Ottobre!

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.

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.

Fascinating Russian silent feature which is interested in the final moments of the Russian Revolution which brought the Communist to power. Film was part of a series involving Revolutions and protests which included Strike(1924) and Battleship Potemkin(1925). Interestingly, film puts a lot of the attention of Trotsky than Lenin. He(Trotsky) is portrayed as one of the heros of the revolution as well as a great Russian figure. Striking use of montage helps give the film its artistic flavor. One of the ten Russian silent films from the 1920s. Acting is nothing special yet gains the viewer's attention with the passion and emotion eched on by the performers. Was not popular with the Stalin regime because of the popular depiction of Trotsky. The beginning of a battle of censorship between Eisenstein and Stalin which resulted in disfavor for the Soviet filmmaker in late 1940s. Scenes that involved Trotsky who after all was Stalin's enemy were cut from the picture. These scenes with Trotsky were later restored years after the death of Stalin. Sergei M Eisenstein was fortunate not to be part of the people including artists who were arrested and either excuted or serve long jail terms during the 1930s for mentioning the name of Trotsky. Eisenstein was a genius at puting together a film and understanding the importance of images to fit a theme. After making this film he made an attempt to make it in Hollywood which didn't pan out. He had trouble getting projects green lighted possibly to the fact that Sergei wanted to make his own films, his way and the studios wouldn't not let him do it. I find it amazing at how many great foreign filmmakers who failed finding a niche in Hollywood because of their refusal to do what the studios want. A poginolty directed motion picture with a breathtaking moment in the taking of the big palace. Some of the film's ideas are also present in Alexander Nevsky(1938). It builds on motifs and themes that were disscussed in Strike(1924). From 1927 onward, Sergei M Eisenstein would only make a handfull of films. Oktyabr/October(1924) is a masterful protrayal of a period in Russian which lead to bad times contary to hopes of many Soviet revolutionaries.

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.

This film is highly reminiscent of Eisenstein's later work, POTEMKIN, in that it looks like like a typical historical film but more like a re-creation of the events--much like a documentary. However, like POTEMKIN, it too is a very politically driven propaganda film. While most of the moments on film are pretty realistic, Eisenstein and Alexandropov also intersperse little scenes that portray the Communists as noble peasants and the Kerensky government as patently evil. While depicting the Czarist regime that preceded the Kerensky government as evil is pretty accurate, the story of Kerensky isn't quite that cut and dry. While he did create his own downfall due to the foolish decision to continue the war against Germany after the May Revolution (the non-Communist revolution of 1917 that sought reforms and forced the czar to abdicate), Kerensky and his men weren't quite the evil pigs they were depicted as in the film. But, of course, considering the October Communist Revolution was still recent history when the film was made, this sort of hyperbole is rather understandable. Plus, given the control exercised over the Soviet film industry, it is doubtful that Kerensky and his cronies could have been depicted any other way.

Particular standouts in the film are the interesting and very imaginative camera-work as well as the brisk pace and realism of the film. About the only negatives (other than the way they depicted the Kerensky government) were the excessive use of some footage to make a simple point--such as showing men scrambling out of a doorway again and again and again to let the audience know people are pouring into a room or returning to the same shot repeatedly. At the time, this was pretty forgivable and normal, but today it appears, at times, like it could have used a bit tighter editing.