Soviet montage theory
Encyclopedia
Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing (montage is French for "build, organize"). Although Soviet filmmakers
in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein
marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema", and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem
of cinema".
While several Soviet filmmakers, such as Lev Kuleshov
, Dziga Vertov
, and Vsevolod Pudovkin
put forth explanations of what constitutes the montage effect, Eisenstein's view that "montage is an idea that arises from the collision of independent thoughts" wherein "each sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of the other" has become most widely accepted.
, and the creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood
continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless.
Eisenstein describes five methods of montage in his introductory essay "Word and Image". These varieties of montage build one upon the other so the "higher" forms also include the approaches of the "simpler" varieties. In addition, the "lower" types of montage are limited to the complexity of meaning which they can communicate, and as the montage rises in complexity, so will the meaning it is able to communicate (primal emotions to intellectual ideals). It is easiest to understand these as part of a spectrum where, at one end, the image content matters very little, while at the other it determines everything about the choices and combinations of the edited film.
Eisenstein's montage theories are based on the idea that montage originates in the "collision" between different shots in an illustration of the idea of thesis and antithesis. This basis allowed him to argue that montage is inherently dialectical
, thus it should be considered a demonstration of Marxism
and Hegelian philosophy. His collisions of shots were based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual values such as class.
. He argued that "Montage is conflict" (dialectical) where new ideas, emerge from the collision of the montage sequence (synthesis) and where the new emerging ideas are not innate in any of the images of the edited sequence. A new concept explodes into being. His understanding of montage, thus, illustrates Marxist dialectics.
Concepts similar to intellectual montage would arise during the first half of the 20th century, such as Imagism
in poetry (specifically Pound's Ideogrammic Method
), or Cubism's
attempt at synthesizing multiple perspectives into one painting. The idea of associated concrete images creating a new (often abstract) image was an important aspect of much early Modernist
art.
Eisenstein relates this to non-literary “writing” in pre-literate societies, such as the ancient use of pictures and images in sequence, that are therefore in "conflict". Because the pictures are relating to each other, their collision creates the meaning of the "writing". Similarly, he describes this phenomenon as dialectical materialism
.
Eisenstein argued that the new meaning that emerged out of conflict is the same phenomenon found in the course of historical events of social and revolutionary change. He used intellectual montage in his feature films (such as Battleship Potemkin and October) to portray the political situation surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution.
He also believed that intellectual montage expresses how everyday thought processes happen. In this sense, the montage will in fact form thoughts in the minds of the viewer, and is therefore a powerful tool for propaganda.
Intellectual montage follows in the tradition of the ideological Russian Proletcult Theatre
which was a tool of political agitation. In his film Strike, Eisenstein includes a sequence with cross-cut editing between the slaughter of a bull and police attacking workers. He thereby creates a film metaphor: assaulted workers = slaughtered bull. The effect that he wished to produce was not simply to show images of people's lives in the film but more importantly to shock the viewer into understanding the reality of their own lives. Therefore, there is a revolutionary thrust to this kind of film making.
Eisenstein discussed how a perfect example of his theory is found in his film October, which contains a sequence where the concept of "God" is connected to class structure, and various images that contain overtones of political authority and divinity are edited together in descending order of impressiveness so that the notion of God eventually becomes associated with a block of wood. He believed that this sequence caused the minds of the viewer to automatically reject all political class structures.
have argued in favor of the long take
where the action plays out without continuity editing
or the manipulations of Soviet montage.
Cinema of the Soviet Union
The cinema of the Soviet Union, not to be confused with "Cinema of Russia" despite Russian language films being predominant in both genres, includes several film contributions of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history,...
in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
marked a note of accord in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" when he noted that montage is "the nerve of cinema", and that "to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem
Medium specificity
Medium specificity is a consideration in aesthetics and art criticism. It is most closely associated with modernism, but it predates it. According to Clement Greenberg, who helped popularize the term, medium specificity holds that "the unique and proper area of competence" for a form of art...
of cinema".
While several Soviet filmmakers, such as Lev Kuleshov
Lev Kuleshov
Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov was a Soviet filmmaker and film theorist who taught at and helped establish the world's first film school .-Career:...
, Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
David Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
, and Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage...
put forth explanations of what constitutes the montage effect, Eisenstein's view that "montage is an idea that arises from the collision of independent thoughts" wherein "each sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of the other" has become most widely accepted.
Eisenstein's theory of montage
In formal terms, this style of editing offers discontinuity in graphic qualities, violations of the 180 degree rule180 degree rule
In filmmaking, the 180° rule is a basic guideline that states that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line...
, and the creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...
continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless.
Eisenstein describes five methods of montage in his introductory essay "Word and Image". These varieties of montage build one upon the other so the "higher" forms also include the approaches of the "simpler" varieties. In addition, the "lower" types of montage are limited to the complexity of meaning which they can communicate, and as the montage rises in complexity, so will the meaning it is able to communicate (primal emotions to intellectual ideals). It is easiest to understand these as part of a spectrum where, at one end, the image content matters very little, while at the other it determines everything about the choices and combinations of the edited film.
Eisenstein's montage theories are based on the idea that montage originates in the "collision" between different shots in an illustration of the idea of thesis and antithesis. This basis allowed him to argue that montage is inherently dialectical
Dialectic
Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
, thus it should be considered a demonstration of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and Hegelian philosophy. His collisions of shots were based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual values such as class.
Methods of montage
- Metric - where the editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basal and emotional of reactions in the audience.
- Metric montage example from Eisenstein's October.
- Rhythmic - includes cutting based on continuity, creating visual continuity from edit to edit.
- Rhythmic montage example from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo where the protagonistProtagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
and the two antagonistAntagonistAn antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
s face off in a three-way duel - Another rhythmic montage example from The Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...
s "Odessa steps" sequence.
- Rhythmic montage example from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo where the protagonist
- Tonal - a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots -- not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics -- to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation.
- Tonal example from Eisenstein's The Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...
. This is the clip following the death of the revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk, a martyr for sailors and workers.
- Tonal example from Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin
- Overtonal/Associational - the overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect.
- Overtonal example from Pudovkin's Mother. In this clip, the men are workers walking towards a confrontation at their factory, and later in the movie, the protagonistProtagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
uses ice as a means of escape.http://amicus.collectionscanada.ca/aaweb-bin/aamain/itemdisp?sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&d=2&v=0&lvl=1&itm=25787857.
- Overtonal example from Pudovkin's Mother. In this clip, the men are workers walking towards a confrontation at their factory, and later in the movie, the protagonist
- Intellectual - uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/98-99/9505060m/objects/intellectual.htm
- Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and StrikeStrike (film)Strike is a 1925 silent film made in the Soviet Union by Sergei Eisenstein. It was Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, and he would go on to make The Battleship Potemkin later that year. It was acted by the Proletcult Theatre, and composed of six parts...
. In Strike, a shot of striking workers being attacked cut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered creates a film metaphor suggesting that the workers are being treated like cattle. This meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only arises when they are juxtaposed. - In The Godfather, during Michael's nephew's baptism, the priest performs the sacrament of baptism while we see killings ordered by Michael take place elsewhere. The murders thus "baptize" Michael into a life of crime.
- At the end of Apocalypse NowApocalypse NowApocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
the execution of Colonel Kurtz is juxtaposed with the villagers' ritual slaughter of a water buffalo.....
- Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and Strike
More on intellectual montage
In his later writings, Eisenstein argues that montage, especially intellectual montage, is an alternative system to continuity editingContinuity editing
Continuity editing is the predominant style of film editing and video editing in the post-production process of filmmaking of narrative films and television programs...
. He argued that "Montage is conflict" (dialectical) where new ideas, emerge from the collision of the montage sequence (synthesis) and where the new emerging ideas are not innate in any of the images of the edited sequence. A new concept explodes into being. His understanding of montage, thus, illustrates Marxist dialectics.
Concepts similar to intellectual montage would arise during the first half of the 20th century, such as Imagism
Imagism
Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...
in poetry (specifically Pound's Ideogrammic Method
Pound's Ideogrammic Method
The Ideogrammic Method was a technique expounded by Ezra Pound which allowed poetry to deal with abstract content through concrete images. The idea was based on Pound's reading of the work of Ernest Fenollosa....
