Silent Film Sources - Reviews

Cast: Alexander Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigory Alexandrov,  
Mikhail Gomorov. 

The motion picture Battleship Potemkin which you have just watched was restored in the Soviet Union in 1976.  

Restoration work was supervised by Sergei Yutkevich.  

With the participation of director D. Vasilev.  

Scientific consultant, N. Cleiman. Music editors A. Kliot, A. Lapissov.  

Sound editors, V. Babushkin, L. Benevolskaya.  

Camera, P. Kusnetsov.  

Camera effects, Y. Dyomin.  

Cutter, K. Aleyeva.  

Artist, A. Kobril.  

This restored motion picture is copyrighted by Sovexportfilm, 1976.  

The music by Dmitri Shostakovich copyrighted 1942, 1945, 1947, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1962, 1967  

Released exclusively by Corinth Video.   
 

Potemkin is certainly not a movie you watch for enjoyment, but for appreciation of a master filmmaker. Eisenstein's technique is quite impressive. He made his films in the editing rather than the filming. For example, the ship used for filming was tied to a dock, but through clever camera angles and shot selection the ship appears to be at sea. 

Originally shown with a score by Edmund Meisel (available on CD), the official version of the film has been scored with music by Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich. The result is not that closely tied to the action, but it is first rate music, though less successful at building suspense. 

Eisenstein's straightforward five part narrative presents a story from the unsuccessful Bolshevik revolution of 1905. "The Men and the Maggots" opens with the enlisted men on the battleship "Potemkin" sleeping in hammocks- while the officers beat them for imagined slights. On deck, the sailors argue with their officers over rotten meat. Eisenstein clearly shows class distinctions between the officers and men, with the irony that the ship is kept clean and polished by the crew, but the meat offered to them is rancid. The men subsequently refuse to eat the soup made from the rotting meat. 

"Drama in the Harbor" continues the story as the men are called on deck. Those who didn't like the soup are separated out, covered with a tarpaulin, and a firing squad established. Orders are given to fire, and an aged figure holding a religious icon appears, and the squad refuses to fire on their own men. A free-for-all breaks out and the sailors kill or throw overboard the officers and take control of the ship. The sailor who made the call for resistance is killed by an officer, and the martyr is brought to the port city of Odessa. 

In "A Dead Man Calls For Justice" the townspeople walk by the body to pay their respects. This is the man who was killed for a plate of soup. Eisenstein cast mostly nonprofessionals based on how they looked, not for their acting skills. Not surprisingly, the film establishes no characters, and subsequently has little emotional bond with the audience. You care about the outcome of the story, but not that much about the people portrayed. In a small on-camera role, Eisenstein looks like a young student (he was 27), and his enthusiasm is clear in the energy of the film. 

The most renowned section of the film is the masterfully edited "The Odessa Staircase." The townspeople are on the town steps cheering the sailors when Czarist troops appear at the top and start shooting the unarmed populace. Rather than tell the story in an epic manner, Eisenstein individualizes the massacre with close-ups and medium shots, including the ironic juxtaposition of a baby carriage rolling down the steps amid the carnage. 

The final section of the film, "The Meeting With the Squadron," is still powerful, as the "Potemkin" heads out to sea, uncertain if the other Czarist ships will fire on them or join them in rebellion. In the conclusion of the film, Shostakovich's music comes to life, perfectly supporting the action. 

The Corinth Films release through Image Entertainment is the official 1976 Soviet restoration. The image is adjusted for the correct projection speed, and the five reel film runs 74 minutes. The image has a bit too much contrast, but is nicer than I expected, especially given some of the poor quality prints that have circulated (such as the release by Landmark Laservision). The second side of the disk is CAV, so the producers have missed the opportunity to present the Odessa Steps in CAV, though the side break is just after the famous sequence. The main titles are replaced with English titles, but interior Russian titles are intact with English subtitles. (Review © 1998 David Pierce)