When The Shooting Stops

by Ralph Rosenblum

  In the opening scene of Mother the drunken, villainous father comes home looking for something to pawn. He steps on a stool to grab the cherished old clock off the wall, only to be intercepted by his wife. Pudovkin now starts a flurry of quick cuts as the woman tries to pull the man away from his quarry. We see her weary but determined face, her hands gripping his thighs, his contorted face as he struggles to free himself from her grip. A quick shot of the son leaning up in bed. The father’s angry, snarling features; her hands clutching his trousers; the stool tipping; the clock being ripped from the wall; a piece of its inner mechanism rolling across the room and keeling over to a stop. There’s a sense of stillness as the cutting flurry ends and the camera focuses on the father stretched out on the floor. (We never actually saw either him or the clock crash.) Now Pudovkin continues with shots that last much longer, suggesting a resolution of the action. Astute editing technique of this sort set a standard for moviemaking that still prevails. Pudovkin’s insight to allow the part to speak for the whole—the military officer’s kid-gloved hands, shown in close-up as the officer menacingly rubs them together—and his use of symbolism—the face of the imprisoned young man when he learns he’s about to be freed intercut with shots of birds splashing in a village pond, of a child laughing, and of a swollen brook—would eventually become film clichés. But unlike other pioneer films, Mother can be enjoyed today with almost as little effort as a contemporary adventure.

  Eisenstein’s Potemkin is a film of another order. Uninterested in telling a simple story or focusing on the ordeals of one or two people, Eisenstein strove for a symphonic effect in which the lives of individuals were mere elements in a grander scheme. That this effect is rarely sought except by underground and experimental filmmakers may account for the fact that nothing of quite this caliber has since been achieved.

  The story is about the mutiny of the sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin, the massacre of sympathetic citizens in the port city of Odessa where the ship is temporarily anchored, and the confrontation between the Potemkin and its sister ships in the Russian navy. Throughout, Eisenstein displays a mastery of editorial technique that is stupendous.

  Early in the film, a young sailor, smarting under the blows of his petty officer and infuriated by an infestation of maggots that made the meat rations inedible, is washing dishes in the officers’ mess when he comes upon a plate inscribed “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.” Overcome with rage, he smashes the plate on the edge of a nearby table. To emphasize the importance of the moment, Eisenstein, who could not rely on dramatic sound effects or musical crutches like the Hallelujah Chorus, chose to show the action through nine different shots lasting a total of just over four seconds. The jagged, overlapping, incomplete action—in which the sailor actually sends the plate crashing twice—is all effect. It is as far from a true and simple recording of an event as a cubist painting is from a photograph of the same subject. And its power is terrific.

  Many of Eisenstein’s editorial effects in Potemkin are heightened by the freedom he gave himself to stretch time. One occasion in which this was pronounced was the endless split-second that follows an order to execute a group of insubordinate sailors; while another was the final drama of the film, when the mutinous Potemkin is being approached by loyal battleships. The halting shots to the clenched fists, indecisive faces, and wavering rifles of the sailors who have been commanded to execute their comrades extend the tension to an almost unbearable degree; while the shots of the sailors taking their battle stations, the great guns moving into position, the colossal battleships steaming through the seas agonizingly delay the climactic conclusion. In between the use of poetic detail heightens almost every event. When Dr. Smirnov is hastened to the boat’s side during the mutiny, we are apprised of his fate by the simple image of his pince-nez—the instrument he’d used to inspect the maggoty meat and declare it fit—slowly dangling from the ship’s rigging.

  Although the movie is filled with stunning moments, the massacre on the Odessa steps outweighs them all; it remains for editors everywhere the single most intimidating piece of film ever assembled.

