Battleship Potemkin is an outstanding work, as the film’s propagandistic power is undeniable. Eisenstein’s clear-cut and intentional filmmaking made the movie, and symbolism is rampant throughout the film. The film is full of scenes of revolution and riots, but one of the most powerful (and iconic) is that of the Odessa Steps.
\nThe psychological power this part alone has in carrying a propagandistic story is breathtaking. The audience watches as Russian soldiers march down the steps, firing into the ground, seemingly marching down forever. The endless march of the Russian soldiers is powerful, as it portrays them not only has never-ending, but a mechanic. The sight of the mighty tsarist militia marching down on innocent citizens serves as a powerful incentive to remain angry and resentful.
\nHowever, what is truly striking, even after finishing the film, is the baby carriage (with the infant still inside) rolling down the long and endless set of steps after the baby’s mother had been shot and killed. The framework of a mother attempting to protect her baby evokes strong emotion across all cultures, no matter where in the world. Seeing the baby roll down the stairs after his mother’s death, surrounded by fear and death, adds on to this propagandistic ideology. It becomes even more comfortable to associate the tsarist militia as an evil group, one that tears a mother and her baby apart. The separation is a prominent part of the film, creating a final, blatant attempt at creating a clear right and wrong side in the revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Battleship Potemkin is an outstanding work, as the film’s propagandistic power is undeniable. Eisenstein’s clear-cut and intentional filmmaking made the movie, and symbolism is rampant throughout the film. The film is full of scenes of revolution and riots, but one of the most powerful (and iconic) is that of the Odessa Steps. The psychological power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unit-9-the-silver-age-and-revolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}