Montage TheoryAnd Russian Film

Pudovkin (a Russian film director) once said: “In every art there must be first a material, and secondly, a method of composing this material specifically adapted to this art…” The true art, according to Lev Kuleshov comes from putting together the film after it has been planned and filmed. A film edited together differently will have a different result.

Russian Film School

0 In Moscow in1919, the government founded a film school called Moscow Film School or VGIK. It was meant to train actors and technicians for the cinema, of course.

0 It’s the most respected and first of its kind in the world.

0The main purpose the government had in making it is to have filmmakers to make propaganda (agitprop) and newsreels or agitki.

Lev Kuleshov and the Kuleshov Effect

0 He helped establish the Moscow Film School and worked there.0 The Kuleshov Workshop: focused on editing. In 1919 his goal was to

discover the laws by which film communicates meaning to an audience.0 Part of the Workshop involved using prints of the film Intolerance and

watching it over and over again. They even cut up the film and re-edited it in different ways to see if there were different meanings. (They also didn’t have money for film stock.)

0 They figured out:  1) Shot itself has meaning    2) The meaning it acquires when combined with other shots is important 0 You could create metaphors and meanings through montage.http://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?v=_gGl3LJ7vHc

Dziga Vertov

0Dziga Vertov’s Theory: the movement between shots is most important. He mostly made documentary and other films.

0He started as a cameraman and started experimenting with the way a film is put together to see if the meaning changes.

0He made documentaries but he experimented with reality and did not really have stories.

0His doctrine is called kino-glaz or cinema eye.

Vertov Continued0  Kino-glaz continued: the purpose is to reveal the truth of everyday experiences. 0 Can put shots together into a meaningful whole (montage: the process of

organizing shots or sequences of film)    0 Three Phases: 1. montage evaluation-select theme by observations 2.montage synthesis-scout locations, plan shots 3. montage-editing by organizing shots with overall themeHis other Theories:0 Ultimately, making you uncomfortable was also good. Taking a look at things in an

unfamiliar way.0 Also he thought that human vision is flawed. The camera can slow down/ speed up

and zoom in/out and such so he uses the term camera-eye to talk about the camera’s eye.

0 Dziga Vertov (1929)- Vertov tried to liberate cinema from theater/literature. Comments on politics-showing poverty, industrialization- compares people with machines. He likes to be self-reflexive and have cameras in shots.

Sergei Eisenstein’s Theory

0 Sergei Eisenstein: Father of montage 0 His theory was that the content of shots was most important.

They must have conflict. And there’s more conflict by putting shots together. (How is this different from Vertov?)

0 Eisenstein: A+B=X    vs. A=B=AB Euro/U.S.0 The Psychological school (of thought)- Russian films focused on

emotional/psychological conflicts of characters mostly through acting style

0 Dialectical montage-conflict between 2 forces "the collision of independent shots”

0 Elliptical editing/cutting: rapid cutting has meaning so shots are brief but there are more shots

The Films

0 Sergei Eisenstein made: The Battleship Potemkin. He makes political movies mostly. No one main character; it’s a group film. It was made in 1925 but takes place in 1905 when sailors rebel against their officers alongside the Russian Revolution. Based on some true events.

0 Dziga Vertov made: Man with a Movie Camera in 1929. It shows poverty, class, and life in Russia at the time. It has no story and is considered an avant-garde film. It’s a film about a film and he compares people to machines in it.

0 Russian film in general: they had an insistence on sad/tragic endings but they would have a happy ending if they were exporting it to another country.