Movie Greats; A Critical Study of Classic Cinema Gillett, Philip

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tests to the extent to which our identification with individuals is at the heart of much
of our cinematic pleasure. 18 For me, the stilted acting detracts from Vakulinchuk s
death and nullifies any identification. A comparison can be made with the visit of the
petty officer to the empty crew s quarters. The tables are suspended from the ceiling
and sway with the movement of the ship. Their pendulum-like motion mesmerizes
him. Smiling, he follows their movement, his head tilting from side to side. For a few
moments, Eisenstein seems in touch with real emotions and the limitations of his
actors can be forgotten, or was the actor intending to portray maliciousness?
32 " Movie Greats
Shaw s next point is a corollary: Sergei Eisenstein lampooned the bourgeoisie
with naive and unconvincing stereotypes more suited to vaudeville or the circus,
which soon were more likely to induce ridicule than revolutionary fervour. 19 To
promote a populist message, it is tempting to resort to stereotypes of evil and righ-
teousness, however inconvenient the facts. Religious evangelism and melodrama
are never far apart. As Shaw implies, the weakness of this strategy becomes apparent
when the propaganda loses its relevance and audiences seek more sophisticated
imagery. Then the hollowness of the stereotypes is revealed, making it difficult to
take Potemkin seriously. The lack of veracity in the characters serves to point up that
this is primarily a director s exercise. To accept the film s greatness requires over-
looking this fault. Judging by Potemkin s absence whenever the public are polled on
their favourite films, they have exercised their own discrimination.
Shaw and Thomson continue to find common ground in the bludgeoning effect of
propaganda. Thomson detects a paradox: The propagandist purpose in Eisenstein s
films diminishes the human beings dressed up as authority just as uncompromisingly
as the authorities are supposed to oppress the workers. 20 Commentators handle the
propaganda in different ways. The approach taken by Seymour Benjamin Chatman is
to ignore it in favour of the film s compositional qualities. These include the golden
rule of contrasting even and uneven numbers, which is evident in the alternating
groups of two and three citizens who view Vakulinchuk s body, and the arc formation
of bridges and parasols.21 The historian D. J. Wenden accepts the propaganda on
the grounds that Potemkin was intended to appeal to unsophisticated audiences.22
Against this pragmatic interpretation, it is clear from the care Eisenstein lavished on
the composition of the shots that his aim was not merely propaganda. He faced simi-
lar problems to Shostakovich in his dealings with the authorities, but the composer s
bitter humour finds no parallel here. From today s perspective, art and propaganda
sit uneasily together in Potemkin, even if Eisenstein s insistence on agit-cinema
suggests that for him the two elements were inseparable.
Shaw s final point is that Eisenstein displays the strengths and weaknesses of
the Renaissance man, subjugating all the elements to the driving idea. Not only
does this produce a cold epic, but humans are reduced to cogs in a revolutionary
machine.23 Thomson is more charitable, detecting in Eisenstein s paintings a self-
mocking, cartoony exuberance which is absent from the films.24 Potemkin is short
on self-mockery, yet there is respite from coldness in the shots of citizens paying
their respects to Vakulinchuk s body. It is easy to understand how such a sequence
influenced John Grierson and other documentary film-makers. It shows real people,
including a high proportion of women who are neither old nor asexual as Nestor Al-
mendros contends.25 James Goodwin can praise the film s affective structure, seeing
October (USSR, 1928) as marking Eisenstein s shift to intellectualism, while ignor-
ing the fact that individual protagonists become the heroes in his later work.26 Helen
Grace takes a different approach, detecting in Potemkin a contrast between maternal
feeling and masculine virility, with the latter winning out in the film s final section.27
The Battleship Potemkin (USSR, 1925): The Politics of the Cinema " 33
My estimation is that this does not compensate for the film s lack of humanity, even
if it makes the coldness elegant.
For that well-known propagandist Joseph Goebbels writing in 1933, It is a fan-
tastically well-made film and displays considerable cinematic artistry. The decisive
factor is its orientation. Someone with no firm ideological convictions could be
turned into a Bolshevik by this film. 28 The irony is that Eisenstein edited a version
for Goebbels.29 Writing some sixty years later, Roger Ebert shows a similar apprecia-
tion of the work s potency:
If today it seems more like a technically brilliant but simplistic cartoon (Pauline Kael s
description in a favorable review), that may be because it has worn out its element of sur-
prise, that . . . it has become so familiar we cannot perceive it for what it is. . . . In prosper-
ous peacetime, it is a curiosity. If it had been shown in China at the time of Tiananmen
Square, I imagine it would have been inflammatory.30
The two strands to Ebert s criticism are overfamiliarity and the context in which the
film is viewed. The element of surprise is always at risk from familiarity, even if Un
chien andalou (Luis Bu�uel and Salvador Dali, France, 1928) evades this pitfall,
but is Potemkin familiar? The image of a pram tumbling down steps has become
common cinematic currency, but familiarity comes from knowing images from the
film rather than seeing it in its entirety. This is to rely on the film s reputation rather
than its intrinsic quality.
The film s reception today raises other issues. It is likely to be seen at home, or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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