On the 20th anniversary of the first Russian revolution, the commemorative commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to stage a number of performances dedicated to the revolutionary events of 1905. As part of the celebrations, it was suggested that a "... grand film [be] shown in a special program, with an oratory introduction, musical (solo and orchestral) and a dramatic accompaniment based on a specially written text".[7] Nina Agadzhanova was asked to write the script and direction of the picture was assigned to 27-year-old Sergei Eisenstein.[8]
In the original script, the film was to highlight a number of episodes from the 1905 revolution: the Russo-Japanese War, Armenian–Tatar massacres of 1905–1907, revolutionary events in St. Petersburg and the Moscow uprising. Filming was to be conducted in a number of cities within the USSR.[9]
Eisenstein hired many non-professional actors for the film; he sought people of specific types instead of famous stars.[10][9]
Shooting began on 31 March 1925. Eisenstein began filming in Leningrad and had time to shoot the railway strike episode, horsecar, city at night and the strike crackdown on Sadovaya Street. Further shooting was prevented by deteriorating weather, with fog setting in. At the same time, the director faced tight time constraints: the film needed to be finished by the end of the year, although the script was approved only on 4 June. Eisenstein decided to give up the original script consisting of eight episodes, to focus on just one, the uprising on the battleship Potemkin, which involved just a few pages (41 frames) from Agadzhanova's script. Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov essentially recycled and extended the script.[11] In addition, during the progress of making the film, some episodes were added that had existed neither in Agadzhanova's script nor in Eisenstein's scenic sketches, such as the storm scene with which the film begins. As a result, the content of the film was far removed from Agadzhanova's original script.
The film was shot in Odessa, at that time a center of film production where it was possible to find a suitable warship for shooting.
The first screening of the film took place on 21 December 1925 at a ceremonial meeting dedicated to the anniversary of the 1905 revolution at the Bolshoi Theatre.[12][13] The premiere was held in Moscow on 18 January 1926, in the 1st Goskinoteatre (now called the Khudozhestvenny).[14][15]
The silent film received a voice dubbing in 1930, was restored in 1950 (composer Nikolai Kryukov) and reissued in 1976 (composer Dmitri Shostakovich) at Mosfilm with the participation of the USSR State Film Fund and the Museum of S.M. Eisenstein under the artistic direction of Sergei Yutkevich.
In 1925, after sale of the film's negatives to Germany and reediting by director Phil Jutzi, Battleship Potemkin was released internationally in a different version from that originally intended. The attempted execution of sailors was moved from the beginning to the end of the film. Later it was subjected to censorship, and in the USSR some frames and intermediate titles were removed. The words of Leon Trotsky in the prologue were replaced with a quote from Lenin.[15] In 2005, under the overall guidance of the Foundation Deutsche Kinemathek, with the participation of the State Film Fund and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the author's version of the film was restored, including the music by Edmund Meisel.[16]
The battleship Kniaz Potemkin Tarritcheski, later renamed Panteleimon and then Boretz Za Svobodu, was derelict and in the process of being scrapped at the time of the film shoot. It is usually stated that the battleship Dvenadsat Apostolov was used instead, but she was a very different design of vessel from that of the Potemkin, and the film footage matches the battleship Rostislav more closely. The Rostislav had been scuttled in 1920, but her superstructure remained completely above water until 1930. Interior scenes were filmed on the cruiser Komintern. Stock footage of Potemkin was used to show her at sea, and stock footage of the French fleet depicted the waiting Russian Black Sea fleet. Anachronistic footage of triple-gun-turret Russian dreadnoughts was also included.[17][9]
In the film, the rebels raise a red flag on the battleship, but the orthochromatic black-and-white film stock of the period made the color red look black, so a white flag was used instead. Eisenstein hand-tinted the flag in red in 108 frames for the premiere at the Grand Theatre, which was greeted with thunderous applause by the Bolshevik audience.[15]
