SOURCE: "Potemkin," in his Ten Film Classics: A Re-Viewing, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1978, pp. 1-17.

Sergei Eisenstein will be remembered not only as a major filmmaker—his Potemkin has often been called "the greatest film ever made"—but also as one of the most important theorists of the cinema. Although he had provocative things to say about acting, sound, color, and film as a synthesis of all the arts and sciences, Eisenstein's most significant contribution to film study centers on his conception of montage.

The word "montage" comes from the French; it means "mounting" or "putting together." Sometimes montage is used loosely as a synonym for editing. Among Western film-makers, montage often means an impressionistic sequence of short shots intended to convey a sense of time passing. For Eisenstein, however, montage had a wholly different signification.

As an engineering student, Eisenstein had learned the definite laws governing the construction of roads, bridges, waterways, and the principles involved in the management of machinery. With rigorous analysis, he maintained, one could also discover the laws which determined all forms of art. From the beginning, the Soviet film was linked to the 1917 Revolution. "Of all the arts," Lenin once announced, "the cinema is the most important for us." He was thinking of propaganda. In the nineteenth century, Hegel formulated his triadic dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; later Marx and Engels transformed the Hegelian logical-metaphysical-idealist approach into what has come to be called dialectical materialism. Whereas Hegel saw the movement of the dialectic in history as a phenomenal expression of the movement of absolute thought, Marx and Engels argued that the dialectical movement of human thought merely reflects the dialectical process inherent in "reality," or nature and history. The development toward a perfect communist world, then, is based on a series of contradictions, followed by contradictions of contradictions, leading to ever higher stages in the dialectical process.

Eisenstein sought to apply this philosophy to film. Two shots different in kind (the "thesis" and the "antithesis") collide to establish a new concept (the "synthesis"). In his essay "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" (1929), Eisenstein explains that the relationship between the shot and the subtitle on the one hand, and between the shot and montage on the other, represents dialectical phases: "Conflict within a thesis (an abstract idea)—formulates itself in the dialectics of the subtitle—forms itself spatially in the conflict within the shot—and explodes with increasing intensity in montage—conflict among the separate shots." Eisenstein aimed for "pathos" in his dialectical form. He wanted to send the viewer into ecstasy, out of himself—out of passivity, and into action.

According to Eisenstein, there is a correspondence between montage and Japanese hieroglyphic writing. An ideogram results from the fusion of two separate hieroglyphs; for instance, the picture of a dog plus the picture of a mouth becomes "to bark." The ideogram is not the sum of two hieroglyphs but their product. By this distinction, Eisenstein intends that whereas each hieroglyph represents an object the ideogram stands for a concept—a value of another dimension. This, for Eisenstein, is montage—that is, the "combining [of] shots that are depictive, single in meaning, neutral in content—into intellectual contexts and series." The shot is not an element of montage but a cell which, so to speak, divides to form an entity of another order. Montage is characterized not by a simple chain of pictorially continuous images but by "shock attraction"—or the clash of images—which produces a new idea.

The shots, or montage cells, have no value as separate entities. As Eisenstein observes in "Film Language" (1934), the more arresting individual images are in themselves, the more a film becomes a series of beautiful but disconnected snapshots. Nevertheless, conflict exists within each specific cell; the same kind of conflict which can be found between shots can also be found within the single shot. In "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form," Eisenstein distinguishes ten such types of conflict: 1) graphic conflict; 2) conflict of planes; 3) conflict of volumes; 4) spatial conflict; 5) light conflict; 6) tempo conflict; 7) conflict between matter and viewpoint; 8) conflict between matter and its spatial nature; 9) conflict between an event and its temporal nature; and 10) conflict in terms of audio-visual counterpoint. It is montage structure alone, however, which confers meaning on the individual shots.

