Potemkin Sails Again

German film historians have restored Battleship Potemkin, the classic by director Sergei Eisenstein to the original form after years of censorship by Germans, Soviets, Brits, and the French.

I usually tend to be skeptical of restoration efforts (in part because of the great fuck up of the Parthenon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), but this strikes me as amazing news. For those who haven't had the pleasure of an intro to film history class, this was the first movie that had a camera follow an action sequence (baby down odessa steps), whereas The Great Train Robbery was the first to have the camera pan. That scene has been copied in numerous other pics, most n0tably in The Untouchables by Brian DePalma (who put the scene in response to critics calling him unoriginal...how's that for unoriginal eh?) And of course the various Naked Gun movies copied that in turn. So, all in all, great movie, and I'm glad it's being restored. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for Le Voyage Dans la Lune.