In the first three decades of cinema, while the films were still silent, the global market was dominated by French film studios and, later, by Hollywood. Yet, the best known and the most influential of all silent films was produced in Soviet Union. It was Battleship Potemkin, 1925 historical epic directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
The film was produced by young Soviet state and its film industry in order to mark 20th anniversary of Russian Revolution of 1905, first and unsuccessful attempt to bring down autocratic regime of Czarist Russia and replace it with socialism and democracy. The script by Nina Agadzhanova, originally titled Year 1905, was originally supposed to depict various important events from the period, but Eisenstein decided to focus on single episode. The plot, divided into five acts, is set in June 1905. At the time regime of Tsar Nicholas II is weakened by military defeats in war with Japan, which allowed long-simmering discontent among various segments of society – ethnic minorities, liberal intelligentsia, impoverished peasants and workers – to launch series of protests, strikes and armed insurrections. Those discontent with the status quo is widespread even among members of armed forces, namely the sailors of Imperial Russian Navy. On Potemkin, battleship of Black Sea Fleet, sailor Vakulinchuk (played by Aleksandr Antonov) tries to talk his crew mates into joining the revolutionaries. The event that would lead the crew towards that course of action begins when the sailors are given rations of obviously rotten meat. When some sailors refuse to eat borscht, ship’s commander Golikov (played by Vladimir Barsky) orders them to be shot for insubordination. Vakulinchuk makes passionate plea to sailors given the order and they instead turn against officers. In the ensuing fight mutineers take control of the ship, but Vakulinchuk is killed. Mutineers bring his body to the port city of Odessa and lie him in state. Citizens gather and, inspired by his martyrdom, begin mass protest against Czar, which is brutally crushed by regime troops and Cossacks who massacre large number of people, including women and children, at Odessa Steps. Potemkin responds by bombarding the regime targets and crew contemplates landing in the city and confronting the troops. Arrival of other Black Sea battleships, which remained loyal to the regime, forces Potemkin to confront them instead.
Bolsheviks, soon after coming to power, realised the immense value of cinema as propaganda tool and, consequently, Soviet Russia was the first country to have its cinema industry under tight control of the state. This, one one hand, has put obvious content limitations on Soviet cinema, but, on the other hand, film makers were allowed to experiment in a manner film makers working in market-oriented industries were not. For much of 1920s, before Stalin established himself as undisputed leader of Party and Socialist Realism as the only proper form of artistic expression, this allowed Soviet film makers to pursue various new ideas and concepts. Some, like Sergei Eisenstein, were enthusiastic supporters of new regime and for them new ways of cinema represented continuation of Revolution on big screen, an attempt to create new arts forms and new techniques as ambitious as Soviet attempts to build new society. In case of Eisenstein, this included experimentation with editing in styles promoted by Lev Kuleshov, film maker famous for Kuleshov effect. Battleship Potemkin represents the best known application of those techniques – quick, suggestive editing designed to exact strong emotional response in a ways traditional cinema based on long static shots could not.
Such responses were exactly what Eisenstein wanted with his film. Battleship Potemkin might be the work of art, but it is also a propaganda. Characters in the film are clearly delineated into two categories – heroes that belong to oppressed masses, represented by sailors and impoverished citizens; and villains, represented by arrogant, decadent and smug officers, as well as bloodthirsty forces of oppression, embodied in robot-like lines of soldiers shooting at innocent civilians. There is very little subtlety and Battleship Potemkin, although shot on mostly authentic locations of Odessa and the old battleship Dvenadast Apostolov standing for Potemkin (which had ben scrapped few years before the production), has some issues with historical accuracy. For example, most of the violence on Odessa streets occurred during the night and included mass arson and looting, which is completely ignored by the film; Potemkin mutineers, contrary to the film’s finale, failed to bring other battleship crews on its side and were forced to seek political asylum in Romania, with ship being ultimately being returned to Czarist Navy. Afanasi Matushenko, ship’s quartermaster who was actual ringleader of the mutiny, is never mentioned or explicitly portrayed in the film.
All that, however, didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Despite some apocryphal stories about Battleship Potemkin being suppressed or disliked by Soviet authorities, the film proved to be great success for Eisenstein. The only “problematic” segment, opening titles quoting Trotsky, were simply edited out after Trotsky fell out of favour few years later. It was outside Soviet Union that Battleship Potemkin became a legend. Many great film makers, like Charles Chaplin, quickly recognised its power and artistic value. Its ability to manipulate with audience’s emotions impressed even Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels who claimed that Eisenstein’s work could turn ordinary person into Bolshevik. Those exact sentiments were shared by many Western governments that banned the film claiming that it could incite Communist revolution in their respective countries. Passage of time and natural disappearance of revolutionary zeal and ideological fervour, however, allowed Battleship Potemkin to be gradually viewed outside political context and judged by artistic merit. Time proved to be quite kind to Eisenstein’s work. The film withstood the test of time and began to win top spots in many prestigious critics’ and film scholar polls about best films ever made. Almost all film makers in next decades were employing its narrative and editing techniques and Battleship Potemkin became subject of numerous homages, most notably in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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