The Battleship Potemkin

Original 1925, this reissue 2006

War, Propaganda

Russia

Force Entertainment

Beyond Home Entertainment

R4

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

The mutiny on the Potemkin in 1905 was regarded as one of the indirect causes of the Russian Revolution. In 1925 young filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to produce a film to mark the mutiny’s twentieth anniversary. His work has come to be regarded as a classic and in 1948 was nominated by a critics group as the greatest film ever made. This was confirmed again in 1958.

The story, very briefly, is this. The Russian Fleet had been sent halfway around the world to battle the rising Japanese Navy. They were trounced by the Japanese and had to retrace their path back to their home port of Odessa. Nearly home, the Potemkin was detached from the squadron to do gunnery practice. This was not what the sailors wanted. Their morale was low, there was news of rising revolution in Russia, their officers were increasingly autocratic and sadistic and they were running short of food. When sailors refused to eat maggot-infested meat the ship’s captain threatened to shoot some of the seamen. One of the mutineers, Vakulinchuk, persuaded the ship’s guards not to shoot, but to join the mutiny. During the fighting for control of the ship Vakulinchuk was killed by an officer. His body was taken ashore at Odessa and placed on the dock where it was found next morning by the citizens. The word soon raced through Odessa that there was a mutiny in progress on the Potemkin and the population sent gifts of food to the sailors to express their solidarity.

The Czar was not impressed and sent a force of Cossacks to suppress the revolution by any means. He also ordered the rest of the squadron to sink the Potemkin if it did not surrender. As the Potemkin left the harbour it faced the unknown – could they win a battle with the squadron? Would the squadron even obey its orders? They sailed headon into the squadron, who let them pass, in sympathy with their cause.

The film tells the story somewhat differently. Eisenstein had to keep in mind that he was making a propaganda film, so the words on the storyboards are a little flowery and unrealistic. He was, however, a craftsman of film and used the black and white medium to its best effect. He strengthened the contrast for some sections of the film, used montage to drive a range of emotions in a scene, and didn’t have a hero which strengthened the feeling of solidarity and simplified the script. He took some dramatic license with the history but used this to produce a stronger film. He also intended that the music should be rewritten every twenty years or so, so that his film would not go out of date so quickly.

The title cards divide the film into a number of chapters. “Men and Maggots” introduces the conditions aboard the Potemkin and the uncaring officers. “Drama at the Harbour” covers the mutiny and the death of Vakulinchuk. “A Dead Man Calls For Justice” is where the Odessa citizens find his body and realise there is a mutiny going on aboard the battleship. Like the sailors, they too want revenge.

“The Odessa Staircase” is an event that didn’t actually happen, but was used by Eisenstein as a dramatic device to show the Czar’s brutality to his own people. Cossack soldiers loyal to the Czar are called in to disperse the crowd by firing on the thousands of demonstrators at the dockside. This is the most powerful and emotional scene in the film. It was possibly a reflection of Eisenstein having witnessed in 1905 a march on the Czar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg by local workers. The peaceful, unarmed workers were fired on by the Czar’s troops. Eisenstein would have been very young at the time but the emotion he raises in the Odessa Steps scene must reflect his feelings. Although the scene is an invention there were confrontations throughout the city and many citizens were killed.

“The Rendezvous With The Squadron” has the Potemkin leaving the harbour to face its destiny. As the Potemkin and the Squadron draw closer the tension mounts until the last minute.

In a post-World War 1 Europe paranoid about rising revolution in its own workforce the film was not always well received. Most showings were shortened to fit the political realities of the time. Some scenes such as the Odessa Stairs were cut heavily as this level of graphic violence was a bit antisocial for its time. Even this reissue is rated Parental Guidance Recommended, 83 years later. Over the years a number of restorers have tried to reconstruct the entire film with bits and pieces found tucked away, but a full copy is so far not believed to exist. There was no denying the film’s power and influence, even heavily cut. Josef Goebbels later said that it was "a marvellous film without equal in the cinema ... anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film."

The bad news is that the film has not survived well. This version has been digitally cleaned up and I suspect the sound has been rerecorded but there are still many signs that we are watching a very old film here. You may not mind this (I didn’t) feeling that it adds a more authentic look to the film, but as for transferring it to Blu-Ray – I think not. It is nevertheless very watchable and the mono sound in Dolby Digital comes over well. Unfortunately the subtitles have been placed over the text of the title cards with little thought for positioning and in many cases they are superimposed, making them hard to read.

There are poor-quality copies of the original film available for free download from the net, but after seeing this edition I wouldn’t bother. Technically its minimal cleaning up has kept the historical flavour of the original and made it easier to watch. In spite of the weaknesses, students of film will learn a lot from Eisenstein’s techniques, historians will value it as a propaganda piece, and general viewers like me will just enjoy it as really powerful historically-based film.

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This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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