The Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein (1925)

I recently started a history of cinema class, to try and get a deeper understanding of film and influences and whatnot. So week 1....we watched this film. Needless to say, I was excited. It's on my list AND someone was going to tell me why this was important. Sweet.

There are a couple of things about this film that are influential. The one thing is the 'style' of the movie. Eisenstein 'invented' a style of film making called 'the montage method' and this is the first of that style. You know in a movie trailer, when it's edited with quick cuts so you don't really see anything fully - that's montage. The purpose of this in a film is to heighten suspense and keep you on the edge of your seat. It also involves the use of images not really part of the scene to represent something. For example, during a very tense scene of uprising, there is a close up image of a clenched fist. This is a very powerful image that conveys much more than an entire scene could.

The other...thing....with this movie is a very famous scene of a baby in a carriage careening down a set of stairs. This scene was used in the movie 'The Untouchables' by Brian DePalma.

Is this a good film? Meh. It's totally a propaganda film. It's not a film that I would sit down with on a Saturday night with a bowl of popcorn. Having said that, and seeing this 'new' (at the time) way of making a film, and hence telling a story, it's important. It's something we still see in movies today - which for a movie made in 1925, and with all the new technologies since then, is pretty impressive.

One word to describe 'The Battleship Potemkin': Influential.