October: Ten Days That Shook the World

Directed by: Sergei Eisenstein
Release Date: 1928

After his success with Potemkin, Eisenstein was commissioned to make a film honoring the 10th anniversary of the October revolution. The storming scene was based on the 1920 reinactment (by Lenin and the red gaurds). This scene has been used by filmmakers and historians as historical documentation, so well done Comrade Eisenstein, your propaganda was successful.

Eisenstein is most famous for his use of "intellectual montage." In October, Jesus is compared to other dieties, representing the sameness of all religions. Also, Alexander Kerensky, the head of the Provisional Government, was compared to a peacock (because he represented all that was showy and bourgeois).

In Film Form, Eisenstein mentions that October was his first attempt at liberating the "whole action from the definition of time and space" (58). He also says that the harps were supposed to be a symbol of the "mellifluent speech of Menshevik opportnism at the" Second Congress of Soviets (245). I'm pretty sure we all caught that one...

Eisenstein was attacked for the formalism of October. Pudovkin stated, after watching the film: "How I should like to make such a powerful failure." It was done in a very formal, documentary-type style.

"We have the right to be proud that to us fell the good fortune of beginning the building of the Soviet State and, by doing so, opening a new chapter in the history of the world." Lenin in October 

Trivia from IMDb: The filming of the assault on the Winter Palace required 11,000 extras, and the lighting needs left the rest of the city blacked out.