Original Russian release photo, public domain
Most films that are historically significant become so through artistic merit, popular appeal or social commentary and significance. Few set out to directly influence politics, society and history, with the exception of the propaganda films. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) is the rare propaganda film that also brings considerable artistic merit to the table, which arguably made its point have that much more of an impact.
The titular Battleship Potemkin was a real Russian navy ship whose crew mutinied in 1905, overthrowing its tsarist captain and siding with the Bolsheviks. The director, Sergei Eisenstein, chose this particular event in the Russian Revolution because it contained elements of the prototypical Communist struggle- namely the proletariat sailors rebelling against the bourgeois captain and the tsarist soldiers. As a propaganda film, Potemkin portrays the sailors and Bolsheviks as heroic everymen, while the tsarists are pure, almost cartoonish evil. When released outside the USSR, Potemkin has typically been subject to censorship of its fiery rhetoric and violent scenes. However, in 2004 a fully restored and uncensored version was released.
The Battleship Potemkin is a very well-built film. It remains one of the most famous, successful and artistically sound propaganda films ever created. Eisenstein was a practitioner of a film editing technique called “Soviet montage theory,” which is primarily about piecing together shots that contrast each other, forming point and counterpoint. This film contains numerous examples of the application of this theory. Perhaps Potemkin’s most famous scene is the “Odessa Steps” sequence, in which a mother is shot and her baby carriage tumbles helplessly down a massive flight of stairs, amidst tsarist soldiers massacring the populace of Odessa.
The Battleship Potemkin is a remarkable piece of cinema and a remarkable piece of history. There may be some trepidation on the part of an American audience when approaching a Soviet propaganda film, but the film the events depicted in the film took place over 100 years ago, and the Bolshevik movement is long gone. Ultimately, Potemkin’s status in the film world overrides whatever political leanings its makers may have had.
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