The documentary film no matter it styles is a powerful way for a filmmaker to put forward their point of view – they are also very successful on how they influence the audience and how they can even influence how history is remembered. It is said that the victors write history and also in the modern world filmmakers write it to.

The film maker can put forward any story or theme in any way he chooses; through the story and script and how the film’s edited, and the narrative presented to the audience. By their nature films are believable and real to an audience.

Take the early observational documentary Nanook of the North after watching the film I was surprised (perhaps naively) that most this film was constructed and staged by the film-maker – if it seems real to me in today’s modern world, it must have been viewed as absolute truth by the early cinema-going audiences.

Combs & Combs in Film Propaganda and American Politics: An Analysis and Filmography say “To classify a film as propaganda does not require demonstrable proof that filmmakers deliberately intended that a movie contains a propaganda message. Rather a film story emerges as a propaganda message if advocacy is sought and political learning is embedded in the body of the picture.” This definition is can be applied to most films made, which are documentary based or factual in their original story.

Perhaps one of the most telling of how film can influence the audience and the overall reflection of history the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin; while this section is famous and influential in it use of editing and montage to enhance the drama of the scene it is also added to the film for dramatic effect. There was no massacre on the steps but many now believe this to be a real piece of Russian history.

I have watched or rewatched several films over this section of the course and I have grown a little cynical that can I really believe anything that is put in front of me?

The Man with the Movie Camera(1929)

Director: Dziga Vertov

Summary: A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

Synopsis: This playful film is at once a documentary of a day in the life of the Soviet Union, a documentary of the filming of said documentary, and a depiction of an audience watching the film. Even the editing of the film is documented. We often see the cameraman who is purportedly making the film, but we rarely, if ever, see any of the footage he seems to be in the act of shooting! Written by George S. Davis (IMDb)

While researching analysis and reaction to “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) I came across this interview with famous B-movie director Roger Corman where he describes the action of “Odessa Steps” sequence far more eloquently than I can.

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.

Mother (1926)

Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin

Synopsis: One woman’s struggle against Tsarist rule during the 1905 Russian Revolution.

Summary: In this film, the mother of Pavel Vlasov is drawn into the revolutionary conflict when her husband and son find themselves on opposite sides during a worker’s strike. After her husband dies during the failed strike, she betrays her son’s ideology in order to try, in vain, to save his life. He is arrested, tried in what amounts to a judicial farce, and sentenced to heavy labor in a prison camp. During his incarceration, his mother aligns herself with him and his ideology and joins the revolutionaries. In the climax of the movie, the mother and hundreds of others march to the prison in order to free the prisoners, who are aware of the plan and have planned their escape. Ultimately, the troops of the Tsar suppress the uprising, killing both mother and son in the final scenes.(Mother (1926 film), 2016)

Review: This film takes us through the struggle of one woman, a mother, through the 1905 Russian revolution. The film is very much a metaphor for the revolution both in its overall narrative and the symbolism used.

AS with many film of it time it was made with the of showing to the Russian people the benfits of he revolution – at the time most of the population was poor and illiterate so cinema was an ideal way for the Government to get across there ideals. The use of a mother love is something that all Russians would relate to.

On the website sensesofcinema.com Cara Deloen suggest that while on the surface the film is a clear propagator of new Soviet Ideal: “The poor peasant mother is ignorant to the issues that reside outside her home. However, through the revolutionary movement, which strives to dissolve the present regime, the mother finds a sense of realisations. This realisation enables her to divest herself of her traditional values, embodied by the home, which is only seen once after her self-discovery, and actively pursue issues within the public sphere”.(Larsson et al., 2006).

However, DeLoen go on to suggest deeper analysis that shows a “dichotomy between traditional and new ideologies” (Larsson et al., 2006), that is in the 1920’s new Soviet society was just developing at the film illustrates that chaos, The film also propagates that the woman will even after the revolution remain many in the home and not as leaders. Over the film could be suggesting that “society that is full of utopian dreams, but has yet to fully achieve them due to the strong constraints of patriarchal traditions”.(Larsson et al., 2006).