Sergei Eisenstein didn’t invent the art of the edit, but he did everything within his bag of tricks to revolutionize the practice, which he called the Montage of Attractions, and this classic, his first feature film, contains one mesmerizing edit after another. If that sacrifices story and characterization, which indeed it does, to support the metaphorical and symbolic act of linking images for dramatic effect, than so be it, Eisenstein is so deft at moving large crowds (and this film, about a striking factory and the massacre of the proletariat that follows, has very large crowds), rapidly editing violence to fit his politics (especially in an infamous scene with a slaughtered bull), that the faceless villains and heroic plebeians are background dressing for the theory. Note to somebody, maybe Criterion, or Masters of Cinema, or Kino, that this greatest of silent films is badly in need of a restoration and HD transfer.