MIM Notes 230                   March 15, 2001

Film Review

"Battleship Potemkin"

Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, 67 minutes

This silent film is available in the "foreign" section of some 
video rental stores. In subtitles it says it was the first motion 
picture of the revolutionary movement. Even reactionaries say 
director Eisenstein was influential in cinematography and combined 
science with art.(1)

Sergei Eisenstein was born January 22nd in Riga, Latvia in 1898. 
Latvians have every right to be proud of him, just as we in North 
Amerika are proud of portions of the lives of Huey Newton and 
W.E.B. Du Bois.

In 1910, Eisenstein's family moved to St. Petersburg. Then during 
the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power, 
Eisenstein enlisted in the Red Army. After a stint building armed 
defenses, he turned toward military cultural work, theater work 
and finally, revolutionary film.

Some credit Eisenstein as being the first to edit movie footage. 
He wrote a theory saying that film does not have to be in 
chronological order, just in a sequence that produces the maximum 
emotional effect that the director intended to create.(2)

This theory explains what seem to be gaping weaknesses in 
"Battleship Potemkin." Although it was one of the first films of 
any kind using editing, the notion of dangling plot threads was 
already available in literature and theater. For this reason, the 
reviewer appreciated the commotion in the film and the skipping 
around in the action scenes, but not the unfinished plot threads 
involving the antagonists. When a villain shoots the hero in 
battle on the ship, the sailors dive to retrieve the hero from the 
water, but no one tends to the assassin, still on board the ship, 
with a gun. Instead, we eventually see scenes that imply the total 
victory of the rebellion without seeing what happened to the 
enemies. Enemies get thrown into the water and beaten. Some seem 
to get away and others deserved to be shot.

This theme of the movie continues. When the rest of the Navy comes 
to apprehend the rebel "Battleship Potemkin," it joins the revolt 
instead, without a shot fired. The movie has a strong message on 
revolutionary work in the armed forces based on the experience of 
the nearly successful 1905 Revolution in Russia.

Despite this reviewer's artistic misgivings, in 1958 an 
international meeting of film critics awarded "Battleship 
Potemkin" the title "best film of all time."(2) Viewers will find 
it interesting for the history of Russia and cinema.

Notes:

1. http://www.vor.ru/culture/cultarch3_eng.html (but see the more 
progressive and complete link below)

2. http://www.abamedia.com/rao/gallery/old/eisen.html