Soviet Montage Cinema
Theory and Methods
Montage - (French for “to assemble”;
“put together”)
Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970)
• was a Russian and Soviet filmmaker and film
theorist, one of the founders of the world's first
film school, the Moscow Film School. He was
intimately involved in development of the style of
film making known as Soviet montage, especially
its psychological underpinning, including the use
of editing and the cut to emotionally influence
the audience, a principle known as the Kuleshov
effect. He also developed the theory of creative
geography, which is the use of the action around
a cut to connect otherwise disparate settings into
a cohesive narrative.
Lev Kuleshov
• Re-edited existing film
stock to develop ideas
of film grammar
• Formed workshops in
1920 at the State Film
School
Central belief: the viewer’s
response in cinema depends
less on the individual shot and
more on the editing or montage
Kuleshov effect
• He gathered a group of people together and showed them a film of a man’s face (a
famous Russian actor named Ivan Mozhukhin). Then, the film cut to a bowl of
soup. When asked how the man felt, the audience replied: "Hungry." Next, the
audience was shown the exact same picture of the man’s face, then the film cut to
a dead child. Next, the same image of the actor was juxtaposed with a reclining
woman. The audience read a different meaning into Mozhukhin’s expression with
each combination. In fact, even though it was the same image of the man's face
every time, the audience was convinced his expression had changed and praised
the man for his fine acting skills.
In another experiment, Kuleshov spliced together another series of shots which
had been filmed entirely out of sequence and in different times and places: a
waiting man, a walking woman, a gate, a staircase, and a mansion. The audience
read spatial and temporal "sense" into the sequence, deciding that they saw the
man and the woman meeting in front of the gate at the same time.
• These experiments led many Soviet filmmakers to realize that the meaning of a
film is not inherent in the images themselves, but rather in the juxtaposition of
those images side by side. This led to the development of the concept of
"montage" in film.
Kuleshov effect
Montage, or collision editing
• done by splicing together a rapid sequence of carefully selected shots to
evoke a specific emotional or intellectual response. The Russians' premise
was that each shot derived meaning from the context in which it was
placed.
• If the context changed, the meaning of the shot and the sequence also
changed.
• For example, Eisenstein once combined shots of a poor woman and her
undernourished child seated at an empty table with shots of an affluent,
overweight man seated at a table filled with food. His intent in combining
those shots was to evoke images of the oppression of the poor by the
wealthy.
• Had Eisenstein shown one series of shots without the other, the meaning
would have been quite different.
• Montage, in the modern sense of the word, often refers to sequences
where several shots have been edited together to compress a series of
events that happen over time (e.g., sequences of young couples falling in
love, scenes with flying calendar pages, etc.).
Soviet Montage
• Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and
creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing . Although Soviet
filmmakers in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view
montage, Sergei Eisenstein in "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form“
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 shots" wherein "each
sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of
the other" has become most widely accepted
Dziga Vertov (1896-1954)
• was a Russian Soviet pioneer documentary
film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema
theorist. His filming practices and theories
influenced the cinéma vérité style of
documentary movie-making and the Dziga
Vertov Group, a radical film-making
cooperative which was active from 1968 to
1972.
Dziga Vertov
• Enthusiastic about film’s
potential as educational
and propagandistic tool
• Since Russian society was
composed of illiterate
workers and peasants,
they needed a different
medium of instruction
• Believed that ideal medium
was the documentary film
“Art is not a mirror which reflects the historical
struggle, but a weapon of that struggle” --Dziga Vertov
Kino-Pravda
• was a series of 23 newsreels by Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta
Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman launched in June 1922.
Vertov referred to the twenty-three issues of Kino-
Pravda as the first work by him where his future
cinematic methods can be observed.
– Vertov’s primary theory: “film-truth”
– Fiction films, acted films as opiates, that prevented a
necessary confrontation with reality
– Filmmaker sees beneath the surface chaos to reveal the
underlying connections to the institutions of power
– Filmmaker as poet, as fuser of images
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
• Vertov's feature film, produced by the film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in the Soviet cities of
Kiev, Kharkov, Moscow and Odessa. It has no actors. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at
work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be
said to have "characters", they are the cameramen of the title, the film editor, and the modern
Soviet Union they discover and present in the film.
• Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented,
employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames,
match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed
footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals (at one point it features a split-screen
tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).
