Aside from the similar visual styles of Battleship Potemkin and The Birth of a Nation, both films are examples of civil unrest during periods of political instability in a historical setting. Both movies take place during a national revolution and involve several instances of social turmoil and disturbance. The styles of these films can be contrasted by viewing their use of montage, focus, and basic film techniques in relation to thematic and constructive plot elements. The Birth of a Nation
Eisenstein’s “Methods of Montage” is deeply revered and studied by both professional and aspiring filmmakers around the world. Works Cited Eisenstein, S. M. 1949, “Film Form: A Dialectic Approach to Film Form, Harcourt Brace and Company, U.S. The Battleship Potemkin 1925, motion picture, Goskino, Soviet Union. Kehr, D. 2011, “The condemned art of Soviet filmmakers”, New York Times, 13 October 2011, p.6) Kuleshov, L.V. 1922, “Americanism”, Kino-Fot, No.1, p.14-15 Taylor, R. & Christie, I. 1988, Factory:
war. The 1905 revolution was the result of the Russo-Japanese war which broke out in 1904. The war saw military and naval defeats for the Russian forces. There were food shortages in cities and the Soviets (assemblies of workers and soldiers’ representatives) were formed in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The event which started the whole revolution in the Russian Empire was “Bloody Sunday”; the event of the massacre of armament workers by Cossacks in front of the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg. The
Soviet cinema. At the same time I will try to capture especially what is common in their systems and similar or conversely what differ. For my analysis, I will draw on the feature films of the Soviet avantgarde, namely these are the movies - The Battleship Potemkin (S. Eisenstein, 1925), Mother (V. Pudovkin, 1926) and The Man with a movie camera (D. Vertov, 1929). The School of montage Most of the films that they were created in the Soviet Union, outside the school of montage, use topics of sitcoms and
the formalist lead by theorist Sergei Eisenstein saw film as frame and would create shock in an attempt to provoke or raise consciousness. Sergei Eisenstein would create what he wanted to the audience to see in his films. For example in the Battleship Potemkin Eisenstein wanted to address the situation with Russia and he created the situation in his film to incite a revolution by creating chaos. The realism school lead by André Bazin saw cinema as window. To Bazin a spectator would be apart of the
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN How does the graphic and rhythmic use of editing and the overall structure of the film relate to the theme of “revolution”? Revolution or war activities are not smooth, transitions between events or contain even, unsettling effects on the individuals or participants. Battleship Potemkin is anything less showing and displaying images woven together that jar the viewer, against his or her will. This is best illustrated in "The Odessa Staircase". During this segment, the
Eisenstein to analyse film in a scientific and psychological manner, despite the medium being only a few decades old and still in its extreme infancy, and use his conclusions to his advantage in films like Strike (1925) and his most famous film Battleship P...
Film.” Slavic Review. 55.4 (Winter 1996): 882-190. Web. December 2013. Maslin, Janet. “Ulysses, Ozymandias And Lenin in the Balkans.” New York Times. 17 January 1997. Web. December 2013. Papadogiannis, Nikolaos. "Between Angelopoulos and The Battleship Potemkin: Cinema and the Making of Young Communists in Greece in the Initial Post-dictatorship.” European History Quarterly 42.2 (2012): 286-308. Web. December 2013.
opposites” (45). These opposites synthesize and form a new thesis, which then may also be contradicted. Eisenstein employs dialectical montage in his films due to its ability to invoke change, an important goal in a revolutionary society. His film Battleship Potemkin is designed to display this theory and create a psychological change within his audience, corresponding to his revolutionist ideals. The popularity of the dialectical approach was fostered by the upheaval in Russia during the early 20th Century
In this essay I will discussing how the theory of montage is used to construct meaning which results in a response from the audience to watching this specific sequence in Battleship Potemkin directed by Sergei Eisenstein in 1925. The theory of montage has 5 parts to it which I will discuss in detail further on with reference to the Odessa steps sequence. History also plays an important part as to how Pudovkin, Lev Kuleshov and D. W Griffiths influenced Eisenstein to look deeper into editing. Eisenstein
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
In this paper I will argue that understanding the context of a film is vital for a more in-depth understanding of it and I will accomplish this through a deep analysis of the following films: Flowers of War, Edge of Heaven, Battleship Potemkin, and the Big Heat. Additionally not only knowing the historical, social, and political background of a film and how the ideas in this film were form,but also how this film affected the society and the point of view of individuals,because after all film is not
Film School, the world’s first film school. In a time when filmmaking was still in its infancy, Kuleshov was perhaps the first to theorize about the power of this new story telling medium. These theories and experiments would pave the way for future Russian film giants like Pudovkin and Eisenstein (who briefly studied under him). Kuleshov’s most famous experiment is known today as the Kuleshov Effect. In order to show the power of editing he screened a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist matinee
The theoretical perspective of this editing style was first introduced by Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein in the 1920’s in his films Strike, The Battleship Potemkin, and October: Ten Days That Shook the World, among others. Eisenstein advanced the In the beginning of Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona (1966), images of projectors showing dozens
The military remained loyal to the autocracy, and the Tsar even after the Russo-Japanese War, and despite the rash of mutinies, including the mutiny in May 1905 on the battleship Potemkin where 40 crew members murdered 7 of their officers including the captain before seeking asylum in Romania. The Tsar feared that when the army returned from the Russo-Japanese war, they would not remain loyal and could not be used to combat the
destroy the autocracy. The beginning of the 1905 revolution was marked The military remained loyal to the autocracy, and the Tsar even after the Russo-Japanese War, and despite the rash of mutinies, including the mutiny in May 1905 on the battleship Potemkin where 40 crew members murdered 7 of their officers including the captain before seeking asylum in Romania. The Tsar feared that when the army returned from the Russo-Japanese war, they would not remain loyal and could not be used to combat the
The four films show political scenarios in different countries. This paper will focus on the use of landscape in cinematography. This is not just footage; it is important that it matches well with the action. According to Semiotics is a science that deals with the study of the life of signs within society. It depicts what make up signs and the rules that govern them (Saussure 1974:16). The movie Argo was produced in America in the year 2012. It portrays the political relationship between the Americans
The Man with a Movie Camera is a visual glorification of Soviet life. Vertov sought to communicate communist ideals by showing images of life in Soviet society, using the principles of montage to create meaning across what would normally be unrelated imagery. In the beginning titles of the film, Vertov asserts “This experimental work aims at creating a truly international absolute language of cinema based on its total separation from the language of theater and literature.” The Man with a Movie Camera
affects the growth of globalization of other industrial and post-industrial countries. The history of the past is being removed with the history of now. Walt Disney has replaced Plato, burgers have replaced ravioli and “Blended” has replaced “Battleship Potemkin”. American globalization causes loss of historical memory, while historical memory could teach us to think right, “It’s not clear whether fast food,
The Romanov Empire had reign the Russian Empire for about 300 years before Nicholas II became the monarch. Unfortunately, the new Tsar of Russia was also advised by Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who promoted autocracy, condemned elections, representation and democracy, the jury system, the press, free education, charities, and social reforms; an outdated ideology by the turn of the twentieth century. Although Nicholas II possessed some skills that would have been advantageous as the leader but, overall