In 1929, Eisenstein listed five kinds of montage (see "Methods of Montage"); in 1938, as a result of his work on Alexander Nevsky (1938), he added a sixth (see "Synchronization of Senses"). Metric montage depends on the "absolute lengths" of the film strips joined together in such a way as to resemble a musical beat Content is less important here than the fixed, mechanical relation of the film strips to one another. A Griffith last-minute-rescue sequence would serve as an example for this type of montage (which, by the way, Eisenstein did not regard highly). Rhythmic montage shows concern for the content of a shot. Here, the mechanical considerations of metric montage surrender to an ordering of the film strips according to their "actual lengths." In the Odessa Steps sequence of Potemkin, Eisenstein informs us, the rhythmic drum of the soldiers' feet as they descend the steps violate all metrical demands, since the movement of the soldiers remains unsynchronized with the tempo of the cutting. Tonal montage points to the "general tone" of a piece. If a film sequence is described as having a shrill quality, one should look for angle shots and angular shapes, inasmuch as some kind of "graphic tonality" is at work. Overtonal montage can be distinguished from tonal montage "by the collective calculations of all the piece's appeals." The superior film-maker seeks to present more than one emotional tone per shot; he calls upon the overtonal approach to reveal a number of feelings and ideas within a single image.

Metric, rhythmic, tonal, and overtonal are terms used to designate methods of montage. These methods can be described as montage constructions only when they are patterned into the duration of a shot and movement within the frame; similarly, tonal montage grows out of the clash between the rhythmic and tonal qualities of the work; finally, overtonal montage results from the clash between the major tone (its dominant) and the overtone. The four methods of montage work on the viewer at the affective—physiological level. Intellectual montage, however, is intended to make its appeal to the rational faculty in the viewer—it involves a conflict between ideas.

A re-viewing of Potemkin shows how very much the filmmaker's theory remains relevant to an appreciation of his masterpiece.

In 1925, Eisenstein was instructed by the Soviet government to make a film about the abortive revolution of 1905—a film broad in scope. Only about forty shots of the 800 planned were to have been about the mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. However, when Eisenstein saw the Odessa Steps, he changed his plan and revised his script. Now, one mutiny would stand for the entire revolution. Although the 1905 rebellion failed, the Soviet authorities wanted Eisenstein to end the film optimistically.

The Potemkin was the pride of the Imperial Russian Navy. But poor food, including wormy meat, served to the sailors for months created a situation conducive to revolt. When a seaman complained about the food, an officer shot him; the officer, in turn, was shot by some crew members and tossed overboard. The captain and the other officers on the ship were also slain. Arriving at Odessa, the Potemkin received fuel and supplies from their comrades on shore. Other ships from the Black Sea fleet, however, did not join the Potemkin in mutiny. Later, the men on board the battleship argued among themselves and finally decided to surrender the ship to Rumanian authorities. Some sailors managed to escape, but others were executed. In the film, Eisenstein concludes the action by showing the Potemkin sailing past the Czar's fleet—sailing victoriously out to sea—without a shot fired by either side. According to Eisenstein, although the revolt aboard the real Potemkin, like the 1905 revolution as a whole, was not ultimately successful, it foreshadowed the later triumph of 1917. The optimistic conclusion to the film therefore seemed justified.

Eisenstein divides the structure of Potemkin into five parts, each part titled and numbered, the five parts representing a chronological series of events: I. Men and Maggots; II. Drama on the Quarter-Deck; III. The Dead Man Cries for Vengeance; IV. The Odessa Steps; V. Meeting the Squadron. Potemkin is a perfect example of fragmentation editing. Whereas the average film contains about 600 shots—and though 800 had originally been planned for a film about the entire 1905 revolution—the structure of Potemkin is made up of 1,346 shots.

"Men and Maggots" opens with five shots of waves crashing symbolically over a jetty, and shots of waves flowing over rocks on a shore. Cut to an insert title: "Revolution is the only lawful, equal, effectual war. It was in Russia that this war was declared and begun." The quotation is from Lenin. Two seaman are introduced: Matyushenko and Vakulinchuk. The former says: "We, the sailors of the Potemkin, must support the revolution with our brothers, the workers." Thus, conflict is presented immediately, and in a clear-cut fashion. Eisenstein works by contrast: the arrogant faces of the officers versus the angry faces of the crew; the well-cut uniforms of the officers versus the plain-looking garb of the crew; the authority of the officers versus the rebelliousness of the crew. As Vakulinchuk puts it: "What are we waiting for? All Russia is rising. Are we to be the last?"

