Potemkin Reborn (2015)
⭆ Research | Restoring the lost 1930 German sound version
2002–2015 | Reconstruction of the 1930 sound version of Eisenstein’s »Battleship Potemkin« | Initiator, Researcher, Editor | Together with Thomas Tode and in cooperation with UdK Berlin, Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin, Austrian Film Museum, Filmmuseum München, ARTE, Technisches Museum Wien (TMW) | DVD and publication, 2015 |
In 1930, at the beginning of the sound film era, Sergej Eisenstein's instant classic »Battleship Potemkin« (1925) returned to German-language screens: as a talkie with synchronized sound on shellac discs. The Russian soldiers spoke German dialogue courtesy of the actors from the leftist Piscator Theatre in Berlin. The Viennese composer Edmund Meisel, who with his original score had strongly contributed to the film’s success in Western Europe, reworked his music for the talkie version, adding sound effects and songs to the soundtrack. Just a few months later, Meisel died after an appendectomy at the age of 36 – and, in contrast to the silent original, the sound version of »Battleship Potemkin« was soon faded from memory.
In 2000, I discovered the long-lost soundtrack discs in Vienna’s Technical Museum (TMW), initiating a reassessment of the film along with an international digital reconstruction project. The result is a unique and powerful audiovisual experience – and a testament to Meisel's score, praised by Theodor W. Adorno and Hanns Eisler as highly unconventional and original music. Following a series of acclaimed screenings abroad (including the prestigious Pordenone Silent Film Festival), the reconstructed sound version of »Battleship Potemkin« now returns to Vienna, where its second life began 15 years ago.
For the background story read the interview Potemkin Reborn (with Sound).