Characteristic of Soviet Montage

1. Montage editing


Montage editing is emphasizes dynamic and discontinuous relationship in between two different shot. This editing style was developed by the Soviet filmmaker of the 1920s such as Pudovkin, Vertov and Eisenstein. In montage editing, juxtaposition is apply in the film to present the compress narrative film. Juxtaposition is refers to two different shots that have been joined together to make a contrast. Montage editing is classified into five categories:

(a) Metric montage - In metric montage, the shots are joined together according to their absolute lengths of the pieces, in a formula-scheme corresponding to a measure of music

(b) Rhythm montage - It is determining the lengths of the pieces, the content within the frame is a factor possessing equal rights to consideration. Abstract determination of the piece-lengths gives way to a flexible relationship of the actual lengths. It is movement within the frame that impels the montage movement from frame to frame. Such movements within the frame may be of objects in motion, or of the spectator's eye directed along the lines of some immobile object.

(c) Tonal montage - The movement is perceived in a wider sense. The concept of movement embraces all affects of the montage piece. Here montage is based on the characteristic emotional sound of the piece-of its dominant. The general tone of the piece. Besides, working with combinations of varying degrees of soft-focus or varying degrees of "shrillness" would be

a typical use of tonal montage.

(d) Overtonal montage - Intellectual montage is montage not of generally physiological overtonal sounds, but of sounds and overtones of an intellectual sort: i.e., conflict-juxtaposition of accompanying intellectual affects.

(e) Intellectual montage - The intellectual montage will be that which resolves the conflict-juxtaposition of the physiological and intellectual overtones. By using intellectual montage which puts ideas together (A + B = C)

The best example to explain all kind of montage is from the film of Battleship Potemkin, a silent film directed by Sergei Eisensten. This is a most influential films ever made as well as one of the finest examples of film art.

*Silent film: The ideal of silent film begins because during that period great portions of the masses were illiterate and spoke in different dialects.


-->  All five types of montage may be found in Potemkin's Odessa Steps sequence in which Tsarist soldiers massacre Odessa citizens who are sympathetic to the Potemkin mutineers.

(a) Metric montage

Metric montage is explaining increase in editing tempo to intensify audience excitement during the massacre. Metric montage happens when editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. 

Here, we do have a modern metric montage example: The Muppets, 2011 directed by James Bobin The Muppets, 2011 directed by James Bobin. 




Although the editing tempo and rhythm of the music in this montage scene is not fast as Potemkin (refer above). But this scene also had elicited the audience's emotion that follow the character rushing go somewhere.

(b) Rhythmic montage: Occurs in the conflict between the steady marching of the soldiers and the editing rhythm, which is out of synchronization with the marching, as well as the chaotic scrambling of the fleeing crowd, and the rolling movement of a runaway baby carriage. 

--> Example of Rhythmic Montage in The Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein 1925

(c) Tonal montage:  The many conflicts of planes, masses, light and shadow, and intersecting lines, as in the shot depicting a row of soldiers pointing their rifles down at a mother and her son, the soldiers' shadows cutting transversely across the steps and the helpless pair 

(d) Overtonal montage: Can be detected in the Odessa Steps sequence in the development of the editing along simultaneous metric, rhythmic, and tonal lines—the increase in editing tempo, the conflict between editing and movement within the frame, and the juxtapositions of light and shadow, intersecting lines, etc.

"Ghostbusters" a film in 1984 shows our heroes around town, at home, and driving their hearse-like Ecto-Mobilemontage with effects (split-screens showing newspaper cover stories), tonal style (an alarm bell emote busy and rushing). And shot of interviews with the Ghostbusters who all seem pretty blazé, which provides a stark contrast with the media mayhem. 



(e) Intellectual montage : 

At the end of the sequence, after the Potemkin has responded to the massacre by firing on the Tsarist headquarters in Odessa. Three shots of marble lions—the first is sleeping, the second waking, and the third rising— seen in rapid succession give the impression of a single lion rising to its feet, a metaphor for the rebellion of the Russian masses against Tsarist oppression.

This montage is grab from the film "Requiem for a Dream", year 2000 directed by Darren Aronofsky. This montage using intellectual technique by showing close up shots of the medicine needle, eye, mouth, tablet, the blood vessel, white powder, lighter and more to elicit an intellectual meaning of the action drug addiction.






