Battleship Potemkin - Semester 2

Justin Noddle Period 6

Summary: Battleship Potemkin is a silent film created in 1925 by a man named Sergei Eisenstein. This film is 75 minutes long and was created in the Soviet Union. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian Battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime.

Question #1: What makes the scene at the Odessa Steps so valuable to the film as a whole?

This scene begins somewhat happily but abruptly changes to chaos and fear. Massive amounts of people are shown running away from something that the audience does not yet know. The next shot is a high angle hot of the whole city and includes all of the people running for their lives. Shortly after, the army comes in and we learn why the people are running away and so afraid. Crowds of people come pouring down the steps and the urgency in this scene is well known. The music is very fast and upbeat and has the viewer’s heart pounding fast to the beat of the music. The steps are shown as people fall down onto them because they have been shot. This shows the violence at the time and how frightening this must have been. The events shown on the steps never actually took place in the real event. Rather, this was a way for Eisenstein to dramatically portray the Imperial Regime and how scary it is to see lives being lost and be in that danger.

Question #2: How is Sergei Eisenstein able to use multiple shots at different angles to maximize the effect in this film?

Some of the coolest scenes in Battleship Potemkin are the fighting scenes. For example, one of the scenes start with the word “suddenly” and is followed by a flash of a girl’s head. It then shows people panicking  and then shows a short view of the Odessa Steps. The viewer sees the steps and then people come storming down. This is a very effective technique of setting up the background before having movement enter the scene. There is a close shot of a man bending down followed by a medium shot of a man throwing up his arms. Different angles are used for different movements but they all portray the emotion of panic. The camera pans down and shows a man collapsing on the steps. Different shots are shown multiple times throughout the film in different orders than they were film because there are multiple short shots and cuts to tell a story.