Released in 1925 | Directed by Sergei Eisenstein

As someone interested in the history and mechanics of filmmaking, I regret having put off seeing Battleship Potemkin for so long. There are few films that have had such a profound effect on the craft. From Eisenstein’s use of editing to heighten tension and to introduce emotional cues as to which characters are the film’s heroes and villains, to his famous Odessa steps sequence, still one of the most frightening, raw scenes in film to this day, Eisenstein created one of the first masterpieces - and certainly one of the most enduring - of the silver screen. Lenin would have been proud.

Eisenstein created the film, which dramatizes a riot on a Russian battleship during the Russo-Japanese War and encourages socialist revolution, both as a political statement and as an experiment in techniques such as film editing, camera angles and montage. Eisenstein was disappointed when Battleship failed to provoke the response from his comrades he had expected, but the film found appreciators worldwide for his creative use of the medium. Interestingly enough, his techniques of editing and, in later films such as October, intellectual montage, would lead to trouble with the Soviet film community, whose style of choice had become socialist realism.

The Odessa steps sequence is still a tense and strikingly violent scene, featuring frightening imagery such as the Tsarist soldiers’ mechanical pace and disregard for the bodies littering the steps, the old nurse wailing with blood pouring down her face and, most famously, the newly orphaned baby’s carriage rolling down the steps. Also notable are the images of rotten meat covered in maggots and the soldiers jumping into the water to save their leader, Vakulinchuk.

I would recommend Battleship Potemkin to anyone interested in Russian history, propaganda, silent films or filmmaking in general. I’m glad I took the time to have watched it: in fact, if you’re so inclined, the film is public domain in many areas and can be watched for free here.

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