• Man with a Movie Camera was largely dismissed upon its initial release; the work's quick-cut
editing, self-reflexivity, and emphasis on form over content were all subjects of criticism. Now it is
considered one of the most innovative and influential films of the silent era. In the British Film
Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll film critics voted it the eighth greatest film ever made, and the
work was later named the best documentary of all time in the same magazine.
Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
• was a Soviet film director and film theorist, a
pioneer in the theory and practice of
montage. In its decennial poll, the magazine
Sight & Sound named his Battleship Potemkin
the 11th greatest movie of all time.[1]
Sergei Eisenstein
• Silent films
– Strike (1925)
– Battleship Potemkin (1925)
– October (1928)
– The General Line (Old and New) (1929)
• Historical Epics
– Alexander Nevsky (1938)
– Ivan the Terrible, Parts I & II (1944, 1958)
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein’s five types of montage
• Sergei Eisenstein talks about five different
methods of montage through out his work. These
varieties of montage build one upon the other so
the “higher” forms also include the approaches
of the “simpler” varieties. These are the five:
• Metric
• Rhythmic
• Tonal
• Overtonal/Associational
• Intellectual
Metric
• Define: 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.
• Effect: elicits the most basal and emotional of
reactions in the audience.
• Example from Eisenstein's October (“Horse scene”)
Rhythmic
• Define: cutting based on time, but using the
visual composition of the shots -- along with a
change in the speed of the metric cuts.. Once
sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also
included audible elements (music, dialogue,
sounds).
• Effect: more complex meanings than what is
possible with metric montage
• Example: chase sequence
Tonal
• Define: uses the emotional meaning of the shots
-- not just manipulating the temporal length of
the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics
• Effect: to elicit a reaction from the audience even
more complex than from the metric or rhythmic
montage.
• Example: a sleeping baby would emote calmness
and relaxation or in Battleship Potemkin where
the character ‘Vakulinchuk’ dies.
Overtonal/Associational
• Define: the accumulation of metric, rhythmic,
and tonal montage= syntehsis
• Effect: to synthesize its effect on the audience
for an even more abstract and complicated
effect.
Intellectual
• Define: - uses shots which, combined, elicit an
intellectual meaning.
• Effect: symbolic association/ metaphor
meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only
arises when they are juxtaposed
• Example: 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.
In a nut shell…
• Metric Montage= Determined solely by the lengths of
shots.
• Rhythmic Montage=The cutting rate was based upon
the rhythm of movement that occurs within the shot.
• Tonal Montage=Cutting determined by the emotional
tone of the shots.
• Overtonal Montage=A combination of Metric,
Rhythmic and Tonal montage.
• Intellectual Montage=Determined by the conflict-
juxtaposition of accompanying intellectual affects.
Acting as Typage
• Eisenstein, like other Soviet filmmakers of his
time, was not interested in using professional
actors
• Asked amateurs to draw on their experiences
of their own lives
• Typage: when people in films represent
archetypes due to their resemblance to
universal groups in society
Battleship Potemkin
• A domestic flop in the Soviet Union, Potemkin was loved by
German audiences, although the armed forces were
forbidden to see it for fear of mutiny, as were
Pennsylvanian audiences on the grounds that it gave
American sailors 'a blueprint as to how to conduct a
mutiny. When it was eventually screened in the US in 1926,
Chaplin declared it to be 'the best film in the world'. In
France the authorities burnt all copies they could find - it
received only a limited art house screening at Paris film
clubs. Despite being banned in the UK until 1954, The
Battleship Potemkin has rarely been out of the annual BFI
critics' top ten list, and only then when another Eisenstein
film has been voted in.
Battleship Potemkin
• The film documents an event that helped precipitate the 1905 Revolution which
shook the Tsarist regime.
• The battleship Potemkin is a microcosm of Russian society. The ship's officers,
doctor and priest - all representing the ruling power structure - pile abuse on top
of abuse until maggot infested meat and a threatened mass execution push the
sailors to mutiny.
• The mutineers eventually find sanctuary at the Black Sea port of Odessa, the
setting for the film's penultimate sequence, showing Odessa's population
supporting the Potemkin mutineers anchored in the bay.
• The sudden appearance of Tsarist soldiers abruptly reverses the joyous mood as
the troops mercilessly advance, shooting everything that moves. Rhythm (cutting)
builds with tempo (the pace of action within the frame) as the soldiers descend
the steps in relentless solid formation behind the chaotically scattering crowd. This
descending action travels left to right across the screen for rapidity (because we
read left to right, top to bottom in English, our brains process screen information
better in this direction, enabling us to read the images faster).
