Battleship Potemkin

Revolutionary in every sense of the word, film theorist Sergei Eisenstein's second feature portrays the class struggle and the Communist revolution through the microcosm and metaphor of the real-life 1905 mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin. Behind the Marxist jubilation and the tragic martyrdom, though, is a cinematic evolution. Eisenstein orchestrates the film like a visual symphony, enhancing the movement of the action on-screen through the rhythm of the editing, rising and falling with the mood until it builds up to the thrilling Odessa Steps massacre. It's arguably the most influential silent film of all time, yet the version we've seen is actually compromised, cut by censors and recut by distributors since its 1925 debut. Kino's two-disc set features the most complete and comprehensive restoration undertaken, a 20-year project started by film historian Enno Patalas and accomplished with the collaboration of five European archives. Two versions of the film are presented, one with newly translated English intertitles, and one with a reconstruction of the original Russian intertitles (with English subtitles). Both feature a newly rescored and recorded version of Edward Meisel's original score. The accompanying German language documentary "Tracing Battleship Potemkin" documents the unmaking and restoration of the film.