10 Most Fascinating Films Produced By Brutal Governments
1. Battleship Potemkin
Revolutionary Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin said, shortly after the Communist takeover of the country in 1917, “of all the arts the most important for us is the cinema”. And indeed cinema would go on to prove a vital agent in Soviet propaganda as the regime became more and more ruthless and uncompromising.
One of the most vital early Soviet Propaganda films was Battleship Potemkin, produced by legendary Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in 1925. The year marked the 20th anniversary of the earlier Russian revolution of 1905 and the film dramatised one of the most pivotal moments of that revolt: the mutiny of sailors on the Battleship Potemkin against their Tsarist officers.
Potemkin overflows with Marxist ideology including depictions of the sailors as noble and relatable members of the working class oppressed by their snobby superior officers.
The end of the movie, which depicts a massacre of rowdy civilians by the Tsar’s troops on the Odessa Steps in Ukraine, has become one of the most iconic scenes in cinema and its depiction of ordinary people brutally slaughtered by the oppressive forces of Monarchy has proven an effective revolutionary call to arms ever since.
What other interesting movies are product of terrible governments? Share any we missed down in the comments.