Compare and Contrast Two Clips from Battleship Potemkin and the Untouchables Essay Example
Compare and Contrast Two Clips from Battleship Potemkin and The Untouchables
In introduction to this essay where I will be comparing and contrasting two scenes from Battleship Potemkin and The Untouchables, I will be looking at similarities in how the film has been shot, edited, what sounds are in there and their use of montage. I will also include references to text that strengthens my points and arguments made.
I will start briefly by summarising what appears in both of the clips. First off, Battleship Potemkin (1925) is based on historical events. It dramatises the riot at the battleship Potemkin in 1905 when the crew of said battleship rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. The clip in particular I was looking at was the Odessa Steps sequence, which is the film’s most iconic by far though quite interesting never actually took place like the rest of the film, more included for dramatic effect and to show monstrous side of the regime of Tsar. In the clip it shows the soldiers marching down the Odessa Steps in a robotic-type fashion and massacring the civilians there that attempted to stand up to them. The clip mercilessly documents this inhumane moment with clear focus on the civilians facial expressions of pain and the soldiers obvious remorselessness of their slaying of the innocent. As a silent film the image and soundtrack is very integral to the experience of watching the film and the music really compliments the situations. It crescendos in intensity as the scene gets more and more harrowing but comes down to nothing when the one civilian dares to stand up against the soldiers, only to come back in again (almost with remorse) as that lone woman gets gunned down by the military. A key moment in the scene is involved when a woman with a baby in a pram is trying to protect her child from the soldiers but ends up getting shot herself and there is a drawn out dramatic moment as she falls dead and the pram is on the precipice of careening down
In introduction to this essay where I will be comparing and contrasting two scenes from Battleship Potemkin and The Untouchables, I will be looking at similarities in how the film has been shot, edited, what sounds are in there and their use of montage. I will also include references to text that strengthens my points and arguments made.
I will start briefly by summarising what appears in both of the clips. First off, Battleship Potemkin (1925) is based on historical events. It dramatises the riot at the battleship Potemkin in 1905 when the crew of said battleship rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. The clip in particular I was looking at was the Odessa Steps sequence, which is the film’s most iconic by far though quite interesting never actually took place like the rest of the film, more included for dramatic effect and to show monstrous side of the regime of Tsar. In the clip it shows the soldiers marching down the Odessa Steps in a robotic-type fashion and massacring the civilians there that attempted to stand up to them. The clip mercilessly documents this inhumane moment with clear focus on the civilians facial expressions of pain and the soldiers obvious remorselessness of their slaying of the innocent. As a silent film the image and soundtrack is very integral to the experience of watching the film and the music really compliments the situations. It crescendos in intensity as the scene gets more and more harrowing but comes down to nothing when the one civilian dares to stand up against the soldiers, only to come back in again (almost with remorse) as that lone woman gets gunned down by the military. A key moment in the scene is involved when a woman with a baby in a pram is trying to protect her child from the soldiers but ends up getting shot herself and there is a drawn out dramatic moment as she falls dead and the pram is on the precipice of careening down