- BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN BLU-RAY (BLU-RAY DISC)
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN – Blu-Ray MovieSergei Eisenstein’s revolutionary sophomore feature has so long stood as a textbook example of montage editing that many have forgotten what an invigoratingly cinematic experience he created. A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatization of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship’s officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre. Eisenstein edits carefully orchestrated motions within the frame to create broad swaths of movement, shots of varying length to build the rhythm, close-ups for perspective and shock effect, and symbolic imagery for commentary, all to create one of the most cinematically exciting sequences in film history. Eisenstein’s film is Marxist propaganda to be sure, but the power of this masterpiece lies not in its preaching but its poetry. –Sean Axmaker
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December 12, 2010
#1
A LEGENDARY FILM BY A LEGENDARY FILM MAKER gets top treatment!,
The Battleship Potemkin uprising happened in June, 1905, when the ship’s crew rebelled against their oppressive officers. It is usually regarded as one of the first leading events to the 1917 Russian Revolution.
This legendary film was produced in 1925 by Mosfilm, at the height of the silent cinema period and is, perhaps, the most famous example of the Soviet school of editing whose style and theories are deeply influential even today!
The film is divided in five episodes: “Men and Maggots” (showing the sailors revolting when forced to eat rotten meat), “Drama at the Harbor” (which shows the revolt being smashed and its leader killed), “A Dead Man Calls for Justice” (showing the people of Odessa crying the loss of the revolt’s leader), “The Odessa Staircase” (showing the Army marching over the people – and killing them) and the final episode: “Rendez-Vous with the Squadron” which closes the film.
Now, the problem with BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN is that, being regarded as a masterpiece (like METROPOLIS, BIRTH OF A NATION, PANDORA’S BOX, INTOLERANCE and CABIRIA), it is also a work with a high degree of political content (like TRIUMPH OF THE WILL) and, like many of those films, it has been censored, cut, re-cut several times… until virtually none of the several circulating versions of it (most in public domain and lousy shape) meets the version made by Eisenstein.
Kino joined forces with the Deutsche Kinematek, the Russia’s Goskinofilm, the British Film Institute, Bundesfilm Archive Berlin, and the Munich Film Museum in order to present this all new restoration. Shots have been replaced, and all 146 title cards restored to Eisenstein’s specifications.
Edmund Meisel’s definitive 1926 score, magnificently rendered by the 55-piece Deutches Filmorchestra in 5.1 Stereo Surround, returns Eisenstein’s masterwork to a form as close to its creator’s bold vision as has been seen since the film’s 1925 Moscow premiere. In fact, a funny story goes that BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN opened in Moscow alongside ROBIN HOOD (the 1922 version with Douglas Fairbanks) and the Soviet government expected it would earn more money than the American film… representing the power and revitalization of Soviet cinema. It lost. (laughs) :p
Featuring on this double disc edition are:
1) “Tracing Battleship Potemkin,” a 42-minute documentary on the making and restoration of the film.
2) The restored film with newly-translated English intertitles.
3) The restored film with original Russian intertitles (and optional English subtitles).
4) The original 1926 Edmund Meisel score, performed by the Deutsches Filmorchestra, presented in 5.1 Stereo Surround.
5) Photo gallery.
This film is a landmark in Film History and deserves to be seen by anyone who’s serious about film making.
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|December 12, 2010
#2
Brilliant, Seldom Equaled,
Based on actual events of 1905, silent film THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN concerns an Imperial Russian ship on which abominable conditions lead to a mutiny. Shocked by conditions on the ship, citizens of the port city Odessa rally to the mutineers’ support–and in consequence find themselves at the mercy of Imperial forces, who attack the civilian supporters with savage force.
POTEMKIN is a film in which individual characters are much less important than the groups and crowds of which they are members, and it achieves its incredible power by showing the clash of the groups and crowds in a series of extraordinarily visualized and edited sequences. Amazingly, each of these sequences manage to top the previous one, and the film actually builds in power as it moves from the mutiny to the citizen’s rally to the massacre on the Odessa steps–the latter of which is among the most famous sequences in all of film history. Filming largely where the real events actually occurred, director Eisenstein’s vision is extraordinary as he builds–not only from sequence to sequence but from moment to moment within each sequence–some of the most memorable images ever committed to film.
To describe POTEMKIN as a great film is something of an understatement. It is an absolute essential, an absolute necessity to any one seriously interested in cinema as an art form, purely visual cinema at its most brilliant, often imitated, seldom equaled, never bested.
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|December 12, 2010
#3
Truly outstanding DVD release,
Several years ago I bought Battleship Potemkin on DVD and was severely disappointed. In my review of the old edition, I hoped that Kino Video or Criterion would restore the film and release a DVD that would do justice to Eisenstein’s brilliant propaganda piece. Kino has stepped up to the challenge and done a remarkable job.
Picture: The picture quality is a vast improvement. Previous releases were blurry, low-resolution, and generally covered with dirt and scratches. The picture on Kino’s release is crystal-clear, looking better than ever.
Sound: I suppose I should say “music,” but regardless, this is another vast improvement. The previous DVD release I mentioned replaced the original Edmund Meisel score with a tinny monstrosity by Shostakovich. Meisel’s music has been rerecorded in beautiful stereo and re-synched to the film.
Special features: A making-of documentary covering the film and its restoration, as well as a photo gallery are both good and definitely interesting, but the major selling point on this DVD is the restored image and music.
Overall, I can say little more than that this is an outstanding treatment of a truly great film. If you’ve been disappointed in previous DVD releases of Potemkin or have been waiting for a good one, this is it.
Highly recommended.
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