Octobre

American John Reed, who never met a Bolshevik he didn't admire and trust, wrote a still spellbinding first-hand account, "Ten Days That Shook the World," of the November (October in the Old Style calendar) revolution that ended Russia's Provisional Government. Directors Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov dipped into Reed's almost breathless panegyric to the quixotic and jumbled events that led to the capture of the fabled Winter Palace for the epic, "Oktyabr" (shown here as "October").

Whatever Aleksandrov's contribution, this is emphatically and unmistakably Eisenstein's film and it's a masterpiece. Tracing the increasingly chaotic days from the overthrow of the Romanovs until the victory of the Bolsheviks and their foolishly trusting partners, Eisenstein's 1927 movie freezes the mood and emotions of one of the most turbulent episodes in Russian, indeed in world, history.

A signature technique of Eisenstein is the fast pan from enormous, fluid and raging crowd action (here occasionally taken from news film but more often staged with a cast of thousands) to a closeup of faces that reflect deep emotion. As in "Battleship Potemkin," dealing with an earlier phase of the unraveling of tsarist Russia, Eisenstein's heroes are the proletariat, poor but possessed of a fierce and empowering nobility. The bourgeoisie are inflated, food and drink-sated fools, their supercilious natures reflected by expressions bordering on the imbecilic.

With Eisenstein's films, viewers tend to remember several scenes that most exported his vision. Here a dead horse and a long-haired young woman, killed as she joined in a workers' protest, undergo a slow passage from the deck of an opening bridge into a river. It's harrowing, unforgettable.

Lenin is, of course, a hero. The hero. Trotsky, on his way to banishment and eventual assassination, is shown as a weak would-be compromiser, actually a mild obstacle to the march of the Soviets to power. I bet he didn't like this movie.

Contrasting peoples' moods with still shots of objects was always an Eisenstein trait. The workers are juxtaposed with weapons, streets, bridges. The feckless Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, is pictured against statuettes of Napoleon. Depicted as a coward he abandons his cabinet in a car bedecked with a small American flag. The flag is shown several times. I wonder why. And the poor tsar and tsarina, soon to be brutally murdered with their children and servants at Ekaterinburg, have their framed photos alternated with those of their imperial commode.

Dmitri Shostakovich, not simply the greatest Russian composer of the last century but also one of the world's finest, was ideologically and creatively in tune, no pun intended, with Eisenstein and officialdom's retrospective paean to the Bolshevik overthrow. In 1927 he was years away from being Russia's most endangered composer because of the whims of the madman, Stalin (who isn't in this film). His score is hardly his best work, not even his finest film music. It is an effective accompaniment to the action.

Originally a silent film, the added-on soundtrack has virtually no speech but the sounds of marching, running, trains, guns and other objects enliven the picture, now faithfully and well-restored.

"Oktyabr" is, of course, a political polemic and the history portrayed is what the party ordained as truth. Eisenstein was a brilliant innovator but he was no counter-revolutionary deviationist and wrecker. He adhered to the party line and so does the movie.

The restored print is making the rounds of film societies and art theaters and should, if possible, be viewed on a large screen. But even on a TV set "Oktyabr" will reach out and grip the viewer.

10/10. A milestone in film-making.

In documentary style, it depicts the historical deeds in St Petersburg , Petrograd are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. Lenin returns to St. Petersburg from exile in April . Huge crowds meet him at the Finland railway station, and he delivers a firing speech . In July, counter-revolutionaries put down a spontaneous revolt, and Lenin's arrest is ordered by President Alexander Kerenski and the military commander-in-chief Kornilov . By late October, the Bolsheviks are ready to strike . As Bolsheviks and other small parties - as the sailors of Krondstat- that participated in the overthrow and take the Winter Palace .While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace . Anatov leads the attack and signs the proclamation dissolving the provisional government : All power to Soviets .

The film describes the increasingly chaotic days until the victory of the Bolsheviks over the Mensheviks : ten days will shake the world . Extensive use is made of montage that expresses ideas by editing in frames of things from outside the setting or unrelated to the narrative . As directors Sergei Eisentein and Grigori Aleksandrov use a technique named "intellectual montage", or attraction edition , as the editing together of images of apparently unconnected objects in order to create and encourage intellectual comparisons between them . The frames often contrast faces with still objects . The visual setting is overwhelming : enjoyable sculptures , wide exterior views which encompass roads, canals, masses of people and armies, extended interior views, beautiful decorative objects and art works like Rodin's sculptures . Special mention for the the brethtaking shots of the drawbridge and with a dead horse hanging . It is well re-enacted with impressive human masses, a cast of thousands , an innovative edition , including a great number of close-ups and spectacular backgrounds . At the end takes place a crushing final strike as small warship -Cruise Aurora- enters the city river and posts itself close to the Winter Palace .



