Sergei Eisenstein is known as the father of the montage; a method used so often in films today that it goes unnoticed. The book defined montage as “the cinematic technique that depends on a rapid succession of images.” To put it more simply, montage is literally just the process of editing and cutting out the parts of the shot that aren’t necessary. It allows the audience to see multiple things that are going on at the same time. Montage is used in almost every movie today, and it can be very effective when the director is trying to make a statement or get a point across, like the Odessa Steps Sequence in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
The scene cuts back and forth from the mass of citizens running down the steps, the army slowly following them with their guns, and then to close-up shots of certain individuals. One part that particularly sticks out in my mind is the woman holding her son in front of the army, begging them not to shoot because her son is sick. The soldiers shoot her anyway and move on. Another disturbing part is when the mother gets shot and accidentally sets her baby carriage (with her baby in it) rolling down the steps. Even though the acting seemed a little over-dramatic, scenes like those help illustrate the pain and suffering that the individual people were going through. If Eisenstein hadn’t added the close-ups, the whole scene would just be the soldiers advancing on the crowd. That would have been effective in showing the fear of the people, but the close-ups seemed to make the whole situation more real and put it on a personal level. One could imagine oneself as a part of the attack. Eisenstein used the montage as a tool to demonstrate the horrors of war. Although Battleship Potemkin was not based on a real story, Eisenstein was still able to make clear his feelings on war and unnecessary violence, and I believe he made his audience feel the way he felt.
I haven’t seen the entire movie, but I was captivated by the Odessa Steps Sequence. I wasn’t as entertained as I am by recent movies, but Battleship Potemkin is definitely more entertaining and thought-provoking than many other movies that came out around 1925. This movie may seem technologically unimpressive compared to the movies of today, but it was the first of its kind and modern movies would be nowhere without the ideas and the work of Eisenstein.
