Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Eisenstein shooting Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Planned as a part of a cycle of films about the Revolution (along with Strike and October);

Tells about an episode of the 1905 revolt (suppressed);

Myth-making, but relatively true to the historical events (not in details!)

Historically:

11 days of mutiny on Potemkin;Hailed by the population of Odessa;Unrest in the city suppressed;No support from other ships;Ran out of food and fuel, fled to

Romania;No significant political outcome.

Battleship Potyomkin (1925)

Five parts (reels) introduced by intertitles:

ReelOne: Men and Maggots Rotten meat, doctor refuses to see the maggots, image of glassesReel Two: Drama on the Quarterdeck Refusal to eat soup – cornered on the deck, refusal to fire on

comrades, mutiny, Vakulinchuk’s deathReel Three: Appeal from the Dead Vakulinchuk’s body brought to Odessa, shrine, mourning, raising

of red flagReel Four: The Odessa Steps Fraternization of sailors and townspeople. Sailboats bring food to

ship. Soldiers massacre people on steps. Battleship fires on army headquarters.

Reel Five: Meeting the squadron Night of suspense, the engines of ship fired up. Ship passes

triumphantly through squadron sent to suppress mutiny.

General Characteristics

Eisenstein’s films are didactic: they always channel an ideological message;

There is no hero (well-rounded individual) in his early films: there are masses, classes, types;

Montage of attractions: juxtaposition of unrelated expressive images in a rapid succession (technique influenced by D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, 1916).

Francisco Goya The Third of May 1808, 1814

Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1919)

Montage

Creates metaphors (ex., lions); Innocence vs violence (ex., the face of the

woman – the rows of soldiers with bayonets lowered);

Soldiers as depersonalized graphic lines moving forward; citizens of Odessa as individuals (close-ups);

Difference in perspective: soldiers are in control, move downwards; victims’ perspective is from below.

Hand-painted flag