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Silent movie with live music
Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich
Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (RUS, 1925)
Silent movie
Director: Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
Music: Edmund Meisel (1894-1930) – version for salon orchestra
Sergei Eisenstein’s masterpiece Panzerkreuzer Potemkin was created as a commissioned work: Eisenstein was to make a film for the Soviet state to commemorate the first failed revolution. The result was a visually stunning film that soon attracted attention outside of Russia. However, its great success in cinemas around the world would probably not have been possible without the impressive music by Jewish composer Edmund Meisel.
Even on its anniversary, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin is still relevant: the film has been shaping the iconography of the uprising for 100 years, and the famous scene on the steps of Odessa is not only familiar to film buffs. No less topical is the subject of Russia’s handling of its own history – all the more so as the episode depicted in the film, the mutiny on a warship, took place in what is now contested territory in Ukraine.
Silent films with live music are no longer just for cinematographers and nerds: a wide audience enjoys these evenings between concert and cinema. Moving images from the early days of filmmaking and music from a salon orchestra offer a completely different experience to the ever more technically and visually “perfect” cinema of today. Let yourself be transported back in time.