  By the time we arrive at the Odessa steps, the sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin have mutinied and are anchored in the Odessa harbor. Crowds of townspeople have gathered on the steps overlooking the harbor to cheer the mutinous crew. Certain characters are introduced during these moments of good cheer and occasional small conflict—a kneeling mother who lovingly encourages her little boy to wave to the sailors; an older, noble-looking woman wearing a pince-nez, a dark hat, and a white shawl; a young male student wearing glasses; a legless cripple in a dark beret—and these characters will soon achieve greater focus in the massacre. Drifting, laughing, momentarily dramatic, momentarily whimsical, these initial moments on the steps, consisting of fifty-seven carefully chosen shots, each lasting several seconds, suggest the calm before the storm. For everything is occurring within the shadow of the czar’s armed forces, who have yet to make their move.

  A title card—“Suddenly”—followed by several short cuts, each less than a second, of a woman’s head jerking, her dark hair swirling, as she reacts to a horrible sight. Her panicked face screaming. Close views of faces in the crowd contracting in fear. The legless cripple scurries down the steps on his hands and trunk followed by other frightened citizens. Suddenly everyone is moving in one direction, toward the camera, and the rounded top of a lady’s parasol fills the screen.

  After twelve seconds we get our first glimpse of the source of the panic. A long shot from the top of the steps reveals the fleeing citizens; as they move toward the top of the frame, a row of white-jacketed soldiers, rifles thrust forward, bayonets fixed, emerges at the bottom. A close-up of feet running down the steps, the camera moving alongside them. A long shot from the bottom of the steps of the great onrushing throng. Another close-up, two feet on the steps falling forward, followed by buckling knees. Shot after shot of individuals in the crowd as they make their headlong dash down the steps. Each tiny portrait is charged with power: a little boy sits down in confusion near two fallen bodies and places his hands to his ears to shut out the din of rifle fire. Throughout the massacre, these intimate close-ups of terror and pathos are mixed with long shots of the mad flight.

  The mob is bounding down the steps in panic; they seem hardly able to grab each step ahead of them fast enough. Sometimes the camera moves alongside, sometimes it lets them pass. We see the flight from various angles; the pace of the cutting generates an awesome sense of fear. A glimpse of the white-jacketed soldiers moving down the steps in a rigid line, rifles braced, their long stark shadows advancing ahead of them. A volley is fired. The small boy who had waved to the ship falls as his mother rushes on, unaware that she’s left him behind.

  The rhythm of the editing has now been established. There are the soldiers, the panicked populace, close views of individuals, and finally a thread of personal drama. Eisenstein will keep cutting from one aspect to the other, mixing his themes to compose a mountingly charged symphony.

  The flight of the mob. Short cuts from various angles. The fallen little boy, blood on his face. He mouths the word “Mommy!” Cut to the mother. She stops. She realizes the boy is missing. She looks back as others stream by her. In the utter madness of flight, one element is about to move against the grain in solemn counterpoint. The mother’s eyes wide with horror. The little boy keeling over as the stampede flies over him. Anonymous boots tread upon the little boy’s ankles and fingers. The mother’s face fills the screen, horrible with agony. She raises her hands to her mouth and screams. Back and forth from her face to parts of her little boy. A boot crushes his hand. Distorted eyes of the mother, her fingers pressing maniacally against her temples.

  A long shot of the masses lunging down the steps toward the camera; a man in the crowd grasps his chest and falters. A close-up of the little boy mangled by boots. The stampeding crowd, individuals dropping. The mother moving slowly against the tide, approaching her ch
ild in solemn horror. The faltering man drops. Cut upon cut of the fleeing populace, the backs of their heads emerging in the foreground at the bottom of the screen and disappearing at the top in an endless procession; then coming toward us, faces streaming past the eye of the camera; then from side angles like a forest in flight. The mother approaching the boy surrounded by a group of sympathizers; her compatriots suddenly turn and run in fear. The mother, unaware of anything else, raises the boy in her arms. She cries out accusations. Clumps of bodies on the steps feet scurrying by.

