"Actor: Vladimir Barsky"

• Battleship Potemkin / Pet Shop Boys Score (Limited Edition Blu-ray & CD) | Unknown | (05/09/2025) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Sergei Eisenstein's legendary film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content. Battleship Potemkin is celebrated for its dynamic compositional strength and editing of such frame-perfect precision that it's hard not to be swept along. Despite endless quotation and parody, the set-piece massacre on the Odessa Steps still packs a sledgehammer punch.First revealed at a special outdoor screening in front of an estimated 25,000 in Trafalgar Square in 2004, Pet Shop Boys' score, performed with the Dresdner Sinfoniker and orchestrated by Torsten Rasch, blends electronic beats with orchestral grandeur to create a contemporary cinematic experience.Extras· Hochhaussinfonie (2017, 68 mins): a multimedia musical production by the Dresdner Sinfoniker orchestra and Pet Shop Boys, conceived by Markus Rindt and directed by Sven Helbig, on the evening of 20 July 2006, in Dresden· Trafalgar Square Highlights (2004, 4 mins): a behind-the-scenes film when Pet Shop Boys performed their newly composed score for Battleship Potemkin, accompanied by the Dresdner Sinfoniker orchestra in Trafalgar Square, London· CD featuring the score by Pet Shop Boys and Dresdner Sinfoniker· Trailer (2025)· **LIMITED EDITION** Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Chris Heath and Sarah Cleary, and archive pieces by Neil Tennant and Michael Brooke· First time the film has been available with the Pet Shop Boys score· Pet Shop Boys have a devoted fanbase across the globe· Battleship Potemkin is still regarded as a must-have disc in any serious film collection· 2025 is the centenary of Battleship Potemkin

• Battleship Potemkin | DVD | (17/04/2000) from £8.98   |  Saving you £13.00 (185.98%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary sophomore feature has so long stood as a textbook example of montage editing that many have forgotten what an invigoratingly cinematic experience he created. A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatisation of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre. Eisenstein edits carefully orchestrated motions within the frame to create broad swaths of movement, shots of varying length to build the rhythm, close-ups for perspective and shock effect, and symbolic imagery for commentary, all to create one of the most cinematically exciting sequences in film history. Eisenstein's film is Marxist propaganda to be sure but the power of this masterpiece lies not in its preaching but its poetry. --Sean Axmaker

• Russia In Revolt | DVD | (06/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  No revolution has been portrayed on screen more vividly than that in St Petersburg (aka Petrograd) during October 1917, and if what we see in Russia in Revolt is not the truth as it happened, this box set confirms that fiction can be much more potent than fact. Sergei Eisenstein came of age as a director during this period, putting his innovations into practice and redefining history in the process. Strike (1924) was Eisenstein's first film. Its combination of physical impact and studio experimentation is still impressive, and if the abundance of symbolic images leads to visual overload, the feeling of a "them-against-us" confrontation still packs its punch. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) refines Eisenstein's thinking in 73 minutes of heightened realism that, as late as 1958, was still considered the finest film ever made. The 1905 Potemkin mutiny, the murder of sailor Vakulinchuk, the massacre on the Odessa steps, the triumphal return of the ship to port--these images made history as surely as if they were the real thing. A scrolling synopsis sets the scene, and extracts from Dmitry Shostakovich's symphonies heighten tension. October 1917 (1928), also known as "10 Days that Shook the World", charts the period leading from the Czar's abdication, through the months of indecisive Provisional Government to the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace. Eisenstein takes montage technique to new limits, as images of individuals and institutions overwhelm the viewer. The scrolling background story details events as they really were, and Shostakovich's music again sets the scene. Dating from 1927 Esfir Shub's The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty documentary uses archive footage from the Romanov tercentenary in 1913 to the Bolshevik takeover four years on. Here truth really is fashioned into myth. The musical score consists of a medley of Russian favourites, pounded out on an electric piano, making for a rather limited, though not inappropriate, soundtrack. The additional documentary essay is a useful overview, and the on-screen photo collection a valuable bonus. On the DVD: it's good to have Oleg Donskikh's DVD commentary on The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty disc, as he points out economies with the actualité on a scene-by-scene basis. Yuri Sivrin's continuous commentary is required listening as a guide to the film-maker's art, as well as for shutting out the bizarre electronic score which otherwise serves as backing. All four films have been digitally remastered, and the 4:3 aspect ratio has excellent clarity. Stylishly packaged, there's no better way into the absorbing world of Soviet film than this. ---Richard Whitehouse

• Battleship Potemkin | Blu Ray | (20/04/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A