Battleship Potemkine, Movie Review Example

Sergei Eisenstein’s account of the 1905 rebellion of Russian sailors against the officer corps and the Tsarist regime as presented in the film Battleship Potemkin (1925) represents a synthesis of the utilization of cinema as art form and the motifs of political engagement. Eisenstein’s film essentially recognizes film’s possibility as a means of a radical critique of existing political structures. Certainly, the film was made in 1925, when the Tsarist regime had already been overturned by the Russian revolution; in this regard, the film could be classified as falling within the genre of propaganda art. However, such an interpretation overlooks Eisenstein’s radical fusion of a pronounced aesthetic sense and the possibilities of political critique. In the following essay, we shall examine how Eisenstein essentially uses these two motifs in an intertwined manner to present an authentically political work of art. In particular, we will look at how Eisenstein’s narrative and film techniques emphasize a subjective account of history, a subjective account that simultaneously evokes a greater universal notion in the sense that the suffering of the characters in the film leads to a greater political movement that transcends their individual traumas.

The narrative for the film is obviously resolutely political. The plot remains primarily historical in character, recounting the events of the 1905 uprising. Eisenstein, however, does not attempt to provide an illusory “objective” account of these events. His narrative is clearly intended to display in an inexorable manner the viewpoint of the sailors. While this may be viewed as presenting a skewed perspective of historical events, on the other hand it suggests Eisenstein’s realization that the interpretation of any historical event is necessarily subjective. The attempt to provide an objective account precisely overlooks the real life subjective concerns that motivate a historical event. In other words, the reason for the 1905 rebellion was precisely the poor living and working conditions of the Russian sailors. This indicates that a historical event is not motivated by objective concerns, but rather by purely subjective, individual and collective concerns. Eisenstein’s narrative attempts to maintain a fealty to this very notion. For example, the structure of the screenplay focuses on the hardship and the injustices that the sailors experience. This ranges from the crucial title of the opening part of the narrative, “Men and Maggots”, in which the sailors’ object to having to consume rotten meat for their meals. The title of “Men and Maggots” clearly attempts to show that because of the poor living conditions, the men are treated as maggots – there is an essential interchangeability between their positions. The murder of Vakulinchuk, the organizer of the sailor’s mutiny and protest, further underscores the degradation of life that is at the heart of the sailor’s existence. Eisenstein thus effectively focuses on the real subjective living conditions of the sailors and the injustices they experience, as it is precisely this subjective experience that necessitates the historical event of the rebellion on the Potemkin.

At the same time, Eisenstein contrasts this personal account with the evocation of greater ethical principles such as justice. The third part of the film, entitled “A Dead Man calls for Justice”, can be viewed as the crucial middle part of the film, splitting the narrative’s five parts in half. The call for justice is precisely the point in which subjective concerns of suffering become transformed into a greater non-individual, collective rebellion. In his narrative structure, Eisenstein makes a profound ethical statement: that subjective torment, while important on a subjective level, nonetheless opens a universal dimension that applies to all individuals, in the form of the rights and justice for all individuals. This movement from subjective torment to a unified collective front against such torment is cemented in the film’s final part, “The Rendez-Vous with a Squadron”, in which the military unit that is ordered to stop the rebellion of the sailors decides to disobey their orders and side with the sailors. Here, the squadron recognizes the subjective suffering of the sailors; moreover, they accept this suffering as their own suffering, thus laying the possibility for an authentic revolution. Hence, whereas the narrative structure could be conceived as a simple propaganda message, this interpretation misses the radical ethical and philosophical thesis that shows through in Eisenstein’s structure of the narrative: subjective experience can at the same time point to an objective historical truth.

The radical usage of film techniques employed by Eisenstein can be thought of as simultaneously developing this idea. There is a delicate balance of attempting to demonstrate the subjective experience as part of a greater ethical cause. For example, the pace of the editing and montage is in one sense uneven. This reflects not an objective portrayal of time, but rather a subjective portrayal of time, in which how individual experiences of time are emphasized. This falls in line with the overall aim of Eisenstein as attempting to provide a deeply subjective film. Time can no longer be thought of as something separate from people’s lives, in the same sense that history is not to be thought of as something that has no effect on individual, subjective experience. By showing time from a subjective point of view this creates a human, ethical element to the film. For example, the editing in the scene depicting the sailors’ resting in their hammocks is simultaneously uneven and slow, in an attempt to capture purely subjective experiences of boredom. The fighting scenes, such as the acclaimed scene on the Odessa steps, offer quick cuts, placing the viewer into the heart of the battle, and simulating the experience of chaos that such violence evokes. The emphasis on human experience of phenomena as shown through the editing and montage can be viewed as directly in line with the intent of the film and its broader ethical statement against exploitation and the possible collective unity of people to overthrow such exploitation.

The utilization of tracking shots can also be viewed as contributing to this subjective experience, placing the viewer of the film in the midst of the narrative as if they were part of its massive assemblage. This usage therefore emphasizes the immanence of the viewer to the film, in the sense that the events of the film are clearly applicable to the viewer him or herself. In other words, Eisenstein is not portraying a distant historical effect, but rather a struggle that is relevant to all the viewers of the film, in an attempt to make the viewers see themselves in the struggles of the film’s characters. For Eisenstein, history is not merely an artifact that has no repercussions on the lives of people; rather history is the narrative of struggles that repeat themselves in subjective experience. In this sense, we can say that Eisenstein uses film techniques to attempt to provide an a-historical, deeply personal and subjective rendition of an event.

Thus, while Eisenstein’s film at first glance may be viewed as an instance of Soviet propaganda, this overlooks the radical utilization of narrative and film techniques to make a profoundly subjective point. Eisenstein’s film presents the thesis that subjective suffering is at the same time the opening towards the possibility of a unified, political project. The structure of narrative accents the trajectory of the unrest of a particular group to the instance of a revolution on a greater scale. The employment of editing and shots intend to draw the viewer into this narrative, essentailly effacing any separation between the content of the film and its viewers. With an emphasis on subjectivity, Eisenstein thus correlates subjectivity with the groundwork for possible political critique. Accordingly, the general message of the film is carefully reflected in every aspect of the film, making a complete and unitary whole.