Battleship Potemkin Diary and my future movie about educational reform
The following describes a potential future movie about the issue of educational disparities and the achievement gap through the analyzation of images from the 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin.
Scene 1: identifying the issue
This first set of images from the movie are from when the sailors stood up to their commanding officers and refused to eat the maggot infested meat. They were able to identify their mistreatment and were not going to tolerate it. Instead, they chose to stand up for themselves and fight for what they felt they rightfully deserve. I would use similar images to these in my "film", possibly by using a scene depicting a well-maintained middle school in an affluent neighborhood that has plenty of resources and a classroom filled with almost entirely white students, and contrasting it with a rundown middle school in a low-income neighborhood with few resources and a more diversified, predominantly minority student body. This imagery would push people towards a realization that the American Educational System systematically underserves certain groups, and that there needs to be an active effort of standing up for a more just system.
Scene 2: images of suffering
This set of images is from when the Tsarist soldiers massacre the Odessan citizens after they have gathered in support of Vakulinchuk and the cause of the rebel sailors (chronologically, the last of the scenes in the movie that I have described). During this scene, we see the most graphic images of the entire film as we watch the massacre take place. We see things such as an old woman getting shot in her eye, a small boy falling to the ground and being trampled by the fleeing crowd, and a woman and her young child being gunned down after trying to plead with the troops for their lives. The troops stop for nothing, and wreak absolute havoc on the Odessan people. In my movie, I would replicate this scene by using graphic images of the lives of the students attending the school. I would show the conditions that they are forced to live in by using vivid images of low-income housing and communities; the neighborhood would be ridden with trash and the buildings that they live in would be infested with rats and insects. I would also show things such as personal issues: having a parent with cancer and massive amounts of hospital bills, or being the child of illegal immigrants who snuck into America in order to try to secure a more stable future. These types of images would be used in order to show the struggles that the children in low-income families face all too frequently, and show why they need an educational system that helps them as much as it does affluent children because it will be the key to their social mobility and future success and well-being.
Scene 3: fight for rights and setting the precedent
These images show the ship's crew during the mutiny against their commanding officers. During this scene, we see the crew fight together as a solitary unit, united against the oppressive force that they all face, and successfully overthrow it. This scene is powerful because it shows that if you fight oppression, it can be overcome. Furthermore, it sets the precedent for similar, supporting actions to be taken by others who too feel like they are victim to the same type of oppression. In my film, I would show dedicated teachers of the low-income school and members of the community fighting to bring about a positive change for their school and the children that attend it. Though they would struggle, but eventually they would succeed and bring about the change they sought (i.e. computers and new textbooks, etc.).
Scene 4: Full scale Political Movement
These images depict the dead Vakulinchuk, leader of the rebel sailors, being mourned over by the Odessa proletariat following the mutiny. In this scene there is extremely powerful imagery, as we see thousands of people coming from all over to honor Vakulinchuk's death, and to unite under the same cause as the sailors. We see lines of people miles long, and crowds with fists raised to the sky chanting. Revolution is definitely in the air. Something similar would occur in my film. After catching wind of the efforts of the struggling school and the monumental achievement of their success, other schools in similarly low-income neighborhoods that face the same struggles would begin to organize and make their own efforts for positive change. With more and more schools fighting for change, their cause would begin to gain significant momentum. They would hold peaceful protests and marches, and fight for new legislation to be passed; a full political movement for an overhaul of the American Education System would be in the works.