The struggle commences when the men refuse to eat any more rotten food. Smirnov, the ship's doctor, appears and examines a carcass of meat. He folds his pince-nez in half to form a magnifying lens, and informs the men that there are no maggots in the meat, though the camera-eye shows them clearly in close-up.

Like most of the performers in Potemkin, Smirnov is played by a nonprofessional. During the twenties, Eisenstein's films were cast on the basis of what he called "typage" theory—or what Hollywood refers to as "type casting." Whether he used professional or nonprofessional actors, Eisenstein chose them on the basis of how they looked. They were thought of as simply plastic material to be shaped by montage. Eisenstein observed the general characteristics of doctors, formed a composite image of one, and then looked for the "type." Smirnov was played by a man who knew nothing of medicine; he was, in fact, a porter. The pince-nez became identified with the doctor. Later in the film, when Smirnov is tossed overboard, his eyeglasses get caught on one of the ship's cables. Eisenstein presents the pince-nez in a close-up, thus reminding us of the earlier scene, in addition to letting the part (the glasses) stand for the whole (Smirnov himself).

Although there is a confrontation between the crew and some officers in the first part of Potemkin, there is no bloodshed. "Men and Maggots" ends in the ship's galley. Sailors are washing and drying the officers' plates and setting the table for dinner. One sailor reads the inscription on a plate: "Give us this day our daily bread." Slowly, his anger rises. With great force, he smashes the plate and upsets the table prepared for the officers. This symbolic action is extremely important structurally and thematically. As a result, Eisenstein prolongs its impact visually on the screen. Normally, the breaking of a dish would take about two seconds. Instead of recording the action in real time with a single shot, Eisenstein substitutes filmic time by editing nine shots from various angles in an overlapping progression, so that the breaking of the dish takes longer than it realistically would have aboard the actual Potemkin. The technique marks the difference between life and art.

In Part Two: "Drama on the Quarter-Deck," the officers and crew of the Potemkin reach a turning point in their relationship. A bugle sounds, calling all hands to the quarter-deck. Commander Golikov roars: "All those satisfied with the food step two paces forward!" Throughout this scene, Eisenstein repeatedly shoots the action from a position in back of the two cannons which protrude threateningly over the men. The cannons symbolize the power of the government against which the men are revolting. Most of the sailors refuse to step forward. Furious, Golikov shouts: "Hang them from the yardarm!" Eisenstein cuts nervously back and forth between the men and the officers. An old sailor looks up at the yardarm. Here Eisenstein uses a subjective camera: the viewer sees what the old sailor imagines—six bodies swinging from the yardarm.

"Call out the marine guard!" cries Golikov. Just then, Matyushenko breaks rank and urges his comrades to join him at the gun-turret. The guard appears. "Now," shouts Matyushenko. "The time has come!" The majority of the sailors join him at the turret. With most of the men crowded on either side of the cannons, and with Golikov standing in the line of the cannons, Eisenstein visually suggests that the balance of power has begun to shift in favor of the men. Suspense remains, though, because we do not know how the marines will respond to Golikov's commands.

To the men who have not been able to escape from the prow of the Potemkin, Golikov warns: "I'll shoot you down like dogs … Cover them with a tarpaulin!" The order is carried out. An officer shouts: "Attention!," and the marine guard stiffens. Shot of a priest, standing with a cross raised before him: "Lord, show thyself to these unruly sinners." The sailors who are about to be shot wait in fear. "At the tarpaulin—" comes the command—"Fire!" But the marines hesitate to kill their fellow seamen. Close-up of the cross in the priest's hands; cut to a close-up of an officer's hand stroking the hilt of his dagger. The transition from one object to another, both of them shaped in a similar fashion, underlines the link between church and military in the Czarist regime.

From the first command given to the marines to fire, through their agony of indecision and the torment of the intended victims, to the moment when Vakulinchuk's cry: "Brothers!" finally wins over the guard, Eisenstein edits dozens of shots together in order to sustain the tension. When it becomes clear that the guard will not kill the unhappy men, violence at last breaks out—and the tension is broken. In the battle the officers are overpowered, many of them slain, but Vakulinchuk is also killed.

Part Two ends with Vakulinchuk's body lying on the pier of Odessa, his clasped hands holding a lighted candle on his chest. A sign rests on his body: "For a spoonful of soup."

