If you’re a film buff or even bear a light love for movies, you must have heard about montage. It is quite a popular term. This article gives a brief overview of the Soviet Montage theory movement that revolutionized cinema in a new and lasting way.
The Soviet Montage movement emerged after the Russian revolution of 1917. The new Soviet government saw the potential of cinema as one of the most powerful ways that could be used as a political tool to spread their revolutionary ideas. Lenin considered cinema as “the most important form of art” necessary for the state to convey messages and connect with the common people. The government encouraged the filmmakers to try innovative, experimental techniques, which eventually led to the emergence of the Soviet Montage theory. This is the movement that transformed the landscape of film editing around the world. It was not just a new way of filmmaking or a political experiment; it became a new grammar for cinema itself.
The new Russian regime quickly moved to centralize the industry, forming Narkompros, a state-run film office, and founding VGIK, the world’s first film school.
The only problem they faced was that they had little to no raw film stock. So the Soviets did something radical. They studied movies in their film school and dissected them. They sliced up imported reels, separated shot lengths, angles, rhythms, and, most essentially, the cut. From this experimental frenzy emerged a theory that would transform film editing from invisible sleight of hand into a conscious form of art: Soviet Montage.
Montage became more than editing; it became a collision:
For Soviet filmmakers, montage was much more than editing. It was the art of colliding images to produce new meaning.
Lev Kuleshov, a founding teacher at VGIK, put this theory to the test for the first time.
He took a static shot of a man’s face and intercut it with three separate images: a bowl of soup, a dead child in a coffin, and a reclining woman on a couch. The interconnected shots were able to influence the viewer’s interpretation differently for each scene. It became known as the Kuleshov Effect. This overarching film theory became famous as montage.
Kuleshov’s theory inspired his contemporary moviemakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. Together these filmmakers researched and explored how time and space can be presented on film with help of montage theory. Kuleshov’s theory started to become a common tool for filmmakers worldwide.
The Luminaries of Montage Theory
Sergei Eisenstein: The Maestro of Montage
One of the most influential Soviet Montage filmmakers was Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein’s early films, each one a blend of form and ideology, stand as roadmaps of montage theory in action.
Eisenstein’s second feature film, Battleship Potemkin (1925), rose him to his international glory and gifted the cinema world its very first blueprint of implementing the montage theories in films.
In Battleship Potemkin (1925), the legendary filmmaker reaches cinematic excellence with the famous Odessa Steps sequence, where a baby carriage tumbles down stone steps amid boots, gunfire, and chaos, invoking horror through rhythm and juxtaposition.
Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera
Dziga Vertov was a filmmaker who preferred capturing life as it was. He used a camera to film the world objectively and piece it together into something more meaningful. His ground-breaking film of 1929, Man with a Movie Camera, depicted a vibrant, vivid picture of Soviet urban life. Edited with rhythmic precision, his film turned everyday scenes, workers, machines, and busy city streets into a dynamic, visual symphony.
Vsevolod Pudov: Emotional
Vsevolod Pudovkin used montage to create emotional depth in his movies. For him, montage was a splendid way to invoke empathy and feelings in the viewers. His film Mother (1926) depicts the story of a woman’s revolutionary awakening through carefully structured sequences that emphasize mood and transformation. Pudovkin’s style of using the cut was lyrical, and he connected them in a way to stir the heart of the audience.
The Five Types of Montage
Soviet Montage developed a treasure chest of editing styles, each with its own psychological impact:
- Intellectual Montage: Kuleshov used this type of montage. This technique of editing combines contrasting ideas, evoking different emotions each time.
- Metric Montage: Commonly used in music videos, clips in metric montages are cut at fixed intervals, regardless of action and in sync with the beat.
- Rhythmic Montage: Cuts follow visual or auditory rhythm. It coordinates the actions to the rhythm of music.
- Tonal Montage: Tonal montage uses two or more shots that align emotionally or thematically.
- Overtonal Montage: It’s a type of montage that blends all of the above, creating layered meaning and mood.
A legacy that still persists:
It’s been more than a century, and the legacy of Soviet Montage theory still remains brazen in the heart of filmmaking. Its revolutionary, sharp, deliberate cuts are still found everywhere from music videos and ads to blockbuster fight scenes. Begun as a tool of political agenda, this movement has now become a universal cinematic language. The legacy persists, frame by frame.
The credits roll here, but the story’s just beginning.
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