  The mother, carrying the boy, approaches a small clot of people who have hidden behind a parapet by the side of the steps. The woman wearing the pince-nez and white shawl turns to those around her. Title card: “Let us appeal to them.” Huddled, frightened faces. The rigid white line of soldiers advancing, firing. The faces of those who will stand and make the appeal. We read their mixed reactions of fear, resolution, and doubt. Others frantically escaping. A view of the group facing up the stairs, appealing to the soldiers. The riflemen, clicking forward, enter the screen from top, their boots arriving first, while at the bottom of the frame the mother, her back to the camera, emerges in the foreground facing them: “Listen to me, don’t shoot.” The soldiers from behind, stepping over dead bodies as they proceed, their functioning unimpeded by the human obstacles.

  A full shot of the woman with the child, facing the camera, looking up the steps. Shadows of the advancing soldiers stretch ominously across her. She mouths the words “My child is hurt.” The group led by the older woman appealing to the troops. The mother gunned down, dropping her son alongside her.

  A first glimpse of the situation at the bottom of the steps. Mounted Cossacks meeting the fleeing citizens with butchering sword blows. Close-ups of the fearsome Cossacks charging. Another close-up somewhere on the steps of people dropping. An old man tries to lift a fallen woman. The followers of the woman with the pince-nez fleeing. The soldiers marching over the fallen mother and her son. A beautiful young mother with a Lillian Gish face. Her hand on a wicker baby carriage with a baby inside. She is full of anguish, trying to protect the carriage, hesitant to go forward, terrified of the oncoming danger. She bites her lip. A mixture of full shots and close-ups to her hands and face showing her .torment. A volley of shots from silhouetted rifles. The beautiful mother’s mouth falls open. Close-up of her hands grabbing her stomach around a large silver buckle. Her head swaying. Her clutching hands. The Cossacks chopping at people as they arrive at the foot of the steps. The young mother, blood gushing over her white gloves and silver buckle. Her face. A groan. She falls, slipping out of our view, leaving the wicker baby carriage on the screen. The carriage precariously close to the edge of the steps. Close-up of the wheels teetering at the tip. The boots, the bayonets advancing.

  Eisenstein has been defying time as no filmmaker before, showing us detail upon detail of simultaneous aspects of the drama in a film sequence that lasts far longer than a real slaughter could possibly take. The steps have become an endless moment of terror. Now he utterly affronts the linear flow, repeating the collapse of the mother. She crumples against the carriage, and in a split-second cut that hardly gives us time to register its information, the wheels of the carriage tip over the step.

  We are now immersed in the waves of people reaching the cul-de-sac at the bottom of the steps. A long shot of the mob, the Cossacks moving through unthwarted, dealing butchering blows with their sabers. Somewhere on the steps an old man continues to try to raise his wife.

  The baby carriage slips away as the mother falls senseless against it. We see the baby emotionless within it as it goes clippety-clump down the first dozen steps. The woman wearing the pince-nez, her hat and shawl gone, rivulets of blood on her face, looks back at something (the carriage, we assume) and cries in anguish. A long shot of the carriage gaining speed. A side view of the rear portions of the mob, still scampering helter-skelter down the never-ending steps; the white line of troops advancing mechanically behind them. Puffs of smoke from the row of rifles. The steps littered with bodies. The dying mother’s last breath. The baby in the runaway carriage, unaware of danger. The bedraggled pince-nezed woman, her breath giving out. A close-up of her face as she watches in impotent terror. The carriage wheels picking up speed.

  A brief close-up of the young student in glasses. A small clot of people on the steps. An old man trying to help a friend as others race by behind them. Commotion all around. A flash glimpse of the student’s face, his eyes wide as he screams, his double image revealed in a mirror that Eisenstein has placed alongside his head to intensify the moment. Then the object of his terror: the carriage hurtling by at breakneck speed. The boots of the advancing troops. They pause over a heap of civilians: a close view up the steps of three soldiers from the waist down, their rifles pointing at the heap of fallen people whose hands reach up from the bottom of the frame, pitiably supplicating. A burst of rifle fire and smoke drifts across the screen.

  Eisenstein is leaving nothing out. Every angle, every element of the drama is exploited. That everyone should be dead or gone by now hardly concerns us, for film no longer pretends to be an uncut record of real time.

