Battleship Potemkin
About Battleship Potemkin
In 1905 the sailors of the Potemkin refuse meat crawling with maggots, and the firing squad ordered against them will not shoot. The crew mutinies, and their leader Vakulinchuk is killed. His body is laid on the Odessa waterfront. On the Odessa Steps, soldiers march in a line and fire into the crowd. The fleet sent after the ship refuses to open fire.
Cast & crew
More about Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein directed and co-wrote the script with Nina Agadzhanova-Shutko, Nikolai Aseev, and Sergei Tretyakov. Yakov Bliokh produced. Eduard Tisse photographed it. Goskino distributed it. A ceremonial screening was held at the Bolshoi Theatre on 21 December 1925. The Moscow cinema opening was 18 January 1926 at the 1st Goskinoteatre.
Themes
Background
The film was made for the twentieth anniversary of the 1905 mutiny, and first shown at a ceremonial meeting in the Bolshoi.
Making
Eisenstein and Aleksandrov edited. Tisse shot the steps as a repeated pattern of boots, guns, and faces rather than as one continuous charge.
Look
Eduard Tisse shot the Odessa Steps so the soldiers' line and the crowd cut against each other, including the baby carriage on the steps.
Technique
The Steps sequence is built from short shots of boots, rifles, faces, and the carriage, rather than from one take of the descent.
Music
Silent in the Soviet release. Edmund Meisel composed a score for the German screenings. Most later prints use Kryukov, Shostakovich, or a reconstruction of Meisel.
Preservation
Soviet and foreign copies dropped different shots. A 2005 restoration by the Deutsche Kinemathek, Gosfilmofond, and the Russian state archive put violence and the Trotsky prologue back and used Meisel's music. The BFI issued a 2025 centenary restoration on Blu-ray, with a score by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
Notes
- The five parts are titled "Men and Maggots," "Drama on the Deck," "A Dead Man Calls for Justice," "The Odessa Steps," and "One Against All.
- Aleksandr Antonov plays Vakulinchuk. Vladimir Barsky and Grigori Aleksandrov are in the crew. Beatrice Vitoldi plays the mother with the baby carriage.
- The Steps sequence shows soldiers firing on civilians. Riots and shootings did happen in Odessa after the ship arrived. A daylight massacre on those steps, staged as in the film, did not.
- Edmund Meisel wrote the score for the German release. Later scores include Nikolai Kryukov (1950) and Dmitri Shostakovich (the 1976 reissue).
- Germany, the United States, France, Britain (until 1954), and Japan banned or cut it. Phil Jutzi's German edit moved an execution to the end.
- In the Soviet copies, Trotsky's words were taken off the prologue and a Lenin quotation put in.
- At the 1958 Brussels World's Fair it was voted onto the Brussels 12 list.
Scenes
- The ship's doctor inspects meat covered with maggots and says it is fit to eat.
- The firing squad lowers its rifles and the crew takes the ship.
- A baby carriage rolls down the Odessa Steps while soldiers fire.
- The squadron sails past without opening fire.
Influenced
- The Untouchables (1987), which restages the Steps with a baby carriage
Also available
- Internet Archive (BattleshipPotemkin)
- BFI Blu-ray (2025 centenary restoration)
