Battleship Potemkin : World Cinema Series

This review was originally written by me as a part of the course Perspectives on World Cinema, by Prof. Mazhar Kamran of IDC, IITB. 

Battleship Potemkin (1925)
(Sergei Eisenstein)

Battleship Potemkin is a dramatised account of a mutiny on a warship and its aftermath, set in the tumultuous early twentieth-century revolutionary Russia. While set on the surface as a civil unrest drama, the film can easily be envisioned as a larger commentary on class divide and a product of the ideas prevalent in its time.

For me, as a viewer, it was a pleasantly surprising experience to be so wholly engaged with a century-old, silent film, made by and for a totally different audience. The fact that I resonated with the film seems to indicate a sense of spatial and temporal universality of the appeal of the film. Eisenstein established himself, surely, as a pioneer of the dramatic genre of cinema with this endeavour. Well-structured, with the distinctly set five acts, and well-paced, which causes the viewer to at no point view the film passively, I think this movie was a masterpiece.

One of the things that starkly stood out was the immaculate use of the background score. So used to dialogue have we become as an audience, it is almost impossible to imagine any depth of meaningful emotional being conveyed non-verbally, but this movie surely proves otherwise. In the initial acts, before any uprising, the score is revolutionary and reflective. After the death of Vakulinchuk, when his corpse is at the shore ("The Dead Man Calling out"), the score is sombre and is slightly eerie. Later, when soldiers of Potemkin are greeted with supplies from the shore of Odessa, the camaraderie and joyousness are reflected in the background score, which is noticeably upbeat, contrasted to the first few acts.

Apart from employing the score to highlight the mood, it has been masterfully used to create expectations and anticipation. This has been done two times, perhaps more, but these two instances stand out, and the use is almost contrasting in these two instances. The first instance is during the "Odessa Steps" sequence, where the mother is carrying her injured child up the stairs. As she comes to face the line of soldiers, the score almost stops to a whisper, as if holding one's breath. And then it breaks into chaos as soon as they fire on her. In a completely reverse usage, during the final scene, there is a tension-building sequence regarding a confrontation at sea. The score here crescendoes and becomes almost jarring till there is the soft release of the resolution of conflict.

Apart from the exemplary score, there are a lot of conscious choices that employ symbolism, adding depth and a layer of meaning to the narrative. The more widely recognised of these symbols would be the hustling pram down the steps, perhaps showcasing chaos & disorder, while the stalking red flag on Potemkin stresses on the revolution. The gory images of the rotten meat invoke a sense of unease and sympathy for the soldiers at the very beginning. there are other subtler elements of symbolism and other Cinematic devices used. One of these is the disarrayed priest and his cross, which perhaps indicates the absurdity and meaninglessness of religion in such times of revolution. Another symbol indicative of class triumph is the broken pair of glasses of the ship doctor hanging by the mast of the ship after the mutiny, symbolic of victory over despotic control. There are other instances which highlight the class divide. When Vakulinchuk's corpse is lying on the shore, there are several people who come to see it. While the commoners and the poor appear deeply affected and in a state of mourning, even shedding tears, the upper-class ladies merely take a morbid interest and move along.

Another element that I noticed in the scene of the mourning was a sense of repetition used in two different respects. There is initially a mass of people shown gathering to mourn and view the corpse of Vakulinchuk, and the mood seems sorrowful and sombre. Following this, incited perhaps by the sign "All for a spoonful of Borscht" that was attached to the corpse, there is a raising of slogans and the mood seems to shift from sad to decisive & revolutionary. And similar scenes of marching are shown, but this time they appear to be those of revolution, in a sense.

One thing I marvelled at was the way in which the shots seemed seamless, especially considering how this was a very early work. The editing was commendable, and the quality of the way in which cohesiveness was maintained across scenes was in no way inferior to modern cinema.

The work of the camera was also brilliant. The shooting of the Odessa steps, the ships and the close-up of barrels all seemed to attract a sense of dramatic grandiose. The motion of the camera was able to capture chaos, and the bird's eye view of the crowds managed to convey a sense that the people were the protagonists; it shifted the focus to the masses.

I shall conclude by saying I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I wouldn't hesitate to add that it is perhaps the best silent film I have ever seen, and definitely the best film with. Its short runtime, clocking at just 66 minutes, I am still amazed at how, in an hour, and without using any words, a piece of cinema was able to create a lasting impact. ∎