A Comparison Of Birth Of A Nation And The Battleship Potemkin
Though there are many differences between the two silent films Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. Griffith, and The Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, it takes a big tole in the similarities that are the most captivating. The directors in these films truly get the audience to participate in an active role while still paying attention to the films. The directors chose to include historical events while building cyphers incorporated in the plot. While Birth of a Nation reiterates these themes, Potemkin introduces a different approach. Both Battleship Potemkin and The Birth of Nation are films that examine prime examples of civil conflict in different chapters of political insecurity in a historical setting. Both these films
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convey a national revolution and contain a number of instances of social turmoil and disturbance. The editing in these films can be compared by paying attention to their use of montage, focus, and basic film techniques in relation to thematic and constructive plot elements.
Birth of a Nation represented historical events that was supposed to personally affect the audience because it was so relatable. While Einstein included true events in is film as well, he also provides scenes that never really happened, such as the Odessa Step Sequence. Griffith did a fine job in grasping the audience’s attention due to the real history incorporated in the movie verse how the viewer has experienced these themes hands on and how they lived through it. For instance, when we are introduced to President Lincoln in his office signing documents, and repeating this cycle during his assassination, the protagonists are beside him. Birth of a Nation is a film about the consequences in the Civil War and the friendship between a northern and southern family. It represents the effects from the war in their lives in comparison to the important historical and political measures. This movie is based on the Ku Klux Klan and how it originated. Griffith includes certain film performances, such as: the addition of a musical score, the use of natural outdoor landscapes as backgrounds, close-ups, long shots, panning, and cross-cutting, which have become the essential basis of all movies to this day. Before this film was produced, numerous of other films were shot without any camera movement or editing. This film revolutionized the way future films would be directed and shot before being played into movie theaters. (Smith, 31-33).
The Battleship Potemkin is about the Russian revolt in 1905. The sailors proposed a protest strike when they were forced to eat rotten meat. The organizer of the movement, Vakulinchuk, is followed up by death with his body lying on the steps of the Odessa Harbor which inspires rallying citizens to join the revolt. An Intense fascination with the editing style of D.W Griffith, Sergei Einstein transformed this film into energetic tension which was created by cross-cutting and parallel editing into the modern idea. This movie implies the revolutionary use of montage and uses ideas as symbolic representation.
While both these producers are very talented in getting the audience involved, they most definitely do it in different ways.
In Birth of a Nation, when we see a close-up of Lillian Gish’s face, we immediately have the view of a squirrel. The way Griffith set this up is very poetic because it implies the connection between the purity and gracefulness of a white southern girl and the squirrel. Eisenstein uses a different approach. He uses a boiling pot during the riot to intensify the men before going into battle. Although they use different techniques, they both give the audience a reaction, which keeps the audience wanting to know …show more content…
more.
These films were historic reflections of true events that happened in the not so distant past. Both are propagandistic in nature, although only Potemkin was made to intentionally draw on the events it portrayed as a glorification of the past. Eisenstein felt that he could realistically commemorate the 1905 revolution in film form. Griffith, however, simply wanted to create a film that was a reflection on history. Although he did not intend for his film to be considered racist or condone the actions of the KKK, he does expressly cite his right to examine the “dark side of wrong” in a plea on the opening title card of the film. (Dirks, “The Birth of a Nation”)
The main battle sequences in these films include symbols which adds to the passion of the action. The Birth of a Nation scene is composed of quite a few panoramic cross-cut shots with medium shots of the soldiers in battle. Before Griffith cuts shots before they end, he also includes long, medium, and close-up shots to have a variety of four-dimensional and temporal lengths. The symbol used in this scene is when the son of the Confederate family forcefully throws his flag down the Union cannon barrel and falls on the field. The flag is a representation of the persistent Southern cause, and is a motivator that caused the war. Through the combination of these scenes and the subtitles to verbalize the imagery, a representation of war is drawn which exposes the atrocities and the benefits as one. (Wagenknecht and Slide 58-61)
“Eisenstein wrote that Griffith's crosscutting embodied the essential class disparity of a capitalist society. He meant that the lines of action in Griffith's editing remained separated, like the classes under capitalism. Inspired by the October Revolution, Eisenstein and other Soviet filmmakers developed in the 1910s and 1920s a more radical approach to editing than Griffith had countenanced. Griffith had championed facial expression and used close-ups to showcase it, but Lev Kuleshov (1899–1970), teaching at the Moscow Film School, proclaimed that editing itself could essentially create facial expression and the impression of an acting performance.” (filmreference.com)
“Eisenstein believed that editing was the foundation of film art.
For Eisenstein, meaning in cinema lay not in the individual shot but only in the relationships among shots established by editing. Translating a Marxist political perspective into the language of cinema, Eisenstein referred to his editing as "dialectical montage" because it aimed to expose the essential contradictions of existence and the political order. Because conflict was essential to the political praxis of Marxism, the idea of conflict furnished the logic of Eisenstein's shot changes, which gives his silent films a rough, jagged quality. His shots do not combine smoothly, as in the continuity editing of D. W. Griffith and Hollywood cinema, but clash and bang together.”
(filmreference.com).
