Battleship Potemkin

This is one of the most legendary films of all time. It helped to popularize the montage, which many films since have taken for granted. It's been voted as one of the greatest films of all time.

And I was bored during it.

Why? Was it the action sequences? No; action sequences can be interesting if they have a point. Was it the pro-communist viewpoint? No; that hardly mattered. Rather, it was the Worn-Out Experiment Syndrome: When you view a movie hailed as innovative and can't see why, because the techniques it developed have been so absorbed by the mainstream that it's invisible.

This isn't always bad. "Jules & Jim" used many techniques that I could hardly spot during the film, and yet it worked nonetheless. However, there the film worked because the story came first and foremost. Here, the techniques were pretty much the entire reason I watched it.

The story, for those who don't know: A bunch of sailors get Revolutionary Fever for reasons I don't recall. When they refuse to eat meat that an apparently corrupt doctor declares okay (despite maggots crawling around on it), they're to be killed. When this is about to happen, the other crew members help them out and throw the higher-ups off the ship.
They then proceed to Odessa, where they lay to rest one of the few sailors who was killed. The people cheer them on. This apparently gets the attention of the local authorities, because soon, a firing squad opens fire on civilians. (You know the baby-carriage-down-the-stairs scene from "The Untouchables?" This is where they got that from.)
The Battleship gets away and has to go through a squadron of battleships. They prepare to fire, but end up not having to; the other sailors cheer them on.

As you can tell, I'm confused by what happened in the film. Maybe my copy was butchered, but several loose ends are left untied. For example, Moses seems to be on the Battleship near the beginning. I have no idea of why; maybe I missed something. But after about two scenes, he disappears, with practically no effect on the plot. What did I miss?

Also, the ending makes no sense. Why do they have to go through the squadron? Why do they prepare to fire at them? Why do the sailors cheer them on? (I could understand that if they felt threatened they might cheer just to save themselves, but if I recall correctly, they're cheering with Revolutionary Fever.)

Is it me? Am I intolerant of silent films? I have gotten bored by one other ("The General" [!]). But that wasn't it. If the film had sound, I'd still have been confused and bored.

So what did I miss? Was it my copy of the film (by Image Entertainment)? Was the film entirely reliant upon the montage technique (which nowadays is practically invisible to modern audiences)? Could someone tell me? Is anybody reading this?

Russian Ark

For those of you who haven't heard of this one, here's the basic thing you have to know about it: It's a film about a guy who seems to wake up outside a Russian museum (the Hermitage) and explores it with a French Marquis. The thing about it is that it's all done in one shot. ("One take" gets the point across better, but it's also misleading--they actually did four takes, the first three of which were aborted and the fourth one being the final product.) For most people, the people who love films like a friend, hearing that a film was done in some kind of experimental way is like hearing that your car has a different kind of engine--you don't really care, as long as it works. But for people like me, people who love films as a spouse/mistress/life-partner, it's an intriguing premise. So how does it work out?

Well, the plot isn't quite as good as one would usually hope. There's no love story, no action sequences... heck, there reallly isn't any conflict in it--it's mostly a guy (the camera) wandering around a museum, sometimes following another guy, looking at some art, occasionally watching the other guy talk with people, and and eventually watching a dance. It's very mired in Russian history, but for a pure American like me, it's pretty much going to all be a bunch of random people in historical costumes. So most filmgoers would probably get very, very bored by this film.

But what about the one-shot thing? Does it work? Well, I guess. It is all one shot (although they kind of fudge it a little near the end with a special effect to put a sea where there isn't one), and as an experiment, it succeeds. But it's rather tough on the audience. At times, the camera's turns are dizzying, as are the times that the camera zooms out while it's moving forward and causes a trombone effect (or, as I like to call it, the "Vertigo" shot). But overall, it's a neat effect.

So do I recommend it? That depends. If you're really into experimental films, you should probably see it--it's not often this kind of thing is done anymore. If you're looking for a good time, you may want to exercise caution. And if you buy Dramamine a lot, you'll probably want to avoid it.

A new blog

Yeah, so I've started myself a new blog. I promise to try and behave and not act like an idiot here, although since this is a place for my movie reviews, I might end up not making a single good point.

Yes, movie reviews. To be honest, I've written movie reviews over at the IMDb, years and years ago, and thinking about what I wrote almost makes me cringe. They were amateurish... no, actually, that's an insult to amateurs everywhere. I'd say "sophomoric," but there are actually a few mature sophomores out there and that would be insulting, too. So let's just say they sucked. (Great, two paragraphs in and I'm already using "weasel words." This is going to go great.)

But hey, it's been years since then, and I've actually grown up a bit. I've been reading Roger Ebert reviews for a while now, and have a pretty good grip on how to articulate why a movie sucks instead of just saying that it sucks and making fun of it. I'll still try and make fun of bad movies; but I'll try and do it a little more maturely, and give it a reason for sucking before I get to making fun. (And if you're coming for Agony Booth-style reviews, I'm sad to say that probably won't happen. If it does, I'll try to create a seperate blog for it.)

So yeah. I might not post in this, ever, but I'll try and make a go at actually putting something here.

See ya later,
Sillstaw