Restored Revolutionary Classic Film Now on DVD

This week’s UND Writers Conference is focusing on revolutions of various sorts. Part of the conference is a six-film festival (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 2 and 6 pm in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl) of dramas and documentaries dealing with specific revolutions or incidents and characters related to revolutionary fervor. Friday’s films are “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo” (2008) and “Lumumba” (2000).

Films dealing with revolution, though their political rather than commercial entertainment intentions often make them controversial, are nothing new in cinema. Virtually every film made about revolutions has been directly or indirectly influenced by the 1925 Soviet Russian film, “Battleship Potemkin.” Sergei Eisenstein’s docudrama was even more revolutionary in its intense editing techniques than in its political message, which celebrated the 20th anniversary of a failed 1905 Russian revolution by mistreated sailors on that ship.

“Battleship Potemkin” proved so powerful at its December 1925 Moscow premiere that it was quickly exported around the world, and just as quickly censored by each country it played in. Eisenstein himself helped re-edit the film and collaborated with Edmund Meisel on a closely-matched rhythmic musical score for its April 1926 Berlin premiere. This version was so effective that the music score itself was criticized and later suppressed. Hollywood stars and producers who saw this version were profoundly affected by the experience, and no less than Douglas Fairbanks Sr. arranged to have a copy imported for private studio screenings.

However, by the time of its American theatrical premiere at the end of 1926, and each subsequent release and reissue in other countries including the Soviet Union itself, there were more government-imposed changes, deleting titles and shots, rearranging scenes, and adding new titles. A 1950 Soviet reissue added some opening narration and pieced together a new score from music by Russian composer Shostakovich, while removing shots the Soviet regime now felt were not politically appropriate. This version was also stretch-printed, repeating every second frame, giving a jerkiness to the action but necessary for a more natural speed at sound film’s 24 frames per second.

Numerous different editions have circulated of “Battleship Potemkin” since 1926, none of them representing either the 1925 premiere version or the first 1926 Berlin cut that Eisenstein worked on, which was also released throughout the U.S.S.R. that year. Until 2007, the most common versions viewed were derived from either the copy received by the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1938, or the 1950 Russian reissue, with at least three or four other variant copies available, no two of which were alike. Many were also copies of copies, degrading the image quality substantially, and with either no music track at all or music that bore little relation to the images and none to the editing. Those that had the best picture quality often had the most shots missing or in the wrong order.
In 2007, German and Russian film archives finally completed a painstaking reconstruction of the original 1925 cut and adapted the 1926 Meisel musical score to match it. Kino Video (http://www.kino.com) has recently released a definitive double-disc DVD of that version. Not only does it restore all the missing shots and titles, but the image was copied from original materials that restore the beauty of the cinematography.

After years of versions that were only pale indications of the dynamic frame composition, we can finally appreciate the delicate texture of the shots and make out details once muddied in murky shadows. The restorers even went so far as to hand-paint the red flag on the black-and-white film, as it had been in 1925.
All previous video incarnations of “Battleship Potemkin” were academically interesting demonstrations of Eisenstein’s approach to editing, and except perhaps for the famous “Odessa Steps” sequence, the film remained a fairly unemotional exercise in technique rather than an involving, emotional drama. This newest restoration on Kino’s DVD suddenly springs to life as a powerful story, told through an expert blend of powerful music and images.

Eisenstein’s general tendency to prefer crowds as characters, rather than individuals, is still a weakness that inhibits closer audience identification with the action. However, with many newly restored dialogue titles, several of the individual characters become much more vivid. Scenes dramatizing the sailors’ treatment by the ship’s officers are now less abstract and more personal than anyone ever had a chance to experience since 1925.

Seeing this restoration of “Battleship Potemkin” is like seeing the film for the first time after years of seeing nothing but long preview trailers or dry documentaries that only hinted at its power. The DVD set includes the original Russian version on one disc (with optional English subtitles), and the identical cut but with all the title cards translated into English on the other disc. Also included are a 42-minute German documentary about the reconstruction, photo galleries of stills, behind-the-scenes views, and advertising materials, plus an enclosed booklet of program notes. The booklet and documentary help make up for the unfortunate lack of an audio commentary.

For comparison, it is also instructional to view the French film about the same mutiny, which was actually filmed in 1905 shortly after the Potemkin incident took place. This three-and-a-half-minute film is entitled “Revolution in Russia,” and is included on disc 3 of the box set “The Movies Begin,” also available from Kino Video.