Product Description

For eight decades, Sergei Eisenstein s 1925 masterpiece has remained the most influential silent film of all time. Yet each successive generation has seen BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN subjected to censorship and recutting, its unforgettable power diluted in unauthorized public domain editions from dubious sources. Until now. Kino is proud to join the Deutsche Kinematek in association with Russia s Goskinofilm, the British Film Institute, Bundesfilm Archive Berlin, and the Munich Film Museum in presenting this all new HD Transfered restoration of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. Dozens of missing shots have been replaced, and all 146 title cards restored to Eisenstein s specifications. Edmund Meisel s definitive 1926 score, magnificently rendered by the 55-piece Deutches Filmorchestra in 5.1 Stereo Surround, returns Eisenstein s masterwork to a form as close to its creator s bold vision as has been seen since the film s triumphant 1925 Moscow premiere. Odessa 1905. Enraged with the deplorable conditions on board the armored cruiser Potemkin, the ship s loyal crew contemplates the unthinkable mutiny. Seizing control of the Potemkin and raising the red flag of revolution, the sailors revolt becomes the rallying point for a Russian populace ground under the boot heels of the Czar s Cossacks. When ruthless White Russian cavalry arrives to crush the rebellion on the sandstone Odessa Steps, the most famous and most quoted film sequence in cinema history is born.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18385 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-23
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Silent
• Original language: English, Russian
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 70 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary sophomore feature has so long stood as a textbook example of montage editing that many have forgotten what an invigoratingly cinematic experience he created. A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatization of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre. Eisenstein edits carefully orchestrated motions within the frame to create broad swaths of movement, shots of varying length to build the rhythm, close-ups for perspective and shock effect, and symbolic imagery for commentary, all to create one of the most cinematically exciting sequences in film history. Eisenstein's film is Marxist propaganda to be sure, but the power of this masterpiece lies not in its preaching but its poetry. --Sean Axmaker

On the DVD
An extraordinary accomplishment, Kino International’s restoration of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 masterpiece Battleship Potemkin has made the film more glorious than ever. Working with the Deutsche Kinematek, British Film Institute, Bundesfilm Archive Berlin, and the Munich Film Museum, Kino’s effort was to return Battleship Potemkin as closely as possible to Eisenstein’s original cut, as originally seen by Moscow audiences during its world premiere run. What happened after that, according to the German restoration team extensively interviewed in an engrossing documentary ("Tracing Battleship Potemkin") on one of the two discs in this set, was that the film’s very negative was re-cut by German censors and others. (It’s likely, the team says, that Eisenstein himself secretly supervised the German cut to accommodate demands while also keeping personal control over the film’s dramatic flow. What this means is that Eisenstein probably ended up with two authentic versions of Battleship Potemkin.)

"Tracing Battleship Potemkin" goes on to detail the extensive number of shots long lost from constant authorized and unauthorized re-cuts in the last 80 years, and how many of those shots have been returned. Indeed, the film is all the more powerful and lyrical with a number of key scenes (especially the famed "Odessa steps" sequence) filled out and shaded with emotional nuance. But there’s more: a glimpse at numerous stills from shots that Eisenstein himself left out of the first cut (these have not been reintroduced in the film itself), two versions of the film with English and original Russian intertitles (with English subtitles), and the original, monumental score by Edmund Meisel (composed for the German version) make this Battleship Potemkin a brilliant experience. --Tom Keogh