Soviet Montage : The Greatest Master Of Montage

Citizen Kane by Orson Welles is a story that was made for excellence. However, since it was about William Randolph Hearst, it did not do too well. Many movies didn't want to play the film because they were scared of Hearst and his power. Although, many could not see the movie it still became one of the greatest films ever made through its uncommon angles, montages, and lighting.

Filmmakers like Claude Lanzmann (Shoah) negotiate this tension by flatly rejecting the use of "historical images." So, by juxtaposing the visual/critical/rhetorical practices found in these films we can begin to define some of the practical parameters of what a visual-rhetorical critic might investigate.

‘There are…two kinds of film makers: one invents an imaginary reality; the other confronts an existing reality and attempts to understand it, criticise it…and finally, translate it into film’

Un Chien Andalou In Un Chien Andalou (1929), Luis Buñuel uses montage editing to put together a series of surreal images to create what the audience can interpret as a love story. The theme being expressed in Un Chien Andalou is that love is something that is irrational, unexplainable, and considering the fact that it is a surrealist film, love is surreal. Along with the montage technique, I will also discuss Buñuel’s use of camerawork like the long shots used throughout the film, music, acting style, costume (like having the female character read a book in which the same outfit is seen that the male character is wearing), editing techniques such as point of view shots, and, finally, dream and fantasy sequence.

to dramatize the people’s massacre through the symbolized slaughter of the bull. The jump-cuts and non-diegetic inserts, the use of graphic patterns of lines and shadows, the contrasts between long shots of the enemy and close-ups of citizens, contrasts between shots from different perspective of the regular people and the Bolsheviks are some other of the non-traditional and signature characteristics of Eisenstein’s films. Presented from citizens point of view editing achieves sympathy and compassion at the audience accepting the Revolution as their own point of view of the historical event. The montage of unique rhythm and graphic elements creates a wholeness of the film structure and defines the specific style of of intellectual editing in Sergei Eisenstein’s works and his propaganda vision.

The Kuleshov Workshop explored the effects of juxtaposition in film, and how sequential shots convey a

Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov are among the most identifiable names in early Soviet film. Their contributions to film, in the areas of montage and documentary film respectively, have helped to structure film, as we know it today. However, apart from their theoretical contributions to the field, both directors played an imperative role in Soviet film during the 1920s and 1930s. This paper examines historical revisionism within their film, how their theories of montage influenced the revisionism, and how they were persistent in the use montage throughout their careers as filmmakers to assert themselves as artists.

The parallels between the theme of the film and rising fears of communism and related topics of concern during that time are captivating. Communism was an ideology originating in the Soviet Union with the ideas of establishing a

In the presented essay I will compare the style of work of selected artists in the montage of the film. I will try to point out some general regularities and features of Soviet cinema. At the same time I will try to capture especially what is common in their systems and similar or conversely what differ. For my analysis, I will draw on the feature films of the Soviet avantgarde, namely these are the movies - The Battleship Potemkin (S. Eisenstein, 1925), Mother (V. Pudovkin, 1926) and The Man with a movie camera (D. Vertov, 1929).

By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.

Gunning goes on to define the cinema of attraction as “a cinema that bases itself on the quality that Leger celebrated: its ability to show something. Contrasted to the voyeuristic aspect of narrative cinema analyzed by Christian Metz, this is an exhibitionist cinema,” (Gunning, 230). It’s a cinema before narrative where the focus lied in testing the boundaries of what was possible with the medium, much like avant-garde today. It’s a cinema where narrative was always second, if even there, to the spectacle of what was possible with the medium. Lumiere’s Demolition of a Wall displays some of the possibilities of the medium quite clearly in its later half when the reel is re-winded to create the effect of the wall rebuilding itself. As Gunning reminds us, we should never forget that “in the earliest years of exhibition the cinema itself was an attraction,” (231). Cinema was defined by the machine instead of the films in this period, and thus the simple fact of being able to see moving pictures was itself astounding. Looking at Maxim Gorky’s first accounts of viewing a motion picture in his article The Kingdom of Shadows, he writes the “extraordinary impression it (cinema) creates is so unique and complex that I doubt my ability to describe it with all its nuances,” (Gorky 7). The people of the

Theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin claims that narrative films are mainly a “product of construction” and cautious compilations of “selections of images that have been shot” (Renée).

The concept of contrasting social class is manipulated using innovative cinematic techniques, including non-diegetic sound, mise-en-scène, bright lighting and various camera techniques and angles. The scene instigates with calm and composed music being played during the beginning of the

Article Three – Author: David Bordwell / Title of Article: The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film

The evaluation of a film assigns some form of value to a film and the experience you encountered while watching the film. Evaluation can imply the criteria and standards that you can argue about to place value on a film. Thus, giving people a reason to question a film to develop reasons, make such standards are met and to understand the film. These standards can stem from the classical evaluation and pluralistic-category method which has given viewers a blueprint of how you should properly evaluate a film. There are certain ways that you can go about judging a films effectiveness. For instance, the classical evaluation method imposes the use of cinematicity within three concepts that all films should have. Like medium specificity, cinematicity allows film to distinguish itself from theatre with the use of close-ups, camera movement, etc.; thus, creates a universal structure for critics to judge a film. This is based on the creative style of the director and how much the viewers admire the way the has stuck with its cinematicity. However, the pluralistic-category does not base its evaluation on style and opinion. In all, these types of evaluations are used in different ways which will be further explained throughout this essay.