January 04, 2005

Sergei Eisenstein's seminal film, "Battleship Potemkin" has been restored. The BBC reports that the restored version of the 1925 film "Battleship Potemkin" is going to be screened for the first time at the Berlin Film Festival in February. The film now includes some long-missing title cards and text by Leon Trotsky which was excised by the Soviets, as well as some additional shots in the legendary "Odessa Steps" sequence.

There isn't a film student in the world who hasn't seen this film at least once, I would wager. If you haven't seen it, it's a terribly interesting bit of cinema history to watch, if only for the "Odessa Steps", though I think there are aspects of the film that remain fresh now, 80 years later. This site has a streaming file of the film (the unrestored version) you can watch online (obviously intended for non-dialup only). Don't be fooled by the colorized stills on the webpage, the film is black-and-white. It runs about an hour, so sit back and watch when you have some time.

posted by briank 19 years ago
  • (and keep yer "seminal" jokes to yerself, ya buncha monkeys)
  • WOW. AWESOME!!! thank you for throwing this link up, i got my bed time viewing sorted now
  • Seminal film, coming soon.
  • Wow, I want to see that. Thanks for posting this, briank. )))
  • I miss Trotsky. *snickers at Nostril in Butthead-like fashion*
  • One of the most entertainingly odd nights I've spent in recent times was the Pet Shop Boys performing their new soundtrack for Potemkin, in front of a giant screening of the film, in Trafalgar Square. Thousands and thousands of people, crammed together and dangling off any available ledge, in the pouring rain for two hours, watching a classic piece of communist propaganda with a soundtrack by a pair of 80's synthpop legends. Fantastic stuff.
  • Ramon Mercader didn't miss Trotsky.
  • No indeed.
  • It would be wonderful to see this with the live musical accompanyment.
  • The Pet Shop Boys performing the Potemkin soundtrack live? That sounds like the best night out, ever. (jealous!)
  • I last saw "Potemkin" about twenty years ago on a crummy 16mm print in that church near Harvard, so I'll really be looking forward to this although probably not in Berlin. Thanks for the heads up! Hi, meredithea! Any pictures of Steve yet?
  • long-missing title cards and text by Leon Trotsky I look forward to seeing title cards like this: The Russian bourgeoisie finds it impossible to deny the people universal suffrage, well aware that this would arouse opposition against the Provisional Government among the masses, and give prevalence to the left, the more determined wing of the proletariat in the Revolution. Even that monarch of the reserve, Michael Alexandrovitch, understands that he cannot reach the throne without having promised "universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage." It is the more essential for the bourgeoisie to create right now a monarchic counterbalance against the deepest social-revolutionary demands of the working masses. Formally, in words, the bourgeoisie has agreed to leave the question of a form of government to the discretion of the Constituent Assembly. Practically, however, the Octobrist-Cadet Provisional Government will turn all the preparatory work for the Constituent Assembly into a campaign in favor of a monarchy against a Republic. The character of the Constituent Assembly will largely depend upon the character of those who convoke it. It is evident, therefore, that right now the revolutionary proletariat will have to set up its own organs, the Councils of Workingmens’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, against the executive organs of the Provisional Government. In this struggle the proletariat ought to. unite about itself the rising masses of the people, with one aim in view—to seize governmental power. Only a Revolutionary Labor Government will have the desire and ability to give the country a thorough democratic cleansing during the work preparatory to the Constituent Assembly, to reconstruct the army from top to bottom, to turn it into a revolutionary militia and to show the poorer peasants in practice that their only salvation is in a support of a revolutionary labor regime. A Constituent Assembly convoked after such preparatory work will truly reflect the revolutionary, creative forces of the country and become a powerful factor in the further development of the Revolution.
  • monkeyfilter: one aim in view -- to seize governmental power
  • Now that's a title card, languagehat.
  • Titles
  • No, no, those are title sequences, lilnemo. We are talking about interstitial title cards. The little written text bits where dialogue is written out in a silent movie.
  • You can call them "cartouches" if you feel like showing off. I'd love to see this restoration.
  • Also, for those who have seen The Untouchables, but may regard the idea of viewing an Eisenstein as a little over-highbrow, or, you know, kind of dull and worthy, De Palma ripped the sequence in which the pram rolls down the stairs through the gun battle directly from this film. Battleship Potemkin is a great entertainment as well as an ideological piece.
  • Yes, and then DePalma was ripped off in one of those "Naked Gun" movies with Leslie Nielsen, with yet another baby carriage on the stairs shot. No stone lions, though.
  • Odessa Steps? I love their Kremlin parodies set to popular Russian show tunes!
  • great, 'hat - you posted communist propaganda in the clear. now the CIA is going to pick that up on their scary-secret internets scanners and the feds are going to come after us. i'm going to go cower in fear at home.