The Battleship Potemkin

Try to picture a grand stone staircase (made up of 200 steep steps, and divided by just under a dozen landings) built into a hillside in Odessa, Ukraine. Now picture Cossacks descending the steps (in a slow steady march) with weapons drawn and aimed at countless civilians. The Cossacks shoot a young boy who is then trampled by fleeing civilians, while his mother watches, helplessly and hopelessly, in horror. At the first chance, the mother raises her young boy and clenches him in her arms. At this moment, she’s the only one noticeably walking towards the Cossacks. The mother begs the Cossacks for help and they shoot her dead. Few civilians regain the courage of their convictions and attempt to walk toward the descending gunfire of the Cossacks. A young mother attempts to shield her baby that is crying in its carriage, while a grandmother (hiding nearby) rallies her family to try and reason with the Cossacks. The young mother is shot, and as she falls to her death she falls against the carriage, sending her baby down the steps. The grandmother gets shot through her eye (The Battleship Potemkin, 1925). Watching the scene entitled “Odessa Staircase” from Sergei Eisenstein’s, The Battleship Potemkin is more reminiscent of a scene from Coppola’s, The Godfather or Tarrentino’s , Pulp Fiction, not a silent film from 1925.

Sergei Eisenstein was a Russian film director, that was born in Riga (now, Latvia) in 1898 (Hoobler 75). Eisenstein is considered the innovator behind the montage style of movies

("Sergei Eisenstein is Dead in Moscow”, New York Times, 1948). Eisenstein’s more popular works include: Strike, The Battleship Potemkin, October, Alexander Nevsky, and Ivan the Terrible (Hoobler 77-80). To this day, Eisenstein is held in hi...

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...s appeared not so much to matter as the fact that he developed new techniques, devised camera approaches and sought always to bring out the potential of a still developing form. That he forgot--or overlooked--to bring the Marxist message to one of his films two years ago brought him that fatal kiss of all--the accusation from the authoritative Soviet magazine, Culture and Life, that his productions had been short on the prescribed Soviet requirement of art and interpretation of history” ("Sergei Eisenstein is Dead in Moscow”, New York Times, 1948) . In film, Eisenstein was known for his development of the montage sequence, his unusual juxtapositions, and his life-like imagery. In life he was known for his propaganda and belief in the plight of the working class. Eisenstein left an inevitable mark on his community, his time, the shape of a sub-culture, and his art.