At last reaches the Portuguese theaters the movie "One Night With The King" (USA2006). This is a story based in the Book of Esther. The young girl who saves her People from annihilation.
The Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin), sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatised version of the Battleship Potemkin uprising that occurred in 1905 when the crew of a Russian battleship rebelled against their oppressive officers of the Tsarist regime.
Eisenstein's experiment was a mixed success; he "was disappointed when Potemkin failed to attract masses of viewers", but the film was also released in a number of international venues, where audiences responded more positively. In both the Soviet Union and overseas, the film shocked audiences, but not so much for its political statements as for its use of violence, which was considered graphic by the standards of the time.[citation needed] The film's potential to influence political thought through emotional response was noted by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who called Potemkin "a marvellous film without equal in the cinema ... anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film."
The most famous scene in the film is the massacre of civilians on the Odessa Steps (also known as the Primorsky or Potemkin Stairs). In this scene, the Tsar's Cossacks in their white summer tunics march down a seemingly endless flight of steps in a rhythmic, machine-like fashion, slaughtering a crowd, including a young boy, as they flee. After the boy falls, his mother picks up his body and yells at the soldiers to stop firing. They do, only to shoot her minutes later. Toward the end of the sequence, the soldiers shoot a mother who is pushing a baby in a baby carriage. As she falls to the ground, dying, she leans against the carriage, nudging it away; it rolls down the steps amidst the fleeing crowd.
The scene is perhaps the best example of Eisenstein's theory on montage, and many films pay homage to the scene, including Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, and George Lucas's Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Several films spoof it, including Woody Allen's Bananas and Love and Death, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker's Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, and the Italian comedy "il secondo tragico Fantozzi" (in English, "The Second Tragic Fantozzi Movie")
The massacre on the steps is fictional, presumably created by Eisenstein for its dramatic venue and effect, as well as for propaganda and to demonize the Czar and the Imperial regime. It is, however, based on the fact that there were widespread demonstrations in the area, sparked off by the arrival of the Potemkin in Odessa Harbour, and both the Times of London and the resident British Consul reported that troops fired on the crowds with accompanying loss of life (the actual casualties are unrecorded). Film critic Roger Ebert writes, "That there was, in fact, no czarist massacre on the Odessa Steps scarcely diminishes the power of the scene ... It is ironic that [Eisenstein] did it so well that today the bloodshed on the Odessa steps is often referred to as if it really happened."
After its premiere in Soviet Union, Potemkin was shown in the United States. It was shown in an edited form in Germany, with some scenes of extreme violence edited out by its German distributors. A written introduction by Leon Trotsky was cut from Soviet prints after he ran afoul of Joseph Stalin. The film was banned in Nazi Germany, Britain, Spain (though not during the Second Republic), France, and other countries for its revolutionary zeal. It was even banned in the Soviet Union for a short period when the Comintern, for diplomatic reasons, ceased to promote mutiny among the navies of capitalist countries.
It is 90 years since the 1917 October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia and changed the world. It is almost impossible in today’s atmosphere of political sleepwalking to imagine what it might have been like to find ourselves in the midst of such revolutionary ferment. In the absence of a time machine, I recommend reading Ten Days that Shook the World. Anyone around here love The Blues ?
Well, I do.
So one more time, boys and girls:
Ten Years after !!!
Soviet snipers were a part of the military planning and tactics long before the outbreak of the war. The Soviet experience from the first world war highlighted the importance of incorporating sharpshooters or snipers into their battle plans. Marksmanship and sharp shooting skills were emphasized in both the military and in official state run youth and recreation programs. When the rifle 1891/30 was developed it was also decided to develope a sniper variant. Up until that time the official tactics for small units largely ignored the importance of utilizing snipers equipped with special purpose rifles. The Soviet Army did utilize sharpshooters but they were equipped with either standard infantry rifles or sometimes civilian hunting rifles. However, the shooting skills of the Finns during the Winter War drove home a bloody point that could not be ignored by the Soviet high command. Soviet field commanders feared the presence of Finn sharpshooters and snipers and recognized that these snipers were able to disrupt the communications and flow of battle and served to demoralize front line troops. It was the experience of these commanders that shaped sniper tactics in the Soviet Army.
The initial plan was to equip every platoon sized unit with a sniper rifle to be used their best shooter. However, with only about 50,000 rifles in the inventory, the Army was hard pressed to man every platoon with snipers as the Army expanded. An unfortunate decision by the command led to a further diluting of sniper effectiveness through the introduction of the SVT sniper rifle. This rifle suffered from a series of problems when used in the field as a result of its design as a semi-automatic rifle. For one thing, it did not respond well to extremely cold environments and suffered problems with the lubricant gumming up its working parts. Another problem was in cold shot accuracy where the first round fired would tend to wander significantly wide of the point of aim. Many snipers complained that the rifle was unwieldy and mechanically loud to operate.
By the time the Soviets were fully engaged with German forces a rush program was initiated to get the 91/30 Sniper fully into production. In 1942 production figures totaled in the 90,000 range. As more of these rifles reached units, existing tactics were put into practice and refined. To examine the tactics of the Soviet Sniper, it is necessary to review the philosophy for using snipers in the first place. Under the Soviet system, snipers were fielded in teams of two with a sniper and an observer. Both team members were qualified snipers and changed roles after each kill. The sniper was to provide both scouting duties as well as point and indirect fire to disrupt enemy activities and communications. The observer assisted in spotting potential targets, provided security and recorded and confirmed kills. Each sniper carried a "kill book" where they recorded time, date, location and details of each kill or engagement. This book was also used to record detailed information on German troop concentrations and movements. As mentioned before, the sniper was assigned at platoon level and reported directly to the platoon leader. Most sniper teams worked autonomously and ranged ahead of advancing formations or across an assigned frontal sector.
The Great Patriotic War produced some changes to the way sniper teams operated. The advancing German Army moved rapidly and unpredictably, using flanking maneuvers to surround retreating or static forces and cut them off. Soviet commanders reacted to this by concentrating their sniper teams on their flanks out away from the main body to impede Nazi advances on the flanks. This required platoon teams to gather in larger groups that worked together to provide advance warning to the major command elements of German movement as well as to concentrate their firepower.
Contrary to popular belief, most sniper engagements took place at distances under 400 meters in rural settings and under 100 meters in urban settings. Sniper teams would move into the "no-man's land" separating the two sides under the cover of darkness and set up blinds or observation posts that were cleverly concealed. In the case of observing and harassing advancing troops, the sniper teams would blend in with straggling refugees that were largely ignored by the German forces and move ahead of the German advance, recording troop strength and composition. In the evening, they would slip under cover and close on German night defensive positions and conduct harassing fire at first light and then move rapidly out of the area. This was related to me by my father-in-law who served on the eastern front in the German Army.
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