Sergei M. Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN is essential viewing at Anthology Film Archives
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (BRONENOSETS POTEMKIN) (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Thursday, August 23, 7:30
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
Sergei M. Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin might be a seminal silent classic that changed the nature of filmmaking, but it is also still a vastly entertaining movie regardless of its cinematic influence and worldwide importance. Divided into five episodes — Men and Maggots, Drama at the Harbour, A Dead Man Calls for Justice, The Odessa Staircase, and The Rendez-vous with a Squadron — the film tells the based-on-fact story of a mutiny on board a sailing vessel, the result of unfair treatment of the workers, a microcosm of the Russian Revolution of 1905 that later led to the bigger revolution of 1917. The film is like an editing primer, its approach to montage causing its own revolution at the time, particularly during the unforgettable Odessa Steps sequence, in which Eisenstein’s cuts manipulate the action in powerful, emotional ways that were new to cinema. The film also features the best mustaches in the history of movies. Battleship Potemkin is screening on August 23 at 7:30 as part of Anthology Film Archives’ Essential Cinema series, which will also be showing such other Eisenstein films as Strike on August 24, October and Old and New on August 25, and both parts of Ivan the Terrible on August 26.