Montage Theory: Does Film Editing Lie?

[Bala Pillai <bala@tamil.net>]

MONTAGE THEORY (also, SOVIET MONTAGE)

http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/ARHU/Depts/CompLit/cmltfac/mlifton/.rosebud/Glossary/#anchor151279

  Basically a theory which develops the proposition that it is through 
editing that film finds its greatest--and most unique--powers of 
expression. This premise is based on the dialectical relationship between 
two shots, "A" and "B",in a cut. By putting shot "A" in juxtaposition (and 
in opposition) to shot "B" the result is not a sum of the two, but a new 
idea which might be called "C". Obviously, there has to be significant 
involvement on the part of the audience to make the dialectical 
relationship effective. Thus simply put, this brief definition does not 
convey either the theoretical and artistic force nor the profound influence 
which the theory had on subsequent film making. Clearly, though, these 
theories, and the practice in film making to which they gave rise and 
through which they were developed and refined, stand at the diametric 
opposite from continuity editing. Some history: following Lenin's 
admonition that "Film is the most important of the arts", the first film 
school in the world, the USSR State School on Cinema Art, was founded 
following the Soviet victory in 1917. In charge was a young film maker by 
the name of Lev Kuleshov. Under his tutelage, a workshop for the 
development of Soviet Film makers was organized at the school. This 
workshop operated under the most severe material handicaps, principal 
amongst which was the almost total shortage of raw film stock, which 
prevented them from shooting their own footage with which to experiment. As 
a result, in order to both develop their various theories and begin to work 
with film in spite of these shortages, the members of the workshop began to 
reedit whatever existing footage they were able to forage. The subsequent 
experiments with this "found footage" led them to discoveries about the 
nature and effect of film editing which subsequently developed not only 
into whole theoretical constructs, but which theories also formed the basis 
of the films they subsequently went on to make. Among others of Kuleshov's 
other pupils were Sergei Eisenstein, and V.I. Pudovkin, both of whom became 
profound influences on the evolution of the motion picture and its 
techniques. For a more extended discussion of Montage Theory 
see_________________. For a sampling of some practical results which 
derived from the theory, a number of clips are set out below from the works 
of Eisenstein. [snipped].


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