The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest film ever made! Well, not really. I still stand by the idea that Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made, but if someone came up to me saying that The Battleship Potemkin was the greatest film ever made, I would disagree, but still respect and understand the person’s opinion. If someone came up to me claiming that Catwoman, per say, was the greatest film ever made, I would probably have to resort to violence. That was a bad example, yes, but that’s not the point. Is The Battleship Potemkin the greatest film ever made? No. Is it one of the greatest films ever made? It’s debatable, but I say yes. Not THE greatest film, but somewhere high up. And that is high praise coming from anyone who sees as many movies as I do. Granted, other people have seen more, but when you average about 45 films per month, or 540 films a year (dang.), it still counts as high praise. A dramatic retelling of the events leading to the Russian Revolution, The Battleship Potemkin begins with the greatest of all things-meat. And the evilest of all things-rotten meat. The crew of ‘Potemkin’ are forced to eat rancid meat, have horrible living conditions, and have captains who basically count as tyrants. So the entire crew of the battleship rises up, and gets the news to mainland Russia, attempting to completely start a revolution in Russia. The people carry on the revolution after seeing the body of a crew member who was killed in the revolution of the ship, leading to the fictional but entrancing account of a Russian massacre on the Odessa Steps, and a battle between ‘Potemkin’ and the Russian army. This film is amazing. That is without-a-doubt. The massacre at the Odessa Steps is one of the most iconic and often mimicked (even by our good man Martin Scorcese) out of possibly any other scene in contemporary cinema. Now, the film isn’t perfect. It loses its footing at times, and the film being a silent film, I wish there were more little cards to show what the characters were saying, but those complaints are minor. Minor complaints in a field of great. That is what we have here. Pure and utter greatness.
9.5/10