Odessa Crash Test (Notes on Film 09)

When Sergej Eisenstein had a baby stroller dash down the Odessa steps as furious finale of his fictive massacre in the revolutionary classic Battleship Potemkin, he created one of the most iconic moments in film. The uncontrolled death ride of a helpless baby—the stroller slips away from the mother who has been shot—was simultaneously an illustration of Eisenstein’s montage principles: as ideal contrast to the mechanical rhythm of the soldiers marching back and forth. Many directors have paid tribute to the scene, for example, Brian De Palma as super slow motion shootout side effect in The Untouchables—which was promptly...