), or Cubism's
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
attempt at synthesizing multiple perspectives into one painting. The idea of associated concrete images creating a new (often abstract) image was an important aspect of much early Modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
art.
Eisenstein relates this to non-literary “writing” in pre-literate societies, such as the ancient use of pictures and images in sequence, that are therefore in "conflict". Because the pictures are relating to each other, their collision creates the meaning of the "writing". Similarly, he describes this phenomenon as dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics. The idea was originally invented by Moses Hess and it was later developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
.
Eisenstein argued that the new meaning that emerged out of conflict is the same phenomenon found in the course of historical events of social and revolutionary change. He used intellectual montage in his feature films (such as Battleship Potemkin and October) to portray the political situation surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution.
He also believed that intellectual montage expresses how everyday thought processes happen. In this sense, the montage will in fact form thoughts in the minds of the viewer, and is therefore a powerful tool for propaganda.
Intellectual montage follows in the tradition of the ideological Russian Proletcult Theatre
Proletcult Theatre
Proletcult Theatre was the theatrical branch of the Soviet cultural movement Proletcult. It was concerned with the powerful expression of ideological content as political propaganda in the years following the revolution of 1917...
which was a tool of political agitation. In his film Strike, Eisenstein includes a sequence with cross-cut editing between the slaughter of a bull and police attacking workers. He thereby creates a film metaphor: assaulted workers = slaughtered bull. The effect that he wished to produce was not simply to show images of people's lives in the film but more importantly to shock the viewer into understanding the reality of their own lives. Therefore, there is a revolutionary thrust to this kind of film making.
Eisenstein discussed how a perfect example of his theory is found in his film October, which contains a sequence where the concept of "God" is connected to class structure, and various images that contain overtones of political authority and divinity are edited together in descending order of impressiveness so that the notion of God eventually becomes associated with a block of wood. He believed that this sequence caused the minds of the viewer to automatically reject all political class structures.
Counter theories
The editing of motion pictures has been a focus for various theories of cinematic realism, where editing is usually rejected as manipulative and propagandistic. In place of editing, critics such as André BazinAndré Bazin
André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist.-Life:Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918...
have argued in favor of the long take
Long take
A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can be used for dramatic and narrative effect if done properly, and in moving shots is often accomplished...
where the action plays out without continuity editing
Continuity editing
Continuity editing is the predominant style of film editing and video editing in the post-production process of filmmaking of narrative films and television programs...
or the manipulations of Soviet montage.
See also
- Sergei EisensteinSergei EisensteinSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
- Lev KuleshovLev KuleshovLev Vladimirovich Kuleshov was a Soviet filmmaker and film theorist who taught at and helped establish the world's first film school .-Career:...
and the Kuleshov EffectKuleshov EffectThe Kuleshov Effect is a film editing effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s.-Specifics of the Kuleshov effect:... - Vsevolod PudovkinVsevolod PudovkinVsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage...
- Dziga VertovDziga VertovDavid Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
- La Psychologie de l'ArtLa Psychologie de l'ArtLa Psychologie de l'Art is a book written by the French adventurer and film theorist André Malraux. It contains thoughts on montage theory along with his Russian colleagues Eisenstein and Pudovkin....
— book on montage theory by André MalrauxAndré MalrauxAndré Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt... - ImagismImagismImagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...
- Pound's Ideogrammic MethodPound's Ideogrammic MethodThe Ideogrammic Method was a technique expounded by Ezra Pound which allowed poetry to deal with abstract content through concrete images. The idea was based on Pound's reading of the work of Ernest Fenollosa....
- CubismCubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
- The Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship PotemkinThe Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...
External links
- "Eisenstein's Montage", Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, University of Glasgow.
- "Classical Montage Sequence and Soviet Montage", the Telecommunication and Film Department, the University of Alabama.
- Tomi Huttunen: Montage Culture Dept. of Slavonic and Baltic languages and literatures, University of Helsinki