet.Eisenstein felt that montage should proceed from rhythm, not story. Shots should be cut to lead up to a point, and should not linger because of personal interest in individual characters” (Ebert, 1998)

Eisenstein intercut shots of 3 lions to the sequence to give the impression that they are rising up in horror or disgust at what is happening on the steps and also as Roger Corman indicated in an interview that the shots from the Battleship symbolise that while the mutiny has failed there is sufficient strength in reserve to rise another day and win.

How these images are edit is landmark in how emotions and reaction are related to an audience and it significance is undoubted as the youtube clip below show its influence on other directors.