IMDb > Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925)
Bronenosets Potyomkin
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Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
8.0/10   16,038 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 2% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
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View company contact information for Battleship Potemkin on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
12 November 1926 (France) more
Genre:
Plot:
A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resulting street demonstration which brought on a police massacre. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
NewsDesk:
(12 articles)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Gilliam
 (From Huffington Post. 20 December 2009, 5:23 PM, PST)

Inglourious Basterds (Blu-Ray/DVD Review)
 (From Fangoria. 17 December 2009, 1:10 AM, PST)

User Comments:
One of the greatest movies ever made. more (125 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Aleksandr Antonov ... Grigory Vakulinchuk - Bolshevik Sailor
Vladimir Barsky ... Commander Golikov
Grigori Aleksandrov ... Chief Officer Giliarovsky
Ivan Bobrov ... Young Sailor Flogged While Sleeping (as I. Bobrov)
Mikhail Gomorov ... Militant Sailor
Aleksandr Levshin ... Petty Officer
N. Poltavtseva ... Woman With Pince-nez
Konstantin Feldman ... Student Agitator
Prokopenko ... Mother Carrying Wounded Boy
A. Glauberman ... Wounded Boy
Beatrice Vitoldi ... Woman With Baby Carriage
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Brodsky ... Student
Julia Eisenstein ... Woman with Food for Sailors
Sergei M. Eisenstein ... Odessa Citizen
Andrei Fajt ... Recruit (as A. Fait)
Korobei ... Legless Veteran
Marusov ... Officer
Protopopov ... Old Man
Repnikova ... Woman on the Steps
Vladimir Uralsky
Zerenin ... Student
more
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Battleship Potemkin (UK) (USA)
Броненосец Потёмкин (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Bronomzidi Potiomkini (Soviet Union: Georgian title)
Potemkin (USA)
The Armored Cruiser Potemkin (USA)
The Battleship Potemkin (USA)
The Battleship Potyomkin (USA) (alternative transliteration)
more
Runtime:
75 min | Spain:70 min | Spain:77 min | USA:66 min | Argentina:80 min | Russia:71 min (DVD version) | Spain:68 min (DVD edition)
Country:
Language:
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Italy:(Banned) (1925 - 1960) | Italy:T (1960) | Canada:G (Ontario) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | South Korea:15 (1994) | Argentina:Atp | Chile:TE | Finland:(Banned) (1930) | Finland:K-12 (1978) | Finland:K-16 (1952) | Germany:(Banned) (1933-1945) | Germany:12 | Netherlands:AL (video rating) | Norway:16 (original rating) | Portugal:17 (original rating) | Portugal:M/12 (DVD rating) | Portugal:M/16 (re-rating) (1974) | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:PG (re-rating) (1987) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:Unrated
Filming Locations:
Company:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Battleship "Dvenadtsat Apostolov" actually was in the Imperial squadron, sent against "Potemkin". "Potemkin" itself was newest and most powerful of Black Sea battleships, but Imperial forces were more numerous. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: Vakulinchuk is breathing slightly as his body lies in state. more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
21 out of 23 people found the following comment useful.
One of the greatest movies ever made., 30 September 2000
10/10
Author: Jim Tritten from Corrales, NM

Originally supposed to be just a part of a huge epic The Year 1905 depicting the Revolution of 1905, Potemkin is the story of the mutiny of the crew of the Potemkin in Odessa harbor. The film opens with the crew protesting maggoty meat and the captain ordering the execution of the dissidents. An uprising takes place during which the revolutionary leader is killed. This crewman is taken to the shore to lie in state. When the townspeople gather on a huge flight of steps overlooking the harbor, czarist troops appear and march down the steps breaking up the crowd. A naval squadron is sent to retake the Potemkin but at the moment when the ships come into range, their crews allow the mutineers to pass through. Eisenstein's non-historically accurate ending is open-ended thus indicating that this was the seed of the later Bolshevik revolution that would bloom in Russia. The film is broken into five parts: Men and Maggots, Drama on the Quarterdeck, An Appeal from the Dead, The Odessa Steps, and Meeting the Squadron.

Eisenstein was a revolutionary artist, but at the genius level. Not wanting to make a historical drama, Eisenstein used visual texture to give the film a newsreel-look so that the viewer feels he is eavesdropping on a thrilling and politically revolutionary story. This technique is used by Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers.

Unlike Pontecorvo, Eisenstein relied on typage, or the casting of non-professionals who had striking physical appearances. The extraordinary faces of the cast are what one remembers from Potemkin. This technique is later used by Frank Capra in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe. But in Potemkin, no one individual is cast as a hero or heroine. The story is told through a series of scenes that are combined in a special effect known as montage--the editing and selection of short segments to produce a desired effect on the viewer. D.W. Griffith also used the montage, but no one mastered it so well as Eisenstein.

The artistic filming of the crew sleeping in their hammocks is complemented by the graceful swinging of tables suspended from chains in the galley. In contrast the confrontation between the crew and their officers is charged with electricity and the clenched fists of the masses demonstrate their rage with injustice.

Eisenstein introduced the technique of showing an action and repeating it again but from a slightly different angle to demonstrate intensity. The breaking of a plate bearing the words "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread" signifies the beginning of the end. This technique is used in Last Year at Marienbad. Also, when the ship's surgeon is tossed over the side, his pince-nez dangles from the rigging. It was these glasses that the officer used to inspect and pass the maggot-infested meat. This sequence ties the punishment to the corruption of the czarist-era.

The most noted sequence in the film, and perhaps in all of film history, is The Odessa Steps. The broad expanse of the steps are filled with hundreds of extras. Rapid and dramatic violence is always suggested and not explicit yet the visual images of the deaths of a few will last in the minds of the viewer forever.

The angular shots of marching boots and legs descending the steps are cleverly accentuated with long menacing shadows from a sun at the top of the steps. The pace of the sequence is deliberately varied between the marching soldiers and a few civilians who summon up courage to beg them to stop. A close up of a woman's face frozen in horror after being struck by a soldier's sword is the direct antecedent of the bank teller in Bonnie in Clyde and gives a lasting impression of the horror of the czarist regime.

The death of a young mother leads to a baby carriage careening down the steps in a sequence that has been copied by Hitchcock in Foreign Correspondent, by Terry Gilliam in Brazil, and Brian DePalma in The Untouchables. This sequence is shown repeatedly from various angles thus drawing out what probably was only a five second event.

Potemkin is a film that immortalizes the revolutionary spirit, celebrates it for those already committed, and propagandizes it for the unconverted. It seethes of fire and roars with the senseless injustices of the decadent czarist regime. Its greatest impact has been on film students who have borrowed and only slightly improved on techniques invented in Russia several generations ago.

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Your Top ten favorite silent films Brawlski
Could This Be Taken as a Comedy? Damon_3388
Re: Pink Floyd suited for synch with Potemkin. g_fresh6969
odessa steps and the untouchables cindypromdress
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