Battleship Potemkin

N.p. N.p., Circa 1925. Nine reference photographs from the 1925 Soviet silent film, seven borderless and two bordered, struck and issued by Cinémathèque Française circa 1936.

All seven borderless photographs with the stamp of Archives Cinémathèque Française on the verso.

A dramatization of a real-life mutiny which occurred on the Russian battleship Potemkin in 1905. The film's violence led to it being banned in West Germany and the UK until 1954 (and even after that, given an X rating until 1978). It was shown in a much-edited form in East Germany, though the US premiere in December 1926 was shown unedited. A written introduction by Leon Trotsky at the beginning of the film was cut from later Soviet prints due to Trotsky running afoul of Stalin.

The film's famous sequence showing a massacre by Tsarist soldiers of civilians on the Odessa Steps is considered the first example of a montage sequence in cinema.

All photogaphs 5 x 3.5 inches. Generally Near Fine.

BFI 1494. Godard, Histoire(s) du cinema. Rosenbaum 1000.

[Book #168469]