Description

Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец «Потёмкин», tr. Bronenosets Potyomkin), sometimes rendered as Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 Soviet silent epic film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by Sergei Eisenstein, it presents a dramatization of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against its officers.

Cast

• Aleksandr Antonov (actor) — Grigory Vakulinchuk (Bolshevik sailor)
• Vladimir Barsky — Commander Golikov
• Grigori Aleksandrov — Chief Officer Giliarovsky
• Ivan Bobrov — Young sailor flogged while sleeping (as I. Bobrov)
• Mikhail Gomorov — Militant sailor
• Aleksandr Levshin — Petty Officer
• N. Poltavseva — Woman with pince-nez
• Konstantin Feldman — Student agitator
• Beatrice Vitoldi — Woman with the baby carriage

Film style and content

The film is composed of five episodes:

• “Men and Maggots” (Люди и черви), in which the sailors protest at having to eat rotten meat;
• “Drama on the Deck” (Драма на тендре), in which the sailors mutiny and their leader, Vakulinchuk, is killed;
• “A Dead Man Calls for Justice” (Мёртвый взывает) in which Grigory Vakulinchuk body is mourned over by the people of Odessa;
• “The Potemkin Stairs” (Одесская лестница), in which Tsarist soldiers massacre the Odessans.
• “The Rendezvous with the Squadron (naval)” (Встреча с эскадрой), in which the squadron tasked with intercepting the Potemkin instead declines to engage; lowering their guns, its sailors cheer on the rebellious battleship and join the mutiny.