Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin at the time it came out was the standard for films to live up to because of it’s innovative editing and unique uncompromising mise-en-scene. The editing techniques pioneered in the movie were at the time raw and even risky but have proved to be ahead of their time. The Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin is a great example of the rhythm and momentum within a film. Through an elaborate montage of juxtaposed shots Sergi Eisenstein succeeds in taking the focus off of the story and into the visual rhythm of the film.
The massacre and overall chaos that takes place on the Odessa Steps is the high point in the movie and an epic in itself. The effect starts early on with foreshadowing of the scene through a herd of people running chaotically throughout the city. Just before the Odessa steps people of the city herd through a succession of arches in all directions throughout the city. The misdirection of people running in every direction and abundanc...