The
Odessa Steps sequence is the climax of the film, and one where nearly
every viewer will feel the tremendous tension brought out by montage
editing. The
Odessa Step sequence begins with a series of close-ups and medium
shots on the elated faces of certain people within the crowd all of
whom are waving & cheering the mutinous sailors of the Potemkin
with some shots focusing on particular objects such as a white
parasol, pince-nez and a baby carriage. This creates a state of
equilibrium (Todorov).
With
the appearance of an intertitle the music suddenly stops followed
instantly by a few flashing close ups of a dark haired woman’s head
with her mouth agape as if in shock or terror. This then cuts to a
mid shot of the feet of the crowd starting to run down the steps from
left to right desperately trying to flee from the armed troop’s
firing. A long shot of a legless man's uneasy but rapid descent down
the steps seems to symbolize the people’s current situation. The
source of terror & reason for chaos is revealed in a long shot
from the reverse angle, showing a horizontal line of troops in white
carrying rifles approaching the people on the steps. The
mise-en-scene is framed with a statue of Duc de Richelieu who once
served as a Russian Major General at the top of the stairs its almost
as if governing the troops, the crowd appear to be trapped in-between
the Church and the soldiers. Possibly this is symbolizing the control
that the tsarist monarchy had over the church and people. Here
Eisenstein uses nearly a hundred shots to piece together his montage
of collision in order to distinguish the terror and chaos being
produced by the machine-like soldiers and their unrelenting onslaught
of the citizens. Eisenstein’s collision editing causes a dramatic
psychological impact causing an emotional response of tension &
horror.
During
the Odessa
steps time is drawn out as Eisenstein manipulates temporal
verisimilitude through over-tonal montage for emotional response,
making an already shocking scene even more terrifying. Time is drawn
out within the scene when a woman notices a baby’s carriage about
to roll down the steps. There are cuts from the mother who has just
been shot to the baby carriage rolling slightly, then away and back
again. By drawing out this scene, a great deal of suspense mounts.
The apprehension created in watching the baby carriage roll back and
forth over such a long period of time almost gives the audience a
kind of reprieve when it finally goes down the steps. The violent
scenes in the Odessa step sequence apply to the domain which Dyer
describes as ‘intensity’- the ‘ experiencing of emotion,
directly, fully, unambiguously’, this intensity which Eisenstein
employs evokes a response ‘ in a way that makes them seem
uncomplicated, direct and vivid.
A
camera dollies beside a mother running down the steps with her son
this tracking shot cuts to a low angle shot of soldiers firing with
their faces obscured leaving then with certain anonymity; perhaps
suggesting that evil has no face. The juxtaposed shots of the gun
fire & that of the mother and son running suggests one will be
hit, this is confirmed when the boy falls down from being shot in the
back. The mother continues down the steps unaware until the child
calls out to her, upon hearing this she realizes the boy is gone and
turns to look into the oncoming crowd. She sees the boy on the steps
reaching out his hand before collapsing. The camera cuts to an
extreme close-up of the horrified face of the mother evoking shock
and empathy. This cuts to a wide shot of the crowd stampeding down
the steps trampling and kicking the child’s lifeless body. The
camera crosses the axis of action and flips direction creating an
unnerving uncomfortable effect on the audience violating spatial
verisimilitude and continuity editing principles. The following
close-ups of the boy’s torso, body and hand being stamped on leaves
viewers mortified, and sickened as we can only empathize with the
mother. Patrick Phillips, an introduction to film studies, “the
horror audience, whether male or female, does not have control of the
look but is forced to take on a passive, classically feminine role,
identifying with the pain and suffering of the protagonist.”
Shadows
are utilized for dramatic effect by the way in which the sun shines
down upon the steps creating harsh contrasts. The
angles of which the marching soldier’s boots and legs are shot
while they descend the steps are accentuated by long looming shadows
caused by the overhead sun. Later, when she stands in front of the
line of faceless soldiers, her figure appears to be caged in by
vertical lines resembling prison bars, caused by the shadows of the
soldiers creating the effect of the mother holding her dead son to be
trapped- she can’t escape the outcome.
The
sequence constantly contrasts between the collective emotionless
troops and the terrified stampeding mob. Eisenstein cuts between
close-ups of the soldiers boots/rifles
and
extreme long shots of them marching ever closer leaving jump shots of
the dying or fleeing. With the on-going comparison of this shots
rhythmic montage occurs, the two rhythms created by one the slow
marching soldiers and the shorter length shots of the chaotic crowd.
The
rhythmic drum of the soldiers' feet as they descend the steps
violates all metrical
demands.
Unsynchronized with the beat of the cutting, this drumming is
off-beat
each time, and the shot itself is entirely different in its solution
with each of these appearances. The sequences final moment of
tension mounts with the baby’s carriage, the shift from the rhythm
of the descending feet to another rhythm - a new kind of downward
movement. Between the slow marching of the soldiers and the quicker
beat of the montage. Indeed, as Eisenstein suggested, the
rhythm of the movement within the frame and the rhythm of the cutting
only begin to parallel when the pram, described by Eisenstein as a
'progressing accelerator', begins its descent downwards.
The
next shot is of the famous editing sequence with the young woman and
her baby’s carriage. Her falling is shown in several overlapping
cuts. Her fall is extended and repeated through montage editing as
Eisenstein tries to provoke more effect and emotion by overlooking
actual time and rather elongating the time to produce more effect and
emotion.
Finally
falling to the ground her body uncontrollably nudges the carriage
over the steps and starts it long descent. Eisenstein alternates the
scene of the carriage falling with shots of a woman wearing
pince-nez, a young male also wearing glasses and a final cut of
Cossacks wielding sabers slaughtering the citizens that escaped fire
at the bottom of the steps. Just before the sequence concludes the
young male is shown yelling as the carriage eventually overturns, it
then quickly cuts to a Cossack slashing his saber three times in a
downward action this leaves the audience unsure of what the Cossack
was striking as the following close up shot is off the elderly woman
wearing pince-nez one with a smashed lens and a blood poured down her
face from her right eye.
Eisenstein
juxtaposed the shots of the baby rolling down the stairs with close
ups of the suffering citizens which in a way seems to suggest the
life that has been snatched from the child with its accelerated
(reference to the speed of which the carriage descends) death going
through shots the baby symbolizing new life passes by the middle-aged
people (dying) ultimately cutting to the dead mans body before the
overturning of the carriage the likes of which could be also be
interpreted as an open casket for the child.
Over
tonal montage can also be seen in the Odessa Steps sequence in the
development of the editing along simultaneous metric, rhythmic, and
tonal lines—the increase in editing tempo, the conflict between
editing and movement within the frame, and the juxtapositions of
light and shadow, intersecting lines, etc.
The
Battleship Potemkin
impressed film
audiences around the world. “This is
not a picture—” the film critic of Germany’s leading
newspaper, the Berliner
Tageblatt,
wrote, “it is a reality. Eisenstein has created the most powerful
and artistic film in the whole world.” As a historical drama
Eisenstein certainly provokes emotion with the use of montage
techniques to enhance intensity creating a psychological impact on
the audience even today Battleship Potemkin is still viewed as a film
that creates high spectator pleasure in terms of intensity, terror
and suspense.
