Battleship Potemkin (1925) on

Sergei Eisenstein’s greatest achievement of the silent era has long been recognized as a world cinema masterpiece.

Originally commissioned to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1905 Socialist uprising, Eisenstein’s film focused on the mutiny of the crew of the armored cruiser Potemkin. In the process, Eisenstein continued his boldly-conceived filmmaking style of close-ups and rapid cutting that he explored in his first film Strike (1924) for his telling of the crew’s human-rights struggle.

The film was recently restored to its original state, including all of Eisenstein’s intertitles and 1374 original shots, as it was before Eisenstein was required to censor his own intended version before the film’s December 1925 Russian premiere. The excised material survived the years in untouched original prints struck by German distributor Prometheus from the original German negative before it was also censored and edited in 1926 and again in 1928. The restoration was a 20-year-long collaborative effort of Deutsches Kinemathek in Germany, with support from the Gosfilmofond film archive of Russia, the Bundesarchiv film archive of Germany, and the British Film Institute.

This exciting two-disc edition of the definitive restoration of Sergei M. Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) includes the restored film transferred in high-definition, including all of the footage edited from the film before its premiere in its original and intended sequencing with all of the original Russian intertitles in their correct order. The film is accompanied by a 5.1 surround sound presentation of the German premiere music score composed by Edmund Meisel and overseen by Eisenstein performed by the 55-piece Deutches Filmorchestra. Also included will be a presentation of the edited film as it originally premiered with optional English intertitles, a 42-minute documentary on the making and restoration of the film, and a photo gallery.

Forget all previous editions, this one will be the one for your collection — especially given the reasonable cost of this definitive two-disc set.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This early DVD edition, from Corinth Films (U.S. distributor of the film), has been transferred from a positive print struck from a 35mm Russian preservation print. Despite the age of this edition, this is likely to remain the best available North American home video edition for some time.

The source print appears to be comprised of 35mm and 16mm elements, and some surviving shots are rougher than others, but the image generally ranges from good to very-good and is watchable. The film’s jerkiness is not the result of a subpar video transfer, rather the result of the film’s low exposure frame rate at the time it was shot (an educated guess is approximately 12-14 frames per second) combined with its conversion to a sound film print (24 frames per second).

The English language subtitles over the Russian intertitles were a part of the source print and thus cannot be turned off.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

We have not viewed this edition, but have received reports that the visual quality ranges from very-good to excellent. This edition features a music score by Meisel.

This Region 2 PAL DVD is available directly from Films-sans-frontières.

Regretfully we must report that this budget edition has been mastered from a VHS videotape copy of the same video master as the Image edition above. There is some visual evidence of the lack of resolution common to VHS as is the inherent oversharpening of some white image edges. That being said, we have seen far worse examples of DVDs mastered from VHS. This disc will be watchable to undiscerning eyes. The video transfer has been made at a natural pace, and since the camera was originally cracked at a low frame rate of approximately 14-16 frames per second the action is a little jerky. As above, the English language subtitles over the Russian intertitles were a part of the source print and thus cannot be turned off.

The film is presented with the latter day music score composed by Dmitri Shostokovich that is common to today’s sound-projection prints of the film.

The sole supplementary material is an older documentary on director Eisenstein that is mastered from a noisy, coarse, contrasty 16mm reduction print.

Ultimately, we cannot recommend this disc when the Image edition is of higher quality. Some collectors may choose to forgo quality for value.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 1 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 1 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

Plus:
Earth (1930) with 31-minute reconstruction of Sergei Eisenstein’s Bezhin Meadow (1937)

About Sergei Eisenstein:
Sergei Eisenstein: Autobiography (1996)

Other Russian silent era films available on DVD home video:
Aelita (1924)
Arsenal (1928)
Bed and Sofa (1927)
By the Law (1926)
The Cameraman’s Revenge and Other Fantastic Tales: Ladislaw Starewicz (1912-1958)
Chess Fever (1925)
Earth (1930)
The End of St. Petersburg (1927)
The Girl with the Hatbox (1927)
Kino-Eye (1924)
Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer (1913-1917)
Man with the Movie Camera (1929)
Mother (1926)
My Grandmother (1929)
Storm Over Asia (1928)
Zvenigora (1927)