Battleship Potemkin

There were so many significant things that I found in this film. I am going to try to get everything down that I can remember well. First of all, I liked this film a lot more than the three we watched the other day. This is an extremely influential film made in 1925. It is much different than prior silent films, it features a lot more propaganda. One of the first things that we were asked to watch for was if we could tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys in the film seemed to all be wearing white, which is a commonly used color to represent the good side or good men. At one point one of the guys even takes off another guys' coat and hat and gives him a white hat to wear after they had won over the ship.

One of the images that i saw in the movie that was a type of foreshadowing was when they were going to kill the lower rank men. The officer told them to go get a canvas to cover them with while they shot them and when they carried the canvas out, one of the guys looked at it and it looked exactly like there was a body already inside, like a body bag. Even though this was the image that we saw, the killing didn't happen. Since it didn't happen it might not have been anything really at all, but it just caught my attention because there seemed to be a purpose to showing it.

The religious character in this film was very interesting. I wasn't really sure what was going on with him. It really confused me, maybe someone could enlighten me on what was happening there.

The idea of a revolution is present in every part of this film, starting on the boat and moved onto the shore. This is a reason why this film is a huge piece of propaganda. It is trying to convince the audience of how good a revolution can be. It showed the officers on the boat as really bad men, who represent the wealthier men of the country that should be revolted against by the Proletarians or workers below them who don't have the high ranks or a lot of money or power. The soldiers call each other brothers and this represents how the proletarians should come together and be like a family. It shows the closeness between the people and that you can succeed when you work together like they do in their own little revolution. The soldiers in the town that come out of the building are displayed in a very bad way. They are shown to be very cruel, shooting anyone in sight, even little kids. Seeing this makes you want to do something about it. Another part when you can see them encouraging the people was when they joined in saying "all for one and one for all". Last but not least their red flag waving with the images of the hammer, the scythe, and the star is shown waving multiple times. This flag symbolizes the Proletarians or the workers of the Soviet Union.

One part of the cinematography of the film that I enjoyed alot were some of the camera angles that were taken, especially one where it seemed like the camera was hovering off the boat up high in the air looking down at the boat. The other part that I really enjoyed was the special effects. There were two times when I really noticed the special effects. One of them was the blood and gunshot wounds on the civilians shot by the military officers coming down the stairs. The other time was when there were explosions shown on buildings and other places.

I enjoyed this movie alot, it was very good and I think it did an excellent job sending out the messages that it wanted to portray.