About the film
The sailors of the battleship Potemkin are fed maggot-ridden meat and threatened with execution when they refuse it. The mutiny that follows spreads to the port of Odessa, where the townspeople come out to support them.
Then soldiers march down the great steps of Odessa, firing into the crowd. Eisenstein's editing of this scene, with its falling pram and shattered glasses, is probably the most studied sequence in the history of film.
Potemkin is a silent film with music and title cards. It is only 71 minutes long and a must for anyone curious about how cinema learned to tell stories.
Did you know?
- The Odessa Steps sequence has been copied and parodied in many films, including The Untouchables.
- In 1958 an international poll of critics in Brussels named it the best film ever made.
- Eisenstein was just 27 when he made it.
