montage theories of soviet cinema presentation by chris schloemp sources:

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Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources: http://cinetext.philo.at/reports/sv.html http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ Stephen_Nottingham/cintxt1.htm

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Page 1: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema

Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema

Presentation by

Chris Schloemp

Sources:

http://cinetext.philo.at/reports/sv.html

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/cintxt1.htm

Page 2: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Soviet Cinema in the 1920s

• Vibrant film culture in the period following the Russian Revolution

• Influential developments in film theory

• Several films stand as landmarks in the history of world cinema

Page 3: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Development of Formalism

• Dominant film theory of the silent era

• Applied to a range of arts, including literature and painting

• Holds that a work’s meaning exists primarily in its form or language, rather than its content or subject

Page 4: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

The Pioneer: 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

Page 5: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

The Kuleshov Effect• Famous experiment with shot juxtapositions

• First shot: c/u of actor with neutral expression, then joined this shot to:– c/u of a bowl of soup

– c/u of a coffin with a corpse

– c/u of a little girl playing

• Test audiences praised the actor’s versatility in showing hunger, sorrow, and pride, even though the shot of the actor remained the same each time

Page 6: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

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

Page 7: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

“Art is not a mirror which reflects the historical struggle, but a weapon of that struggle”

--Dziga Vertov

Page 8: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Kino-Pravda

• 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

Page 9: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Sergei Eisenstein

• Strike (1924)

• Battleship Potemkin (1925)

• October (1927)

• The General Line (1928)

Page 10: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Theory of Intellectual Montage

• Film constructed as a series of colliding shocks or “attractions”

• Montage as a dialectical process (from Hegel: thesis vs. antithesis = synthesis)

• Meaning created by juxtaposition of shots, not the content of individual images

• Shocks created for ideological purpose

Page 11: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:
Page 12: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Example of Montage

• Strike (1924)

• Nature of the slaughter perpetrated by the Cossack army is conveyed by juxtaposing:– scenes of advancing soldiers– a bull being slaughtered– ink being spilled over a street-map of the city

being attacked

Page 13: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Sound and the Rhythm of Editing

• Sound and vision could be treated independently or used in concert

• Shots in film and phrases of music could be timed together to increase the impact of a key shot

• Rhythm of music can accent the rhythm of editing, of montage

Page 14: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

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

Page 15: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

V.I. Pudovkin

• Mother (1926)

• The End of St. Petersburg (1927)

Page 16: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Relational Editing

• 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

Page 17: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:
Page 18: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

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

Page 19: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Film as Propaganda• All Soviet filmmakers worked under a unique set

of social conditions after the Revolution of 1917

• Cinema regarded as educational tool to promote the ideals of communism

• Overtly political films: images used to illustrate history in textbooks

• Limited to one basic storyline: triumph of the people over bourgeois oppression

Page 20: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Influences from Pavlov and Freud

• Sought fusion of art and science• Pavlov’s theories about conditioned reflexes to

stimuli (the famous salivating dogs) very influential on montage theory

• Controlled series of shocks could produce predictable response

• Freud’s theories of the unconscious also helped influence the use of symbols in Soviet films

Page 21: Montage Theories of Soviet Cinema Presentation by Chris Schloemp Sources:

Lasting Impact

• Soviet cinema continues to inspire filmmakers today

• Emphasis on the process of film rather than the content of narratives seen in the work of 1960s film-makers

• Some contemporary filmmakers see the opportunities of using non-diegetic elements in montage sequences