Part Three: "The Dead Man Cries for Vengeance" remains a relatively calm sequence, a bridge between the violence of both "Drama on the Quarter-Deck" and Part Four: "The Odessa Steps." At the heart of the third section is the mourning of the masses for Vakulinchuk; the mood, however, develops gradually from sorrow through anger to end on a happy, confident note. In time, the sequence moves from night to dawn.

"The Dead Man Cries for Vengeance" begins with an iris shot of Odessa as viewed from the sea. By opening with a technique which shows an image in only one small round area of the scene, Eisenstein "poetizes" his material; it is a signal that symbolism here will be more important than a documentary-like realism. Throughout Potemkin, Eisenstein combines realism (the film was shot on location, there are mostly non-professionals in the cast, much of the action is factual) with stylization (the extreme form of montage, with its fragmented editing, the expansion of time, and the showing of the same event more than once, such as in the Odessa Steps sequence). Tonal montage is apparent in Part Three as Eisenstein's shots are selected, initially, for their "mistiness," and later for their "brightness." In tempo, Eisenstein edits slowly at first, then builds to a brisker pace.

To symbolize the growing power of the masses' sentiments, Eisenstein shows more and more people filing past Vakulinchuk's body. Shot of rising steps empty of people (the right and left sides of the screen are blacked out). Dissolve to a shot of the steps crowded with people. Shot of the masses ascending stairs at the edge of the pier to view the dead hero's body; behind them can be seen a narrow jetty, filled with people, stretching beyond the frame of the picture. High-angle shot of a crowd surrounding Vakulinchuk's corpse. Slow pan from the masses—to the waters of the harbor. Nothing, Eisenstein suggests, can stop the advance of the workers. Waves of people move relentlessly across the curving stairways on either side of an enormous bridge. Almost everyone in Odessa seems to support the mutineers aboard the Potemkin.

Almost everyone... Speeches are made over Vakulinchuk's body. A sailor cries: "We will avenge ourselves! Death to the oppressors!" Three women sing out: "All for one … one for all!" Men and women continue to harangue the crowd. But one well-dressed man persists in cynically sneering at the impassioned speakers. "Down with the Jews!" he says. Close-up of a sailor's angry face. Shots of peasants and workers glaring at the well-dressed defender of the government. Suddenly the crowd attacks the man, beating him with their fists, driving him to the ground. "Shoulder to shoulder!" screams an agitator. Shot of men and women moving down two large stairways, advancing under the arch of a bridge. Shot of men and women streaming across the bridge, others pouring beneath the arch. All Russia seems to be rising against the Czar.

Cut to a shot of the Potemkin. "The enemy has been dealt a decisive blow!" a civilian tells the assembled sailors. "Together with the rising workers of our land we will be victorious!" The sailors fling their white caps in the air, cheering. Cut to a shot of the Odessa Steps, a huge stairway leading down to the harbor, where a crowd has gathered to stare across the water at the Potemkin. The sun is shining now, and many women shield themselves with parasols. Cut back to the Potemkin, where a forked flag is being raised as a symbol of successful rebellion … Fade out.

Part Four: "The Odessa Steps" is probably the most celebrated sequence ever filmed. The structure of the section clearly exemplifies Eisenstein's theory of dialectical movement. At the start of "The Odessa Steps," the film-maker establishes his "thesis" by cutting back and forth between the happy crowd on shore and the victorious sailors aboard the Potemkin. When the foot soldiers and Cossacks appear to put down the demonstration on shore, Eisenstein introduces the "antithesis." In response to the slaughter on the Steps, however, the sailors of the Potemkin fire their cannons at the headquarters of the attackers. This represents the "synthesis."

To film the massacre on the Odessa Steps, Eisenstein developed a number of strategies. He built a trolley for his camera on the Steps, so that it could move along with the action. In addition, he wanted to balance the objective presentation of the carnage with subjective shots. To do this, he strapped a camera to the waist of a technician and had him roll down the steps.

