Summary
A sailor blows a trumpet and the entire crew is summoned to the main deck. We see them line up on either side from a vantage point atop the ship's turret. The turret’s two barrels stick out over the deck and we will see much of the following scene from this perspective. Commander Golikov arrives and asks that anyone who is satisfied with the borscht step forward. Several men do, and a title card identifies them as the ship’s petty officers. The vast majority of sailors do no step forward, and Golikov declares that dissenters will be hung. He points to the ship’s mast, and the sailors look at it. When we see shots of the petty officers looking up, we cut to a shot of the mast looking normal. However, when the sailors look up, we cut to a shot of the mast where the faint image of hanging men fades onto the mast. Golikov calls for the guards, and Matyushenko runs to get them, though a title card informs us that he is secretly working against the officers. Vakulinchuk whispers to some sailors to make for the turret when they get the chance. Sailors begin passing this information on to each other.
The guards arrive with rifles in hand. The sailors gather and form ranks by the turret. Some sailors are pulled aside to the deck’s rail. A few try to escape down the admiral’s hatch on the deck, but Golikov yells that they cannot go that way. Golikov pushes the sailors back to the rail and orders the guards to shoot them. Officers cover the sailors with a canvas. One of the guards looks nervous and indecisive. A priest comes to the top of a nearby staircase and loudly prays that the dissenters see reason and obey the officers’ orders. The guards are ordered to fire but they do not, merely standing with their guns pointed. There is a long pause where everyone looks nervous and fidgets with the objects they hold. Finally, a title card informs us that “Vakulinchuk decides” and he cries out to the guards not to shoot, saying they are all brothers. The guards lower their rifles. Giliarovsky screams at them to fire, then tries to take one of their rifles. Vakulinchuk declares a full mutiny and sends the sailors to aid the guards and grab the rifles from below deck.
The deck is engulfed in a huge brawl between the sailors and officers which quickly spreads all across the ship. Sailors grab rifles from below deck and beat the officers. Vakulinchuk climbs around the upper decks being chased by a rifle-wielding Giliarovsky. He is met by the priest, who holds a crucifix in front of him and implores Vakulinchuk to fear God and by implication obey the officers. Vakulinchuk dismisses this, mocking the priest and throwing him down the stairs before wrestling with the officer for the rifle. The priest is knocked unconscious by the fall and the crucifix embeds itself in the floor. Vakulinchuk flees down the stairs. More fighting takes place in the officers’ quarters as one tries to shoot sailors with a pistol while perched on top of a piano. Sailors quickly grab and throw him down. Another officer tries to climb on the ship’s cannons to escape but is tracked down by sailors and thrown overboard. Other sailors find Smirnov trying to escape below deck, and they throw him overboard as well. We briefly cut back to a shot of the maggot-riddled meat and a title card declares “To the bottom to feed to worms!” Smirnov’s glasses hang from a piece of rope on the ship.
Sailors with rifles get to the top of the turret and declare victory. The remaining officers either give up or flee (with the fleeing quickly caught by sailors) and the sailors on the deck celebrate. However, Vakulinchuk is still being chased by Giliarovsky and is now injured. Vakulinchuk climbs onto some equipment on the side of the ship and is shot by Giliarovsky. He falls but is caught by a piece of rope before falling to the water. Some sailors notice his predicament and jump down to rescue him as he finally falls into the water. THey bring him back on board, but his injuries are too severe and he dies. A title card reads “And he who was first to sound the cry of rebellion was first to fall at the executioner’s hand.”
A small boat takes Vakulinchuk’s body to shore at the city of Odessa. Hi body is displayed in a tent for the public with a sign that reads “For a spoonful of borscht.” A small candle is clasped in his hands, which are folded over his chest. The opening of the tent faces the city harbor as the sun is setting. A large sailboat passes in front of the tent and blocks out the sunset as the shot fades out.
Analysis
In this sequence, we begin to see Eisenstein put the full force of his visual filmmaking ability into effect, particularly with respect to editing. For example, when Golikov threatens to hang the dissenting members of the crew, we see a series of point-of-view shots of the mast from several different sailors’ perspectives. We see the mast once after Golikov points to it. Then we see some of the dissenting sailors look up at it. We see the mast from their perspective, but this time the faint image of several men hung on nooses from the mast overlays the mast. Fading non-existent elements into the image is an impressionist technique, common in many films in the 1920s, meant to illustrate characters’ states of mind or subjective perceptions. We then see some of the petty officers look up at the mast as well. We cut back to the mast, but this time no hanging men appear on the screen. We cut back to the petty officers, who smile smugly at each other. Through this editing, the power balance between the ordinary sailors and the petty officers is made clear. The sailors are afraid for their lives; the specter of death literally hangs over them and affects their perception of their environment. The petty officers, on the other hand, feel empowered and safe. The ship is their territory, they see no threats when they look around because they are in with the senior officers.
Later, when the guards are lined up to shoot the sailors under the sheet and are hesitating, we see another series of shots which exemplify Eisenstein’s editing techniques. As everyone is waiting, we see the priest tapping his crucifix in a rhythmic fashion after having said a prayer for the sailors about to be shot. We also see a closeup of one of the officers nervously stroking the hilt of his sword. We cut back and forth between closeups of these objects. Here Eisenstein is employing one of the key techniques of montage editing: cutting between two or more images to combine them and create a new meaning independent of either image. In this case, he intends to connect the symbols of the Russian Tsarist military with that of the Russian Orthodox church. Eisenstein sees these institutions as linked: both are partners in the ruling class structure that keeps the working class oppressed. This is one of many points of Marxist ideology which Eisenstein inserts into the film.
Narratively, this sequence essentially pays off the tension that had built up in the first part of the film. We saw the growing discontent of the sailors build up, and here we see the officers, unaware of how dangerous the situation could become, push them to the edge. The officers count on the fear of the individual sailors to keep them in line; they believe that the fear of harm will keep the sailors from resisting. What the officers don’t count on is the sailors' solidarity. Vakulinchuk and the others realize that they have strength in numbers, and that the power of the officers is meaningless without the implicit consent of the sailors. This is a microcosm of the entire situation of Russia during this era, when a popular uprising exposed the weakness of the Tsar's regime. This is also the last sequence of the film in which the action is driven primarily by named characters as opposed to indistinct groups of people. During the battle scene wherein Eisenstein cuts between several lines of action, Vakulinchuk has a line all to himself as he is chased around the ship by Giliarovsky. It is something of a heroic last stand, as we will not see the film pay this much attention to one character again. The death of Vakulinchuk is a shift in the film analogous to the shift that Soviet society as a whole was theoretically supposed to go through: a shift from reliance on heroic figures to a reliance on community and solidarity. Vakulinchuk's death is heroic, but it is also the necessary transition from individual leadership (what Marxist-Leninism called the "vanguard," which would inspire the workers) to mass collective action.
