Multimedia Collection

The Battleship Potemkin

DVD
74 minutes
1925
PN1997 .B385 1988 DVD

When you think of the handful of films that are at the core of cinema history, you think of D.W. Griffith's “The Birth of a Nation,” Orson Welles' “Citizen Kane” - and Sergei Eisenstein's “The Battleship Potemkin”. Back in 1925, the immediate worldwide success of “The Battleship Potemkin” focused attention on the Soviet cinema while earning its creator instant, lasting fame. Before the end of the decade, Eisenstein's contributions to the art form (along with those of two other filmmakers, Alexander Dovzhenko and V.I. Pudovkin) would push the Soviet cinema to the forefront of the international film scene.

“The Battleship Potemkin” evolved from a film project assigned to Eisenstein by the Soviet Central Committee in charge of planning celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the unsuccessful 1905 Russian Revolution. (The 27-year-old Eisenstein was then a Red Army veteran, theater director and set designer. Two years before, he had filmed his debut feature, “Strike.”) Eisenstein initially conceived of the film as an eight-part epic, titled “The Year of 1905” (or “Year 1905”), to be set throughout the Soviet Union and chronicle dozens of revolutionary actions. As he was shooting in Odessa, he decided to narrow his concept and focus on a sole event — a mutiny by a battleship's crew and the subsequent massacre of civilians — that reflected the spirit of the times.

Silent with music track.

Cast: Alexander Antonov, Grigori Alexandrov, Vladimir Barski, Mikhail Gomorov, A. Levshin, Maxim Strauch. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.

Distributed by Corinth Video.

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