One test of a great director is how well he handles crowd scenes. Eisenstein was not only a master of orchestration where large numbers of people were concerned but he also had a genius for isolating individuals in the crowd in order to prevent the audience from merely being overwhelmed by the massive destruction. For example, in "The Odessa Steps" sequence he cuts back and forth between shots showing the soldiers shooting into the crowd and shots depicting the reactions of various persons in the crowd: a mother and her child, a student, a woman wearing pincenez, a baby in a carriage. By showing us specific human beings up close, by forcing us to identify with them, Eisenstein makes us react emotionally to the sequence. "The Odessa Steps" is no dehumanized newsreel account of an atrocity—it is the high point of Eisenstein's artistry.

From beginning to end, the massacre on the Odessa Steps is masterly in its construction. The transition from the happy scene on the Steps to violence is abrupt and signaled by a title card with one word printed on it: "Suddenly …" Shot of a woman's dark hair which fills the screen. The woman pulls back from the camera, still caught in a close-up, her mouth open, screaming. Shot of a legless man hopping in panic down the Steps on blocks of wood held in his hands under his hips. Shots of the crowd fleeing down the Steps. Shot of the cripple gazing for a moment in horror up the Steps. Long shot of the crowd, with the camera positioned at the top of the Steps, the backs of the citizens all that can be seen. There is a bronze statue in the foreground of the shot … Then, all at once, we finally see the cause of the panic. Moving underneath the outstretched arms of the statue is a line of soldiers, fixed bayonets on their rifles.

Throughout the massacre on the Steps, Eisenstein uses the various forms of conflict and methods of montage which he discusses in his theoretical writings. There is, for example, graphic conflict (shot of a body intersecting the Steps) and conflict of planes (shot of a line of soldiers shooting down the Steps at a mother holding a child in her arms). Within individual compositions there is conflict between the chaotic rush of the crowd and the mechanical, ordered movement of the soldiers; between light and shadow; between a lone mother moving up the Steps and the crowd fleeing down the Steps past her. As noted earlier, Eisenstein cites the sequence on the Steps as an example of rhythmic montage. The cutting is fast; it is not synchronized with the marching feet of the soldiers. "The final pull of tension," Eisenstein writes, "is supplied by the transfer from the rhythm of the descending feet to another rhythm—a new kind of downward movement—the next intensity level of the same activity—the baby carriage rolling down the Steps. The carriage functions as a directly progressing accelerator of the advancing feet. The stepping descent passes into a rolling descent."

As he did in Part One: "Men and Maggots," in the scene where the sailor breaks the plate on which is inscribed: "Give us this day our daily bread," Eisenstein again expands real time into filmic time in order to emphasize the importance of the slaughter by the Czarist forces. It would take about two minutes for the average person to run down the Odessa Steps. In Potemkin, it takes the soldiers almost ten minutes to clear the Steps, because Eisenstein keeps intercutting to show isolated bits of action in conjunction with an overall view of the massacre. Furthermore, time is expanded because Eisenstein presents the same event more than once. At one point, the Steps are swept clean of all the living as the soldiers march relentlessly forward, their rifles smoking. Then a woman carrying her child moves up the Steps to confront the seemingly inhuman soldiers. She is shot down. Once again, the Steps are filled with people and the soldiers are firing at them. We are so involved in the action, however, that during a viewing of Potemkin we never ask ourselves where the second wave of people have come from. We simply accept the fact—emotionally—that for the people trapped on the Steps the carnage seems to be going on and on and on. Eisenstein's expansion of time and violation of logic are perfectly justified aesthetically.

The slaughter on the Steps ends with an excellent illustration of what Eisenstein means by montage. Shot of a Cossack swinging his sword, his eyes looking down into the camera. Three more rapid shots—all close-ups—of the Cossack's snarling face. Then a shot of an old woman wearing pince-nez, in close-up, blood spurting from her right eye. We never see the sword as it strikes the eye. Through "shock attraction," Eisenstein takes shots of the Cossack and a shot of the woman—shots which in themselves are "single in meaning"—and combines them to form a new concept; the woman has been slashed by the Cossack.

Immediately, Eisenstein cuts from the woman to the guns of the Potemkin. The rebellious sailors fire upon the Odessa Theater, in which the Czar's officers are housed. Once again, Eisenstein provides a memorable example of montage. Three quick shots of marble lions appear on the screen: the first lion is sleeping; the second waking up; the third rising. Individually, the shots are "neutral in content," but the sum of the shots—through the illusion of a single lion jumping to its feet—produces a new idea: the Russian masses are fighting back against the inhumanity of the Czarist government.