• In this sequence, the Czar's army is quashing
an uprising. Eisenstein uses editing to show
the fear of the people, their escalating panic,
the tragedy of innocent bystanders as a baby
in a carriage careens helplessly down the
steps, and the intensifying threat of the
soldiers, their guns and artillery.
Battleship Potemkin
Battleship Potemkin
Vsevolod Pudovkin (1893-1953)
• was a Russian and Soviet
film director, screenwriter
and actor who developed
influential theories of
montage. Pudovkin's
masterpieces are often
contrasted with those of
his contemporary Sergei
Eisenstein, but whereas
Eisenstein utilized montage
to glorify the power of the
masses, Pudovkin preferred
to concentrate on the courage
and resilience of individuals.
Vsevolod Pudovkin
• Chess Fever (1925)
“Revolutionary Trilogy”
• Mother (1926)
• The End of St. Petersburg (1927)
• Storm over Asia (1928)
Vsevold Pudovkin
• Different style of montage
• Seamless, without drawing attention to itself
• Used solely to support the film’s narrative
• Also known as linkage editing
• Similar to the editing style developed by D.W.
Griffith in the US
Mother (1926)
• is a 1926 Soviet drama
film depicting one
woman's struggle
against Tsarist rule
during the Russian
Revolution of 1905.
The film is based on
the 1906 novel
The Mother by
Maxim Gorky.
Mother
• "Pudovkin's most ambitious montage, later in the film, has few
equals in any cinema. Mother is full of shots of the Russian
landscape. At first these seem almost random; only in the final
march on the prison does the full power of the imagery hit home.
As the mother and comrades march towards the prison, it's spring
and the snow is starting to melt. Cut to an immense frozen river, its
surface cracking, splitting. This is a piece of Marxist poetry. The river
is history, flowing unstoppably, breaking out of the carapace of ice
under which it has been trapped through the long tsarist winter. It's
awesome, scary. When the son breaks out of jail he's chased down
to the river's edge. Trapped! His only chance is to jump on a block
of ice, let the river carry him, and that's what he does. He seems
doomed as the ice is carried very fast - he'll never make it - but he
does, and the film moves to its historically-determined climax.“
– Jonathan Jones
Alexander Dovzhenko (1894-1956
Dovzhenko and the Use of Tableaux
• Arsenal (1929) & Earth (1930)
• Series of tableaux: a linkage of still
photographs
• Slow pace and solemn atmosphere
• Long shots of archetypal figures, often in
silhouette
Soviet Montage and The Formalist
Tradition
• Key Terms and Concepts:
- Sergei Eisenstein thought the conflict of two shots (shot A: the thesis, and shot B:
the antithesis) creates a whole new idea (shot C: synthesis).
-Eisenstein thought linked shots were mechanical and inorganic.
- Eisenstein also thought the transition between shots should be rough, sharp,
jolting, and violent. Smooth cuts were an opportunity lost to show harsh collisions
between two ideas, or shots.
- Cuts should be made at a shot’s maximum point of tension or climax. Thus,
editing rhythm should be dynamic, with constant succession of climaxes and
tensions.
•
-- Shots with contrasting volumes, durations, shapes, designs, and lighting
intensities should collide against each other.
• V.I. Pudovkin thought emotions should be conveyed
with physical images, with series of shots with locale
and objective correlatives.
- Eisenstein thought images should include images that
are thematically or metaphorically relevant, whether
they are in the locale or not.
•
Dialectical- the result of the conflict and synthesis of
opposites
• In the 1920's, soviet film makers expanded Griffith's associational principles and established the
theoretical premises for thematic editing, or montage
-Pudovkin states that Griffith's use of the close up is too limited and is merely an interruption,
offering no meaning of its own
-Pudovkin insisted that each shot should make a new point. Through the juxtaposition of shots,
new meanings can be created
-Lev Kuleshov, Pudovkin's mentor believed that ideas in cinema are created by linking fragmentary
details to produce a unified action
- Kuleshov believed that the emotion of a film is not produced by the actors performance, but by
associations brought about the juxtapositions. In a sense the viewer creates the emotional
meanings, once the appropriat objects have been linked together by the film maker
-Values of the film maker would inevitably influence the manner in which reality is percieved
