Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Title from title screen (viewed July 27, 2007). Includes bibliographical references. Online version of the print original.

Being a very prominent film director with several recognisable works, Sergey Eisenstein has been studied extensively from all angles. The aim of this dissertation is to analyse his first two movies, Strike and Battleship Potemkin, both of them stand out when seen in the context of 1920s cinema. Both films are known for introducing strong, graphic violence in cinema and at the same time the films shed light on sensitive social issues such as income disparity, government indifference as well as brutal repressions. Partially due to the fact that these two films come from the nascent Soviet Union and the fear that these films may promote Bolshevik-style revolutions in the West, these two movies were either heavily censored or banned altogether in numerous countries during Eisenstein’s lifetime, which in some ways helped fuel interest in these two movies because censorship or prohibition made watching these two masterpieces more tempting, and therefore in later years they were given the appreciation and respected both films deserved. / text

Despite the vast material that has been written about the Second World War, most literature mentions battleships in passing, giving little attention to a role that battleships filled- that of naval gunfire support for amphibious landings. The literature regarding the Navy’s older, obsolescent battleships such as the Texas is scarce. Using primary sources regarding the Texas and the evolution of naval gunfire doctrine from the pre-war and wartime periods, this study looks at the involvement of the Texas in the Second World War and how the Navy employed its oldest battleships. The amphibious landings of the war provided a role in which a ship’s speed and range became irrelevant when firing on fixed targets on an enemy beach. This work provides a look at a little discussed, though widely used aspect of the Second World War and helps further discussion regarding the evolution of the US navy.