"Meeting the Squadron"—the fifth and last part of Po temkli—is inevitably a letdown after "The Odessa Steps." However, Eisenstein does his best to end the film in a dramatic way. Suspense is achieved by establishing the possibility that the bulk of the Russian fleet will sink the Potemkin. In order to build up tension, Eisenstein edits dozens of shots of the sailors waiting, water splashing against the ship, the dark sky, dials on pressure gauges, the guns of the Potemkin. Suddenly the tension is broken—the squadron is sighted—and activity commences. The sailors of the Potemkin prepare themselves for combat, knowing that they are doomed if their fellow seamen on the other ships decide to follow orders. Title: "Will they fire …" Eisenstein cuts to the faces of anxious men aboard the Potemkin. Title: "… or …" Cut to shots of more faces, pistons moving furiously below deck. And then, finally, the title: "Brothers!" The sailors aboard the opposing vessels refuse to fire on the Potemkin. Overjoyed, the rebellious sailors, cheering, toss their caps in the air. The film ends with a close shot of the Potemkin's prow heading straight into the camera, and continuing on to freedom.

One can see that the structure of Potemkin also illustrates Eisenstein's concept of progression according to the dialectic. The sailors and the civilian population revolt against authority. This is the "thesis." In response, the government shoots down the civilians on the Odessa Steps. Here we have the "antithesis." Finally, the Russian fleet refuses to fire on the Potemkin and allows it to escape unharmed. The massacre has created an even stronger solidarity. This is the "synthesis."

After more than fifty years, Potemkin still represents an unforgettable cinematic experience. Vividly photographed by Eduard Tisse (one of the greatest cameramen in the history of cinema), brilliantly conceived and edited by Eisenstein, strong in content, the film has lost none of its power to delight our eyes with its pictorial compositions or hold our attention with its violent actions. The massacre on the Odessa Steps remains an unsurpassable accomplishment.

Eisenstein's conception of himself as both a film artist and a propagandist for the Russian Revolution creates, however, an uneasy tension in Potemkin. For example, the characters are over-simplified representations of humanity; they are black (the officers on the ships) and white (the sailors and the workers). At times, Potemkin comes perilously close to resembling a cartoon strip, with the "good guys" battling the "bad guys." Joseph Goebbels, propaganda director under Hitler, looked upon Eisenstein's film as a model which Germany would have to surpass … a sentiment which prepared the way for Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1934), which celebrates the annual Nazi Reich Party Day rally in Nuremberg.

In his essays, Eisenstein often speaks of realism and reality. Unfortunately, he never defines his terms. At the survival level, "reality" seems to be whatever Marx and Engels and Lenin and Stalin say it is. At the artistic level, "reality" is merely something to be put into montage form to fit the revolutionary aims of the film-maker. Truth here is totally dependent on the purposes of the artist, since it is just as if things did not exist at all. Now, every artist in cinema transforms reality; he creates, for instance, a new filmic space and time. However, a film like, say, Fellini's La Strada, though it reflects the artist's rearrangement of life—that is, his subjectivity (not subjectivism)—nonetheless remains a window on the real world. The artist's ideas and attitudes coexist with a reality which—except at the submoral or subethical level—is no mere unspecified stuff.

According to Eisenstein, film can only become art through montage. We know, however, that when a director (for instance, Hitchcock) plans every shot in advance of filming, when, during filming, the shot is lighted this way, composed that way, the actors placed thus and so, artistry is involved in the entire process. Eisenstein tended to place too much stress on the conceptual work of editing, while insufficiently emphasizing what the camera sees. "Primo: photo-fragments of nature are recorded; secundo: these fragments are combined in various ways," he writes. "Thus, the shot (or frame), and thus, montage … The minimum 'distortable' fragment of nature is the shot; ingenuity in its combinations is montage." Because the shot does not distort the real world as much as montage, Eisenstein attaches less significance to it.

We turn now to a film classic which, in its artistry, represents an alternative to Eisenstein's approach in Potemkin.