  A flash shot, less than a second, of the bounding carriage as it teeters, about to overturn. Close-up of a fierce, long-mustached Cossack giving a hack, hack with his sword. In four half-second cuts his face fills the screen, and he utters a horrible cry as his off-camera sword finds its target. It is the woman with the pince-nez. Her bloodied face, blood gushing out of her right eye, her pince-nez demolished, her mouth agape in hopeless doom. We can almost feel her knees buckle. It never occurs to us that we did not actually see the saber strike her. (Any more than we are aware, while watching Alfred Hitchcock’s terrifying adaptation of this technique in Psycho, of the absence of direct knife hits during the shower sequence.)

  Cut to the turret of the battleship Potemkin. Title card: “The brutal military power answered by the guns of the battleship,” Front view of the battleship. A potent symmetrical shot of the two guns moving into position facing directly into the camera. Card: “Target! The Odessa Theater.” The intricate stonework of cherubs. Card: “The headquarters of the generals!” The guns firing. The wall crumbling. The guns firing again. Three shots of stone lions guarding the theater. First a sleeping lion. Cut. A slightly aroused lion. Cut. A roaring lion. Explosion. The theater’s tower is enveloped in smoke and begins to crumble.

  Again we shift scenes, now to a stirring string of cuts symbolizing the advent of night. We hardly have time to realize that we were never given a resolution to the disaster on the steps. Eisenstein chose to leave the steps with the conclusion implied but not shown. Without a finale there’s no drop in excitement, nor even the predictable maudlin knotting of disgust. The transition to the sailors’ retaliation, coming as it does just past the height of the action on the steps, demonstrates Eisenstein’s determination not to let the breathtaking sequence stand out as a miniature tour de force. He moves ahead so quickly that he does not give us time to reflect upon the magnificent thing we’ve witnessed.

  The massacre on the Odessa steps consists of 157 shots, plus titles, lasting six and three-quarter minutes (four and a half minutes at modern projector speeds). Its nuances and complexities, its rhythms and counterrhythms, its themes and counterthemes, its stark bare images add up to a cinematic achievement of true symphonic proportions. From the technical point of view we could discuss Eisenstein’s accomplishments in this sequence for chapters.

  At the time it was first seen, the film was a marvel beyond what anyone dared anticipate. Upon previewing an early cut of Potemkin with several other cultural and military bigshots in 1926, Lunacharsky jumped out of his seat and said, “We’ve been witness at an historic cultural event. A new art has been born.” It was the first of many such pronouncements. Douglas Fairbanks described viewing Potemkin as “the most intense and profoundest experience of my life.” While Charlie Chaplin proclaimed the picture “the best film in t
he world.” Future conclaves of film historians would reaffirm Chaplin’s rating.

  The power of the film is so great and the sense of the moment in history it portrayed so real that sailors who had served on the real Potemkin “recalled” fictitious incidents that Eisenstein had inserted in the film for emotional effect. During their 1933 court martial, mutineers from the Dutch battleship De Zeven Provincien claimed to have been inspired by the movie.

  Amazingly, Eisenstein spent just three months on Potemkin from the start of shooting to the last hectic moments in the cutting room. Most remarkable, he cut the whole film in less than three weeks of near ‘round-the-clock labor. (His cutting assistant would later serve him with a paternity suit, producing as evidence a photograph Eisenstein gave to her inscribed, “In memory of those nights spent together.”)

  In his writings and lectures Eisenstein went on at length about theories of editing. He despised the “bourgeois” cinema and actually wrote an article entitled “Down with the Story and the Plot.” He would pontificate that “the technique of leaps which produces a comic effect in static conditions produces an emotional one in the case of a dynamic process.” As much as I doubt that art can be put together from such principles, Eisenstein’s fervid immersion in film theory probably accounts for the facility and quickness with which he composed Potemkin. Because of his eager study of traditional art forms, the nature of film rhythm, the effect of offbeat elements, the cubist method of representing action in broken, unfitting pieces, the poignancy of filmic metaphor, he cut Potemkin with absolute confidence in what he was trying to achieve as well as the methods he would employ to get there.