To conclude, both these films invite the idea of interrelationships of citizens and their involvement in society through a historical storyline. There is a substantial amount of similarities in the workings of these plots and the direction of arrangement. While The Birth of a Nation is the foundation of many original film techniques, Battleship Potemkin demonstrates a profound illustration and the full meaning that can be manufactured through ideas in the montage. These films resourcefully present themes of revolution during eras of social injustice and are examples of social disorder.
convey a national revolution and contain a number of instances of social turmoil and disturbance. The editing in these films can be compared by paying attention to their use of montage, focus, and basic film techniques in relation to thematic and constructive plot elements.
Birth of a Nation represented historical events that was supposed to personally affect the audience because it was so relatable. While Einstein included true events in is film as well, he also provides scenes that never really happened, such as the Odessa Step Sequence. Griffith did a fine job in grasping the audience’s attention due to the real history incorporated in the movie verse how the viewer has experienced these themes hands on and how they lived through it. For instance, when we are introduced to President Lincoln in his office signing documents, and repeating this cycle during his assassination, the protagonists are beside him. Birth of a Nation is a film about the consequences in the Civil War and the friendship between a northern and southern family. It represents the effects from the war in their lives in comparison to the important historical and political measures. This movie is based on the Ku Klux Klan and how it originated. Griffith includes certain film performances, such as: the addition of a musical score, the use of natural outdoor landscapes as backgrounds, close-ups, long shots, panning, and cross-cutting, which have become the essential basis of all movies to this day. Before this film was produced, numerous of other films were shot without any camera movement or editing. This film revolutionized the way future films would be directed and shot before being played into movie theaters. (Smith, 31-33).
The Battleship Potemkin is about the Russian revolt in 1905. The sailors proposed a protest strike when they were forced to eat rotten meat. The organizer of the movement, Vakulinchuk, is followed up by death with his body lying on the steps of the Odessa Harbor which inspires rallying citizens to join the revolt. An Intense fascination with the editing style of D.W Griffith, Sergei Einstein transformed this film into energetic tension which was created by cross-cutting and parallel editing into the modern idea. This movie implies the revolutionary use of montage and uses ideas as symbolic representation.
While both these producers are very talented in getting the audience involved, they most definitely do it in different ways.
In Birth of a Nation, when we see a close-up of Lillian Gish’s face, we immediately have the view of a squirrel. The way Griffith set this up is very poetic because it implies the connection between the purity and gracefulness of a white southern girl and the squirrel. Eisenstein uses a different approach. He uses a boiling pot during the riot to intensify the men before going into battle. Although they use different techniques, they both give the audience a reaction, which keeps the audience wanting to know …show more content…
more.
These films were historic reflections of true events that happened in the not so distant past. Both are propagandistic in nature, although only Potemkin was made to intentionally draw on the events it portrayed as a glorification of the past. Eisenstein felt that he could realistically commemorate the 1905 revolution in film form. Griffith, however, simply wanted to create a film that was a reflection on history. Although he did not intend for his film to be considered racist or condone the actions of the KKK, he does expressly cite his right to examine the “dark side of wrong” in a plea on the opening title card of the film. (Dirks, “The Birth of a Nation”)
The main battle sequences in these films include symbols which adds to the passion of the action. The Birth of a Nation scene is composed of quite a few panoramic cross-cut shots with medium shots of the soldiers in battle. Before Griffith cuts shots before they end, he also includes long, medium, and close-up shots to have a variety of four-dimensional and temporal lengths. The symbol used in this scene is when the son of the Confederate family forcefully throws his flag down the Union cannon barrel and falls on the field. The flag is a representation of the persistent Southern cause, and is a motivator that caused the war. Through the combination of these scenes and the subtitles to verbalize the imagery, a representation of war is drawn which exposes the atrocities and the benefits as one. (Wagenknecht and Slide 58-61)
“Eisenstein wrote that Griffith's crosscutting embodied the essential class disparity of a capitalist society. He meant that the lines of action in Griffith's editing remained separated, like the classes under capitalism. Inspired by the October Revolution, Eisenstein and other Soviet filmmakers developed in the 1910s and 1920s a more radical approach to editing than Griffith had countenanced. Griffith had championed facial expression and used close-ups to showcase it, but Lev Kuleshov (1899–1970), teaching at the Moscow Film School, proclaimed that editing itself could essentially create facial expression and the impression of an acting performance.” (filmreference.com)
“Eisenstein believed that editing was the foundation of film art.
For Eisenstein, meaning in cinema lay not in the individual shot but only in the relationships among shots established by editing. Translating a Marxist political perspective into the language of cinema, Eisenstein referred to his editing as "dialectical montage" because it aimed to expose the essential contradictions of existence and the political order. Because conflict was essential to the political praxis of Marxism, the idea of conflict furnished the logic of Eisenstein's shot changes, which gives his silent films a rough, jagged quality. His shots do not combine smoothly, as in the continuity editing of D. W. Griffith and Hollywood cinema, but clash and bang together.”
(filmreference.com).
To conclude, both these films invite the idea of interrelationships of citizens and their involvement in society through a historical storyline. There is a substantial amount of similarities in the workings of these plots and the direction of arrangement. While The Birth of a Nation is the foundation of many original film techniques, Battleship Potemkin demonstrates a profound illustration and the full meaning that can be manufactured through ideas in the montage. These films resourcefully present themes of revolution during eras of social injustice and are examples of social disorder.