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Posted by
Ali Raza January 11, 2020 -
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Arts & Culture
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Battleship Potemkin was a Soviet (Currently the Russia) movie. It was released in the early 20th century in year 1925. The film was directed by Mr. Sergei M. Eisenstein. Eisenstein was born in the year of 1898 in the Russia. He was a brilliant director that inspired many future coming director by his work. Sergei Eisenstein was the pioneer of the Soviet filmmaking which was mostly based on propaganda in favor of the communism. He was working in a theater before he started direction in the films. His first film was Strike. Eisenstein was a great user of the mintage technique in his movies in this battleship Potemkin film he used the same montage technique. He thought that by bringing 2 different shots when put together then combined and edited gives stronger meaning than if they were separated. The film was written by the Robert Sklar David A. Cook. Battleship Potemkin was basically a silent movie. Like other Soviet movies this film was also soviet propaganda and it was to pay tribute to the Soviet revolutionaries. Battleship Potemkin is considered to be a masterpiece worldwide.
Battleship Potemkin was about the mutiny and rebel in the sailors of Soviet (Russian) against the cruel owners of the battleship Potemkin it happened in 1905 during the Russian Revolution. They got victory but it was a short lived victory. They were rising a big revolution among the citizens of Odessa, Odessa was part of Soviet Union not it is not part of Russia as it is now in Ukraine. After which the royal army arrived and finished the rebels, but it ultimately led to the communist revolution in 1917.
Battleship Potemkin was a revolutionary movie and it was agitational in nature. However, the movie was an extraordinary and beautifully shot.
Battleship Potemkin can be divided into five acts. In first act of movie, the sailors are shown when they were mistreated by the owners and officers of ship.
In the second act, the mutiny and rebellion in the city of Odessa was shown and arrival of battleship in Odessa was also shown in this part of the movie.
The third act shows the solidarity from the people the city of Odessa in favor of the rebels.
In 4th act the Odessa steps sequence comes and it shows the killings of the people from Odessa. And it is the most memorable scene and part of the movie. It is part of a history and it has very importance in cinema history. Odessa steps scene is an example of the montage movies. In this scene people of Odessa comes at Potemkin Stairs to welcome and as sign of solidarity and support for the sailors of battleship. As they were doing that many soldiers comes at stairs and starts to kill and fire on innocent citizens of Odessa. Soldiers were coming down stairs to kill more people. The part where the baby carriage were shown as it was coming down the stairs that has been reproduced many times in other films.
In fifth act the climax is shown but the Odessa stairs scene had such power that this part feels as anticlimatic.
Eisenstein choose to be revolutionary in this movie. The tempo of shots was changing constantly. Eisenstein changed the camera angle and the angle if crowd by movement of camera. These were the conflict in different shots. The director Eisenstein did not opt to bring the establishing shot of the full stairs in for viewers. It was to show the chaos on the screen. Scene ends in montages it is one of the best example of montage shot technique in the cinema history.
Eisenstein can be called the starter of the montages the way he used the montage no other could replicate at that time but it should the way how to do it to other directors so every montage scene that comes after the Odessa owes something to Eisenstein. There were many scenes that were inspired by this movie.
If we see the history of the communism and Marxist revolution in Russian empire there were many cruel acts by the Russian monarchs against their subjects. They used force against the people. This all cruelty led to the Communist rise in Russia which led to the Revolution from 1905 till during the World War 1 1917. But In reality, the Odessa stairs scene never had happened. It was just shown by the director as he was believer in the communist ideology and he was supposed to do propaganda in favor of the Communist government of Soviet Union. And the director Eisenstein did that perfectly he showed the Odessa scene in a way that after watching the battleship Potemkin people believed that it has really happened in in the Odessa and there was a massacre in the city but in reality there was not any. This was the power of that scene that it made people believe in something that never happened, other than the use of montage this is why it is considered as a masterclass of international cinema.
The film was later banned in Soviet Union during the Era of Joseph Stalin as he thought it might create hate in people of Ukraine for the Russians. But worldwide it is still seen as an example of a great movie.
