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Kolektiv Radio Non-commercial Community Radio Station Based in Prizren
The Last Gate
Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is a landmark in early cinema, a 1925 silent film of epic scale and ambition, which chronicles a late Tsarist-era mutiny aboard ship that strikes a chord and ignites a full-scale rebellion in the port city of Russia. It is well worth watching, if only for the stunning “Odessa steps” sequence, where the Tsar’s army ruthlessly guns down civilians in sympathy with the striking sailors. The images of a mother begging for her wounded child’s life or a baby in a carriage bumping headlong down the stairs are striking and memorable—and they have special resonance now, when Odessa is again under siege by a Russian army with few qualms about collateral damage.
The film has had a number of scores over the years, the original by Edmund Meisel, one from 1950 by Nikolai Kryukov , and a widely circulated 1975 50th anniversary edition incorporating symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich (that’s the version currently on the Criterion Channel). Eisenstein himself hoped that his movie would be rescored every 20 years, so that its sound would remain relevant to new audiences.
Enter, then, Morricone Youth, a New York City-based orchestra dedicated to live scoring classic films. The ensemble, a sort of bus man’s holiday for musicians in other bands, has performed music for films including David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The band, which is headed by Devon E. Levins, regularly performs its scores while the film is running in select theaters across the country. It is in the process of recording and releasing these scores. Battleship Potemkin is the latest.
On listening to this excellent soundtrack, with its languid, East European waltzes, its stirring snare-shot battle sequences, its antic re-enactments of rebellion and eventual triumph, you might regret not having the opportunity to hear this music in its rightful setting, a movie theatre. And yet, the music itself is evocative enough to hold your attention. “Vakulinchuk’s Dream” with its bell-like keyboard lines and its soaring trumpet is full of eerie yearning, exactly the sort of thing to embody a sailor’s longing for equality. The syncopated lurch of “Giliarovosky Is Watching,” with its sinuous, near-tango-ing tainted sensuality insinuates danger and trickery. “Cossacks Charge,” the music for that Odessa Steps imagery, snaps to attention on military drum rolls and advances relentlessly on piano motifs. And “Funeral” with its haunting, disembodied voices, is lovely and heartbreaking, exactly as it ought to be.
All of which is meant to say, yes, it’s probably better with the movie, but it’s pretty great with just your speakers and your imagination, too.
Jennifer Kelly
Posted by: Kolektiv
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