Review of Battleship Potemkin (1925) by Hiatt N — 10 Oct 2012

I feel a rewritten review is necessary for this one. I think I came into it with the wrong attitude; when I watched this movie a long time ago, I had only ever seen one other silent movie, Nosferatu. Nosferatu was, for the most part, fairly traditional, and it didn't deviate from today's filmgoing expectations of narrative.

Now having seen at least fifty silent films, I have a much better understanding of what this fragile era in movie history represented. This was truly the time of auteurs, a time to strike out and make a name for yourself however you could (or, in the case of Eisenstein, however you were commisioned to).

Battleship Potemkin is less a narrative movie than several linked short films about an event in Russian history, and to look at it this way completely changes my perspective. These cinematic poems are stunningly beautiful and invigorating, and Potemkin may be one of the defining works of film art.

On an unrelated note, Potemkin, for the first time ever, didn't make the top ten in Sight and Sound's poll. Perhaps it's because hacks like me are finally beginning to understand it, so they figured they needed a new gimmick.