This documentary was well based on historical events : commonly referred to as Red October, the October Uprising, the Bolshevik Revolution, or the Bolshevik Coup, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin that was instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 7 November (25 October, O.S.) 1917. It followed and capitalized on the February Revolution of the same year, which overthrew the Tsarist autocracy and resulted in a provisional government after a transfer of power proclaimed by Grand Duke Michael, brother of Tsar Nicolas II, who declined to take power after the Tsar stepped down. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils (soviets) wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and its actions. After the Congress of Soviets, now the governing body, had its second session, it elected members of the Bolsheviks and other leftist groups such as the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to important positions within the new state of affairs. This immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state. On 17 July 1918, the Tsar and his family were executed. The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces. Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the occupation of government buildings on 7 November 1917. The following day, the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia) was captured. The long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November 1917. In contrast to their majority in the Soviets, the Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which won 370 seats, although the SR Party no longer existed as a whole party by that time, as the Left SRs had gone into coalition with the Bolsheviks from October 1917 to March 1918. The Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the Constituent Assembly came into conflict with the Soviets, and it rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, resulting in the Constituent Assembly being dissolved the next day by order of the Congress of Soviets. As the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War (1917-22) and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922

I first saw this film in the late 80s at the NFT (UK National Film Theatre) with a piano accompaniment. The print was scratchy and the inter-titles longer than several of the scenes. I was expecting it to be interesting as an example of Eisenstein's use of montage and cross-cutting (and indeed the audience seemed to be composed mainly of film students), thus worthy and perhaps a little dull. Instead, I was stunned. Now released on DVD with a Shostakovitch score and sparse sound effects, the film is revealed as masterpiece which surpasses both Battleship Potyomkin (1925) and Alexander Nevsky (1938) in its use of these two, and many more, filmic devices.

It's a young man's film and completely of its time and place, that is to say it gives a romanticised and idealised view of the Bolshevic revolution and its origins. The Tsar is directly compared to a horse's arse, Lenin harangues from the front of a steam engine, the proletariat are the true beneficiaries of the revolution. Statues fall apart and are re-formed in reverse motion, the people re-enact the storming of the winter palace (and climb its real gates), the battles cross-cut from faces and hands to carefully staged set pieces. In the second most famous sequence in early film history (the other being the Odessa steps from Potyomkin), a young woman's hair flops over the edge of a rising bridge while a cart and dead horse drop into the water.

The film is politically naive but decades ahead of its time in every other respect. The young people who inhabit these pages might like to compare its editing and pacing with that of the average music video and CGI-driven special effects film. I contend there is essentially nothing in these which they will not find in Eisenstein, and in October (Oktyabr) in particular. Yes, it's black and white, and silent but for the lately added score, and yes, it's from the early 20th century (by no means the earliest history of film), but it still stuns after repeated viewing. This is where modern film-making started, and everything we think we know about it (slow motion, montage, cross-cuts, reverses, you name it) had its origins in Eisenstein. The inter-titles (not sub-titles) still go on too long, though.

With detailed and interesting settings, carefully planned montages and other techniques, plenty of realistic action, and an obvious enthusiasm of the director for the subject, this is an exciting portrayal of a tumultuous time. It's well-crafted, and the pace never lags. Each scene is so realistic and interesting that it gives you a definite feeling of having been there in the summer and fall of 1917, watching history unfold.

The movie leaves no doubt as to its perspective, but aside from a few overstated opinions in the titles, it rarely seems forced or heavy-handed. This really was a time filled with many tensions, high emotions, and sudden changes, and its portrayal of these is thoroughly believable. If anything, it probably distorts and stylizes history rather less than do the vast majority of the 'historical' movies that are made in the present era. The film does also assume that you know a certain amount of the background to the events that it depicts (background that its intended audience would certainly have known well), and anyone who does not remember the main figures and issues would probably enjoy the movie more after a brief review of the history. But it would hardly be necessary to know everything, since the story is told with such skill and detail.

There are many specific details that could be praised, and many sequences that are especially absorbing. It's a movie that deserves to be seen, and not just by those of us who are interested in silent films and history. In terms of history, later events called into question many of the assumptions and motivations behind the events and characters depicted in "October". But in terms of cinema, it cannot be questioned that this is an excellent film.

Oktyabr October This is one of the few times in film that the movie and history agree. It is a historically accurate account of the Bolshevik revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1917. Oktyabr is full of symbolism that many will find amusing. For instance, the scene where the tsar walks through the doors and a shot of a peacock flashes on the screen, giving the illusion that the tsar walks into the peacock's butt. This is also a fairly graphic film, showing the deaths of many people. This is comparable to what someone would see if they viewed old World War II footage. The film mainly documents the revolution and makes intellectual connections between people and events in history. Many conclusions can be made about the connections that someone who recognizes the symbolism can make. For being a historical documentary type of movie, it does a good job of telling the story while still providing some interesting parts to keep the film viewer entertained. I felt that this movie gave me a greater insight to what happened in Russia during that time period. If you are interested in Russian history, this is definitely a movie that you want to see.