Oktaybr/October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928)
dir. Sergei Eisenstein
102 min
Russia

“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” – Mao Tse-Tung, Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan

Tonight, at the Wailers/Kore Ionz show, at around midnight, I’ll throw back some Smirnoff to commemorate the beginning of the Russian October Revolution (October 25, 1917), 91 years ago, heralding the world’s first attempt at creating a socialist state. Today, McCain accuses Obama of being a “socialist,” and though I doubt most of us can even define what that means, we assume it must be something bad. Like a terrorist, or something. No wonder, with all the anti-commie propaganda we digested growing up in Cold War-era US. 

In 1927, Russian director Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to create a film commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the October Revolution. So he and his crew made the ambitious Oktyabr (October: Ten Days that Shook the World), notable not just for its historical content but its contributions to a young artistic medium rapidly becoming the most effective political weapon, ever.

Though Battleship Potemkin (1927) is more celebrated, Oktyabr may have more apparent examples of his widely studied techniques. People were still learning how to watch film as those crafting its language were evolving its form. Taking artistic influence from American silent film master and rabid racist D.W. Griffith and running with it, he experimented with rapid cuts, dramatic scores, close-ups, stimulating camera angles – things that have become commonplace in film. Most of all, we see his theory of Soviet-style montage in action – layering one image after (or, on top of) another, challenging the viewer to think about their connection. In one sequence, an image of a Christ statue is followed by one of Buddha, Aztec gods, and other religious figures. Why? Exactly. 

Many versions of Oktyabr exist. I caught a later, restored version on DVD with a Dmitri Shostakovich score, some of which George Lucas would later use in Star Wars. Like all of Eisenstein’s films, Oktyabr aspired for a realism sprinkled with impressionism, shooting in actual historical locations and using actors who participated in the revolution 10 years earlier. The battle scenes are spectacular, especially for its time. Almost as impressive is the fiery actor who plays Lenin, a deadringer for the Bolshevik leader (from what I gather in photographs) and a magnetic protagonist, especially for someone whose voice we never hear. He’s clearly the leader, but his screentime is minimal, and usually among whole masses of people, emphasizing a point that the people were the actual leaders.

It’s interesting to contrast Oktyabr with the caricatures of communist Russia we’ve seen in American film. It’s the Cold War, which actually goes back to 1918 when the US sent troops to invade Russia, fought with film instead of firearms. Anyone who dismisses it as propaganda not only misses the point (all films, not just the ones you disagree with, reflect an ideological point of view, genius) but will also miss a two-hour leap forward in film evolution.

Oktyabr in its entirety, with English title cards: