FILMING OF OUTDOOR events on a truly grand scale is the hallmark of this film. It is obvious that there was near unlimited budget and an autocratic and absolute control exerted by the director, Comrade Sergei Eisenstein. The filming is done in such a carefully plotted manner as to appear to be an actual newsreel documentary.
THE STORY IS a retelling of a 1905 incident of rebellion and mutiny against the hierarchy of the Imperial Czarist Russian Navy. It builds its tension with use of varying camera angles, liberal doses of editing, imaginative & original lighting and boldly placed bits of shocking realism.
THE FILM IS very powerful and will hold just about anyone's interest for the duration of its time on the screen. We do recommend that anyone and everyone can and should see it at least once, But we do do with just one caveat to all.
THAT PRECAUTIONARY WARNING would be that we all must remember that the movie is and was intended as a propaganda piece for the likes of Joe Stalin and his comrades the USSR. Director Eisenstein definitely knew of what side his bread was buttered as he carefully crafted the telling of this 1905 incident on the Black Sea as an allegorical work. In his capable hands & clapboard, the whole situation and all of the incidents surrounding it were reduced to metaphor for the Russian Revolution and the ascent of the Communist Party.
DURING THE PROCESS of telling this story, the director actually manages to make a case for the dignity of man. Now that is just bizarre and ironic; when one considers the track record of the Kremlin masters. The Communist Party has always called itself: "The Vanguard of the People", no matter how many of their own people that they had to kill to prove it.
THE STORY IS a retelling of a 1905 incident of rebellion and mutiny against the hierarchy of the Imperial Czarist Russian Navy. It builds its tension with use of varying camera angles, liberal doses of editing, imaginative & original lighting and boldly placed bits of shocking realism.
THE FILM IS very powerful and will hold just about anyone's interest for the duration of its time on the screen. We do recommend that anyone and everyone can and should see it at least once, But we do do with just one caveat to all.
THAT PRECAUTIONARY WARNING would be that we all must remember that the movie is and was intended as a propaganda piece for the likes of Joe Stalin and his comrades the USSR. Director Eisenstein definitely knew of what side his bread was buttered as he carefully crafted the telling of this 1905 incident on the Black Sea as an allegorical work. In his capable hands & clapboard, the whole situation and all of the incidents surrounding it were reduced to metaphor for the Russian Revolution and the ascent of the Communist Party.
DURING THE PROCESS of telling this story, the director actually manages to make a case for the dignity of man. Now that is just bizarre and ironic; when one considers the track record of the Kremlin masters. The Communist Party has always called itself: "The Vanguard of the People", no matter how many of their own people that they had to kill to prove it.