Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin

In 1925, Sergei Eisenstein brought his theories of film montage to effect in his first feature length film, Strike. Later that year, he created what many consider to be one of the most important films ever made, Battleship Potemkin. The reason Battleship Potemkin is so widely considered important is due to the Odessa Steps sequence, in which Odessa citizens are brutally shot at by the state forces. The sequence is most notable for its harrowing depiction of violence as well as the montage theories Eisenstein enacted. The film takes place on the twentieth anniversary of the actual mutiny of the Battleship Potemkin vessel, a point in history that many consider the first step towards the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was created by Eisenstein and the political Communist party of the Soviet Union to create in the viewer an emotional response, in the hopes to keep citizens on the side of the party. 

The film itself is a simple story. In the first act, we are shown scenes in which naval crew are being oppressed by their commanding officers. They are given rotten and maggot-infested meat, are beaten in their sleep, and given poor qualities of rations. The commanding officers order the execution of those who did not participate in the eating of the rotten meat, citing insubordination. After ordering a firing squad to shoot at the insubordinates, Vakulinchuk encourages his men to disobey orders. Instead, they decide to rise up against their commanders. While seizing control of the ship, Vakulinchuk is shot and killed. His body is taken to shore and laid to rest. The citizens of Odessa come to the shore to offer their support of the naval revolutionaries. However, the state military force begins to shoot the mass of civilians, killing many. Back at the Potemkin, the crew begin to flee from an oncoming vessel. After raising an allegiance flag to the vessel, the vessel joins in their revolution.

The film is made impactful because of the montage techniques Eisenstein employs. Eisenstein developed his theory of montage as an assembly of images meant to create conflict with each other and the viewer. It is in this way that the viewer is made to participate in the piece emotionally and intellectually. The theory of montage can be split into five different types: metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual. 

A metric montage is utilized by editing shots and frames by exact measurements. The measurements aren’t used with any sort of emotional context, but instead are meant to have a jarring and chaotic effect. An example Eisenstein uses in Battleship Potemkin is in the beginning of the film. The crew of the Battleship Potemkin are going about their daily preparations. Eisenstein edits them cleaning, greasing the cannonballs, and doing other various rigorous tasks. The amount of time spent on each task being shown is measurably the same, while each edit cuts to a different task. This type of montage is meant to give the metric rhythm of the scene, allowing the audience to be accustomed to the daily grind of naval life. The metric rhythm provides an understandable pace for the audience to become acquainted with.

A rhythmic montage is similar to the metric montage but is not constrained by a metric measurement. Rather, the rhythmic shot deals more in contextuality. Rhythmic montage is perhaps the most frequently used method by filmmakers. From car chases to fight scenes, rhythmic montage is used to provide an emotionality to the action taking place on screen. Eisenstein uses rhythmic montage for the Odessa steps sequence. The entire sequence is cut into various shots, all taking place on the steps and all involving some sort of chaos. Eisenstein likes to use very short shot lengths so that we do not spend too long on any particular shot. These short shots also vary between different perspectives of what’s happening. We can cut from a woman screaming, to soldiers firing, to people running down the stairs, to a child getting trampled. The frequency of the cut is meant to instill in the viewer the same sense of chaos and confusion as the crowd experiences. The variety of horrors are also meant to instill the same chaos and confusion – as there are too many horrible things happening to ever truly focus on one. The scene also appears to last for about ten minutes – even if the actual events happening on screen could not have taken so long. Eisenstein condenses the frame rate, but also extends the scene as a whole. The rapid fire frame rate offers a constant stream of unique perspectives. This contrasted with the dramatically drawn out length of the scene induces a complete sense of overwhelm and suffocation.  

Tonal montage is meant to convey the tone of what the viewer should feel in a particular scene. This is achieved by combining shots that are contextually similar, so the viewer can place in their mind the emotion created by them collectively. Eisenstein does this in the scene involving the boat chase. He mixes together shots of the boats moving through the water with shots of men working hard to get the boats moving. We see the quick gliding of water, the slow shifting of the cannons, and then the cannon facing directly at the camera. These individual frames make it obvious that they are all happening in the same context. Using this understood context, the montage is meant to make the viewer feel the tension of the boat chase. 

Overtonal montage is the mixing together of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage. The purpose is to achieve an overtone of meaning. The viewer is meant to pull away from the images abstract themes. An example Eisenstein uses is when Vakulinchuk is laid to rest on the shore of Odessa. We see shots of the quiet harbor, the mourners that come to see Vakulinchuck, and the sun setting over the harbor. The overtones meant to be taken away from these images are that of the mournful sacrifice of the rebellion. The combining of these shot is meant to instill a sadness in the viewer, while also signifying the real-life sacrifices of the revolutionary symbols of the past. 

The final montage method, the intellectual montage, is also perhaps the simplest. This method combines two images that are contextually incongruent. Because of this, the viewer is meant to notice the incongruency and find an intellectual congruency for themselves. An example of this is showing a newborn baby and then the image of the sun rising. Perhaps these two images together signify new beginnings, whereby individually they do not signify anything specifically. Eisenstein uses intellectual montage in the Odessa Steps sequence. After the massacre of the civilians, the battleship answers with cannon fire towards the General’s office in the Odessa theater. After firing, Eisenstein shows us three images of lion statues, each one subsequently standing up higher. The collection of the battleship’s retaliation mixed with the images of the lions standing convey the intellectual message of the proletariat being awakened and rising up against their oppressors. Because lion statues and the battleship’s retaliation have no contextual congruency, the viewer is meant to associate the two images together with some sort of intellectual context. 

Eisenstein used these theories of film montage to piece together another film for Soviet Russia to display the revolutionary uprising over the oppressive Tsarist rule. Not only was it a propaganda film meant to sway viewers to one side of a political ideology, but it was also an astounding piece of art. The way he was able to construct film language has forever changed cinema. Battleship Potemkin was the first film of his to be seen internationally, and garnered him and his film a lot of attention. Many filmmakers and film theorists hailed the film as an achievement due to the impeccable craft by Eisenstein. The Odessa Steps sequence will forever be remembered, as the methods of montage were employed to provide a harrowing experience of mayhem and chaos to an audience that had never seen anything like it before. Because the film is such an emotionally charged experience, many also criticized its extreme political use – believing it to be manipulative and exploitative. The film was banned in the UK until 1956 – out of fear of Communist sympathies and the film’s depiction of extreme violence. However, with time the film has become one of the most important films in history.