December 5 1925 Russian Film Battleship Potemkin Released

On December 5th 1925, the silent Russian film, The Battleship Potemkin was released. It has been recognised as a hugely influential film, not only on contextual Russian and Communist society, but also on filmmakers, with homage and references to it found in movies like The Godfather and The Untouchables.

The film depicts the Battleship Potemkin uprising in 1905, when the crew of the battleship rebelled against officers. The rebellion came at a time when Russian society was becoming unsettled with the Tsarist regime, particularly after the embarrassing defeat of the Russo-Japanese war. The Black Sea battleship was taken over by the mutinying crew, and they sailed to the Russian port of Odessa flying a red flag, signifying the first step towards a Communist revolution that would come twelve years later during the Bolshevik Revolution.

The film’s release in 1925 was strategically brilliant, justifying the new Leninist-Marxist system, and allowing for the continuing adjustment to a Communist government. In a social sense, it was a genius effort of propaganda, even praised by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as “a marvellous film without equal in the cinema … anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film.”

From a filmmaking perspective, the film was the first of its kind to truly experiment with the idea of editing in a way to produce the greatest emotional response from the audience. It was also one of the most violent films of its time, particularly the infamous Odessa Steps sequence in which the Tsarist Cossacks massacred civilians in response to the Odessa uprising.

The film has since been re-released on DVD, with some forms accompanied by classical music by Shostakovich. The 2004 release of the film features an entirely new soundtrack by the Pet Shop Boys, in an attempt to make the film more relevant for 21st century audiences.