Battleship Potemkin Essay Questions

In keeping with communist principles, Battleship Potemkin has very few named characters, focusing mostly on the actions of groups of people instead of individuals. However, it also valorizes Vakulinchuk as a martyr figure and makes him the driver of most events early in the film. How would you reconcile these notions?

This seeming contradiction is, in fact, an expression of the Leninist idea of vanguardism, which holds that revolution requires enlightened individuals to radicalize and lead the masses. Vakulinchuk’s role reflects Lenin’s directly, as Lenin had led the Russians to revolutionary victory before dying himself. Vakulinchuk’s body is even publicly reposed in the same way Lenin’s body was (and still is). Like Lenin, he becomes a symbol more than a man.

Discuss the film's portrayal of religion.

The film’s view of organized, traditional religion is very negative; the only outwardly religious figure in the film is the Orthodox priest who supports and validates the brutality of the Tsarist officers. This is in keeping with the traditional Marxist view of religion as a tool of the state to mollify the masses and make them accept their oppression. However, Eisenstein also appropriates religious iconography, from the line of the Lord’s Prayer which helps inspire the mutiny, to the image of old women crying over Vakulinchuk’s body in similar fashion to paintings of women crying over the body of Jesus. Vakulinchuk is made a martyr and even becomes an arguably Christ-like figure. Eisenstein is aware of the power and appeal of religious aesthetics and ideology, even if he opposes organized religion on principle.

Give an example of montage editing Eisenstein uses in the film and explain its stylistic and/or thematic effect.

When Doctor Smirnov is thrown overboard, the film cuts to a close-up of the maggots in rotten meat from earlier, even though it has nothing directly to do with the current scene, and by this time in the narrative, the meat has likely been disposed of. This edit reminds us how Smirnov betrayed the sailors by approving the rotten meat, and also metaphorically compares him with the rotten meat and maggots. He is no better than a maggot, feeding off the rotten meat of Russian society. He will also become food himself for the sea’s bottom feeders, as a title card reminds us.

Why do you think Eisenstein chose this particular incident as the centerpiece for his film about the unsuccessful revolution of 1905?

Despite the ultimate failure of the 1905 revolution, the Potemkin mutiny was an unambiguous success. It demonstrates solidarity among military men and civilians and ends happily (though not seen in the film, the sailors survived and escaped to Romania). There was a demand in the Soviet Union for stories that upheld communist values and uplifting narratives. This story checked all those boxes, in contrast with Eisenstein’s previous film, Strike, which ends with the striking workers massacred by the Tsarist army.

Discuss how women are portrayed in the film.

Women are portrayed as simultaneously brave and devoted to the revolutionary cause, while also vulnerable and somewhat naive. Old women kneel and sob in front of Vakulinchuk’s body, apparently moved by his sacrifice despite not knowing him. During the Odessa Steps sequence, they are also the ones who confront the soldiers to plead for their lives and those of their fellow Odessans. However, they seem to harbor the delusion that the soldiers will take pity on them. They are killed for this, and their deaths are meant to harden the audience's view of the Tsarists as cruel and inhuman.