Sergey Eisenstein : the use of graphic violence in Strike and Potemkin

Being a very prominent film director with several recognisable works, Sergey Eisenstein has been studied extensively from all angles. The aim of this dissertation is to analyse his first two movies, Strike and Battleship Potemkin, both of them stand out when seen in the context of 1920s cinema. Both films are known for introducing strong, graphic violence in cinema and at the same time the films shed light on sensitive social issues such as income disparity, government indifference as well as brutal repressions. Partially due to the fact that these two films come from the nascent Soviet Union and the fear that these films may promote Bolshevik-style revolutions in the West, these two movies were either heavily censored or banned altogether in numerous countries during Eisenstein’s lifetime, which in some ways helped fuel interest in these two movies because censorship or prohibition made watching these two masterpieces more tempting, and therefore in later years they were given the appreciation and respected both films deserved.