‘Shoulder to shoulder. The land is ours. Tomorrow is ours...’
I’m pretty well-versed in silent cinema in some ways. I’ve watched all of Chaplin’s main oeuvre and a bit of Buster Keaton also. I’ve watched plenty of German Expressionism and Spanish surrealism. I’ve watched plenty of silent shorts from more recent years, many of them Oscar winners (for a project that I started writing two years ago and still haven’t finished). But other than Metropolis, I’ve never stepped outside of horror and comedy when it comes to classic silent cinema. And I’ve never watched anything by the soviet masters of early cinema. Enter Battleship Potemkin…
Following a disagreement about some rotting meat, the sailors aboard the Battleship Potemkin decide enough is enough and so begins a long and transgressive mutiny. Following a glorious victory, talk of revolution spreads to the shores of Odessa, leading to an epic battle for freedom.
What’s most striking about Battleship Potemkin is how graphic and disturbing it is almost 100 years later. A small child is trampled to death on the Odessa steps, his mangled and broken body discarded. A woman is shot in the face as the carriage that holds her baby careens backwards for what feels like an age. These images still have the power to shock today, which is perhaps why Sergei Eisenstein’s film endures. Having said that, there is some groundbreaking camera work here also, particularly in the unbroken long shots of the battle, scenes that appear lightyears before their time when compared to some of the more rudimentary crowd scenes being lauded in western cinema at the time.
At 71 minutes, Battleship Potemkin never outstays its welcome which makes it ideal viewing for someone new to silent cinema. A real milestone in the history of silent film.