Cinema
Battleship Potemkin
Броненосец «Потёмкин»
Sergei Eisenstein · 1925
Synopsis
In 1905, aboard a battleship of the Black Sea fleet, the sailors protest against rotten meat crawling with maggots. The ship's doctor, Smirnov, examines it and declares it edible, and the crew refuses the borscht made with it. The commander has the recalcitrant men gathered, they are covered with a tarpaulin, and he orders a firing squad to shoot. A sailor, Vakulinchuk, then appeals to his comrades.
Context
Commissioned for the twentieth anniversary of the 1905 revolution, the film was produced by Goskino from a story by Nina Agadzhanova, with Eduard Tissé as cinematographer. Aleksandr Antonov plays Vakulinchuk and Vladimir Barsky Commander Golikov; the other roles are played partly by actors of the Proletkult and by sailors of the Soviet navy. Its Odessa Steps sequence, in which the troops fire on the crowd, has remained one of the most famous in cinema.
Who it is for
A silent film of an hour to an hour and a quarter depending on the copies, which can be followed without knowing the history of 1905.
Prizes and reception
The most famous of Eisenstein's films according to the Cinémathèque française; Britannica regards it as a masterpiece of world cinema.