ET 6: Triumph of the Will and Potemkin Comparison: Realism

           Triumph of the Will; a propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl and Battle of Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein; which was a film that corresponded and catered to Karl Marx’s beliefs and ideology which was the idea of Communism.  From the looks of it, both films carry very strong elements in terms of how the montage and cinematography was carried out in order to be deemed as such a powerfully persuasive film. Both directors were able to produce films of such standard in terms of how good the editing etc was. In this essay, I will be concentrating on 4 elements that I thought were one of the strongest amongst the rest in terms of propaganda usage; which are, crowds, faces, marching/uniforms and women.

          Firstly, in both Triumph of the Will and Battle of Potemkin, the directors cleverly used CROWDS as one of the means of propaganda. Crowds signify the majority, the society, and in terms of influencing or spreading propaganda, the audience would be drawn to accept or believe that anything the majority thinks or believes in is right. Despite using the same element, both directors used it in different ways, in order to spread different ideals. In Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl in summary, used crowds to show adoration and agreement in the things and the propaganda that Hitler was spreading. For example, the crowds that gathered as Hitler was descending from his plane, where they stretched out their hands to him, or ,during the rally, and during his speech, seas of people came to support him. No one sees the minorities or those who opposed him. There were a lot of ‘birds eye view’ shots taken to show how huge the crowds were. In Battle of Potemkin, crowds that appeared during the Odessa steps sequence was the most powerful. In terms of spreading Karl Marx’s idea of communism, he showed how people fled on the steps and were scattered compared to the orderly arrangement of the scenes in Triumph of the Will. He showed how innocent lives and families were killed, for example the boy who was trampled on by the crowd and the baby in the carriage falling from the steps. These shots connect very strongly with the audience emotionally, causing anger, frustration, sympathy and thus the propaganda works.

            I put the element of Marching and uniforms under crowds because in both films, this element was used to spread different and opposing ideas. The marchers in Triumph of the Will showed a sense of obedience and it was something that was looked at as great and victorious to be a part of . Basically, the audience were led to believe that the Nazis and the things that they stood for were right. It spread the thought that as a citizen of Germany, if one was of the stronger race, then they SHOULD be part of the Nazi or at least respect them. Opposed to that, in Battle of Potemkin, the massacre led by the Corseaux as they marched down the steps to kill gives a different message – that those in power are evil, they don’t feel and they have no mercy and so as the helpless citizens, we should fight back. This directly goes hand in hand with Karl Marx’s idea ; as quoted from adprosebud “The working class must become conscious of this and must unite against the owner class. Only when workers see themselves as more than isolated individuals, can they change the world.”- Karl Marx.

        Secondly, faces were an incredible element used as well. In Triumph of the Will, there were so many reaction shots ESPECIALLY during Hitler’s speech, the camera zoomed in to focus on the faces and expressions of the generals and all those who supported Hitler. Faces such as the emotionless boy Nazi soldier was a symbol of children under authority who have lost all emotions and shots of women faces were usually as supporters. Even the shots of Hitler himself was strong as there was so much energy and commitment in his face. Shots of Hitler’s face was usually done from below and were low angle shots, to give him the sense of superiority . All the faces showed the upper race- the Aryans ,the blond haired blue eyes. In Battle of Potemkin, powerful faces were shown during the Odessa step sequence, there were a lot of cross cutting of faces of pain, anger, fright, and innocence that were done in such a way that it kept alternating with the music. The reaction shots, were eye level shots and close up shots, and you could see the expression very clearly. As an audience, we could see the situation from the victim’s point of view and that gave the audience this sense of identification with the victims. In a nutshell, faces affect the audience in a very interesting way and the directors used it- an example would be the Kuleshov Effect only more powerful because in these two films, the audience watches powerful facial imagery and immediately feel the exact emotion the character is feeling.

         Thirdly, another element powerfully used was women. From Wikipedia, I found out that the feminist movement started around the late 80’s and that would mean that both films were created when feminism was already up and going. Women were used and not used in both films. In Triumph of the Will, women were rarely shown in the film except as a supporter and this would probably give the thought of women not being good enough or should be those exercising their support for the men. In terms of the Battle of Potemkin, women were victimized and this was shown during the Odessa steps sequence,; such as when the mother of the boy who was trampled and she was shot dead, another example would be the woman with the baby carriage. This would be a driving point for women to also step up and go against the government- Karl Marx ideology.  It also affects audience in a way that they would want to protect the female population.

           In conclusion, both directors successfully created films that served to be two of the most persuasive and successful propaganda films of all time, and bringing along with it consequences.