[artinfo] Fwd: power_cuts

[St. Auby Tamas]

Begin forwarded message:

>From: Ist <ist4ist at yahoo.com>
>Date: 09. September. 2004. 22:12:07 CEST
>To: "St. Auby Tamas" <iput at c3.hu>
>Subject: power_cuts
>
>Gallery Onetwentyeight
>128 Rivington St , NYC 10002
>1 212 674-0244
>
>afterhours video project  as part of the SELF-ISH show
>
>visuals :Istvan Szili
>music composed by Ana Roman
>
>based on Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin
>and the story of Bela Balazs
>
>September 10th , Friday 11PM
>
>
>When Eisenstein's triumphant movie, "Battleship
>Potemkin", was first shown all around the world, a
>Scandinavian film distributor was among those who
>wanted to buy it. The local censors, however, found
>the movie's revolutionary spirit unacceptable. They
>asked for permission to 're-cut' the film slightly.
>Eisenstein sold the distribution rights on the
>condition that nothing be cut from the film, and
>nothing be added, not even one frame.  The
>Scandinavians complied by only changing the sequence
>of scenes. The results were as follows:
>
>It is well known that the film opens with a scene
>where the officers treat the sailors inhumanely.  The
>disgruntled, mutinous sailors are subsequently
>condemned to death, but at the last minute the death
>squad turns their weapons against the officers. Thus
>the revolt begins.
>
>The fight continues on the ship and moves to the city
>of Odessa.  The tsar's fleet shows up to suppress the
>mutiny but the fellow sailors of the tzar's fleet let
>the revolutionary sailors get a head start in their
>escape. This is the succession of scenes in the
>original movie.
>
>After the handiwork of the Scandinavian scissors the
>order of the scenes changes: the film now starts with
>the mutiny.  We don't see the shocking scene of the
>thwarted execution and no other explanation for the
>mutiny is given.  The film then continues unchanged,
>until the tsar's fleet shows up - only it doesn't end
>there.  It continues with the previously dropped
>execution scene, where the mutinous sailors are
>trembling in front of the barrels of the rifles.  In
>this Scandinavian version they come to this fate as a
>result of the appearance of the tzar's fleet, as a
>result of a restored order. In the final scene the
>admiral gives the order to fire and the film ends
>there without showing the scene where the tzar's
>dispatched squadron refuses to obey the order to
>destroy the rebellion.
>
>Though there was a revolt on the ship, the officers
>suppressed it again and the culprits received their
>deserved punishment.  This was acceptable to the
>Scandinavian censors.  Thus the most revolutionary
>movie in spirit became a counter-revolutionary movie
>without changing the image or the text.
>
>Only the cutting changed.  Only the work of the scissors.