26 October 2011 Will the Potemkin dock here?
Sergei Eisenstein’s marvelous propaganda piece was important in the Soviet Union’ early development as a nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battleship_Potemkin is the primary source for photographs and text reproduced in this post.
“Eisenstein wrote the film as a revolutionary propaganda film, but also used it to test his theories of "montage". The revolutionary Soviet filmmakers of the Kuleshov school of filmmaking were experimenting with the effect of film editing on audiences, and Eisenstein attempted to edit the film in such a way as to produce the greatest emotional response, so that the viewer would feel sympathy for the rebellious sailors of the Battleship Potemkin and hatred for their cruel overlords. In the manner of most propaganda, the characterization is simple, so that the audience could clearly see with whom they should sympathize…
.. The most celebrated scene in the film is the massacre of civilians on the Odessa Steps (also known as the Primorsky orPotemkin Stairs). In this scene, the Tsar's soldiers in their white summer tunics march down a seemingly endless flight of steps in a rhythmic, machine-like fashion, firing volleys into a crowd. A separate detachment of mounted Cossacks charges the crowd at the bottom of the stairs. The victims include a older woman wearing Pince-nez, a young boy with his mother, a student in uniform and a teenage schoolgirl. A mother pushing an infant in a baby carriage falls to the ground dying and the carriage rolls down the steps amidst the fleeing crowd.
The massacre on the steps never took place, presumably inserted by Eisenstein for dramatic effect and to demonize the Imperial regime. It is, however, based on the fact that there were widespread demonstrations in the area, sparked off by the arrival of the Potemkin in Odessa Harbour, and both The Times of London and the resident British Consul reported that troops fired on the crowds with accompanying loss of life (the actual number of casualties is unrecorded). Roger Ebert writes, "That there was, in fact, no czarist massacre on the Odessa Steps scarcely diminishes the power of the scene ... It is ironic that [Eisenstein] did it so well that today, the bloodshed on the Odessa steps is often referred to as if it really happened. “
The battleship did exist as a pre-dreadnaught vessel. Here are the links to the ship and its role in history.
Cassi Creek: Every revolution needs a series of sparking incidents to stir up the populace to the point of willingness to place their corporeal selves in the line of fire. Those incidents can be small, serial events leading to a major event, as in the run up to the October Revolution of 1917. They can be a continuum of personal insults sparking an individual to decide he’s had enough, as in Tunisia this year. They can be real, imagined, or deliberately fictitious.
I find myself wondering what sort of incident it will take to bring about a political revolution in the United States. In my lifespan I’ve experienced the civil rights conflict, a black Americans tried to wrest human rights that they were and are entitled to from a white, racist, population that resents the emancipation of slaves by Lincoln. I’ve lived through the assassination of one President, the attempt to kill another, the killing of a candidate for President and the attempt to kill another. I’ve seen the murder of a civil rights leader by racists. And dozens of riots sparked by blacks protesting injustice while others rioted for no real reason but anger... I’ve lived through the Vietnam War and the civil unrest it spawned, including the use of national guardsmen to suppress disorder. I’ve seen to major recessions brought about by deliberate manipulation of the housing market, stock market, and financial markets. In both cases, the culprits go un-punished and continue to fatten on the illegal operations that will, if left unchecked, bring about worldwide depression.
In another nation, any of those could have been the spark that began a revolution. Yet they all failed to change the world, as we know it. What will it take to cause Americans to rise up and demand a better economy?
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