Last weekend the ICA recreated one of the most famous sequences in film history, when they convinced a bunch of volunteers to throw themselves down the Duke of York steps, just off the Mall.
The scene in question is, of course, the Odessa Steps massacre from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), in which the Tsar's murderous white-suited soldiers march down the eponymous steps, firing off rifle rounds at the fleeing crowd. The scene's staccato editing and brutal juxtapositions made it one of the most important in the silent film era, and 86 years later it is still cited as a hugely influential bit of filmmaking; homages have been paid in many films, most notably in The Untouchables (1988).
There's some impressive acting chops on display in the ICA's version, though we're not sure what Eisenstein would have made of what looks like a fun retread of his serious piece of agit-prop cinema...
