Battleship Potemkin Analysis

Battleship Potemkin, a Bolshevik propaganda film from 1925, impresses upon its audience the validity of the new Communist regime in Russia by presenting an idealized microcosm of the Bolshevik revolution on the battleship Prince Tavrichesky. Battleship Potemkin curates its audience’s reaction through the rise and fall of tension, which it does most prominently through the synergy of camera shot placement, camera shot order and music. Battleship Potemkin cycles through periods of calm, tension, and action. In this essay, calm is defined as a period in which on-screen subjects are not opposed to one another. Tension occurs when on-screen subjects are opposed to one another, but do not act on their opposition. Conversely, action occurs when on-screen subjects are opposed to one another and act against each other. The major arc of tension in the film occurs in parts one and two when the sailors resent their status on the ship, but have yet to rebel. Part one begins with the tension of revolution. The first shots build this tension by subordinating the camera angle below the crests of violent waves crashing against a rocky shoreline. This ominous point of view foreshadows unrest because it imposes on the audience’s sense of safety. The following words, “the spirit of revolution soared” confirms this intuition. As the waves crash, brass instruments increase in pitch and volume and then hold that high pitch and volume as the wave crests. This crescendo mimics the build up of tension. The tension of revolution then evolves into a tension between the sailors and the officers which acts as a justification for the mutiny. The first point of tension between the sailors and the officers erupts over rotten meat. A officer steps out of a private room to see the sailors on the deck below complaining. A high angle shot from his perspective illuminates how he views the common sailors. From his vantage point, he cannot discern why the sailors are unhappy, only how they swarm like animals around the meat. A closeup of his face afterward shows him pucker his lips in displeasure at the sight of them. Later in the execution scene, Eisenstein uses a different type of shot to similar effect. He juxtaposes a shot of the officers lined up on the right with one of the sailors lined up on the left. The shots highlight the difference between the officer’s pristine uniforms and the sailors’ raggedly ones. Both instances establish the sailors and officers in opposition to each other which makes the sailor’s later mutiny more reasonable. Later in the film, the sailors are forced to eat the rotten meat. The scene begins with a shot of a cook …show more content…
In this scene Eisenstein utilizes the length and motion in shots to produce nascent motion as Kraucauer discusses in his piece “The Establishment of Physical Existence.” Kracauer describes nascent motion solely through physical subjects which may be manipulated in film to contrast motion with motionlessness. However, his definition of nascent motion can also be applied to contrast between shots with motion and shots without. In the execution scene, short shots of quick motion precede motionless shots. Officers watching the execution stiffen in line. The guards lift their weapons. Vakulinchuk raises his previously lowered head. The priest knocks his cross against his palm in the same way one threatens others with a baseball bat. Then, three motionless shots follow: a life preserver, the bow of the ship, and a trumpet resting on the leg of its player. The third shot also gestures to the fact that the background, present almost continuously in the film, has cut out. The contrast between these motionless and soundless shots with the mobile shots before them exacerbates the lack of action in this moment before what the audience presumes with be crucial action, namely the execution of the sailors. It causes the audience to wait, much like how the plate smashing scene causes the audience to wait. However, unlike the plate scene, in the execution scene the delay is filled with inaction instead of violent action. This inaction gestures to the action to come, which builds the tension necessary for Vakulinchuk to step forward and save the sailors. Then the ship erupts into action; the nascent motion becomes