There are plenty of soviet montage film, because it allows delivering information and time passage in a visual and economical way. Here's one of the example: 

The Untouchables (1987)

In the Untouchables, director Brian De Palma uses a key image of the Odessa Steps sequence – a baby carriage hurtling down the steps – as the center- piece of the film’s climatic shoot out between the FBI and the gangsters. This 8-minute suspense sequence using slow motion, high and low camera angles, tracking camera movements, close-ups of faces juxtaposed with long shots of the entire scene, etc. It is a brilliant illustration of how the technique of editing can manipulate time.




Additional Info:


> The dramatic impact of Soviet Montage broke all the rules of the smooth, invisible editing of the Classical Hollywood Style. 

> According to the statistical analysis of Soviet films, the use of Montage technique in Soviet films contains many more shots compare to Hollywood films of the same period. David Bordwell (1986) claims that the Soviet films of the 1920s contain on average between 600 and 2000 shits, whereas the films made in Hollywood between 1917 and 1928 contain on average between 500 and 1000 shots. He further suggests that Hollywood films had an average shots length of 5 to 6 seconds while for Soviet films the average shot length was 2 to 4 seconds. The comparison provides concrete evidence of the unique nature of the editing used in the Soviet films in this period. Ian Aitken. (2002).European film theory and cinema: a critical introduction

2.  Individual heroes are replaced by a mass of people. 

-- > In soviet montage, director will use non-actors to play key part. Eisenstein explained the reason why he preferred to use non-actors is because "A 30 year old actor may be called upon to play an old man of 60. He may have a few days' or a few hours' rehearsal. But an old man will have had 60 years' rehearsal." Therefore, selected a non-actor to play a role is the correct physical type for the part. Although actors don’t have central characters, but it is made clear that these characters are representative of the masses.

3. Heavily on the uses the close-up angle

--> This is because Eisenstein believes that juxtaposition shots with high visual contrast may create conflict to audience. For example, in Battlleship Potemkin film, an extreme long shot of fleeing crowds cuts immediately to an extreme close–up of the legs of a man about to fall down the steps.



4. Do not portray negative side of the Soviet Social Reality

--> Soviet film-makers were strongly encouraged not to depict contemporary Soviet social reality in a negative or equivocal manner and such depictions emerge were often publically condemned as evidence of “bourgeois idealism”, “formalism or “counter-revolutionary pessimism”

5. Using orchestrate elaborate structures of shots into overall montage patterns

--> The rhythm of music can control the style of the montage present.  Music also able to control emotional shifts within a scene.

6. Using principles of contrast and counterpoint to introduce a degree of temporo-spatial fragmentation

-->  Temporo-spatial is the amount allocation of time and space occupied in the frame by certain objects in certain frames. The shots need to arrange in order sequences or mainstream narratives so that will make audiences easy to follow. For example, when we wanted show a scene of a couple is arguing, we may use a cup of water and a spoon in the cup as a contrast to the couple, as the spoon stir the water faster means the arguing is stronger. 

7. Soviet montage cinema plays a pedagogic role within the perspective formation and advancement of communist ideology 

--> After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 the new Soviet government assumed control of the film industry, denounced the capitalist cinema of pre-Revolution Tsarist Russia, and decreed that the Soviet cinema was to be used for education and propaganda—to indoctrinate the Russian masses and to promote class-consciousness throughout the world. 


*pedagogic:  the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods

*temporo-spatial: relating to, or occurring in both time and space


Sources: 

Clyde Kelly Dunagan. (n.d.). Bronenosets Potemkin. Retrieved from http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Bo-Ca/Bronenosets-Potemkin.html#b

Dre. (n.d.). The muppets. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1204342/

Greg Bole. (n.d.). Ghostbusters. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087332/

Ian Aitken. (2001). European film theory and cinema: a critical introduction. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.my/books?id=95hztKqwDxEC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=Soviet+montage+cinema+highly+composed,+vibrant+and+elaborate+pictorial+compositions&source=bl&ots=qSchJDJVwh&sig=6txgwnK4fOM-8bY7cAL-6fRZiZI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Q15-T8iuL8yGrAeDloDuBQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Soviet%20montage%20cinema%20highly%20composed%2C%20vibrant%20and%20elaborate%20pictorial%20compositions&f=falsee+pictorial+compositions&source=bl&ots=qSchJDJVwh&sig=6txgwnK4fOM-8bY7cAL-6fRZiZI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Q15-T8iuL8yGrAeDloDuBQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Soviet%20montage%20cinema%20highly%20composed%2C%20vibrant%20and%20elaborate%20pictorial%20compositions&f=falseJames Thompson. (2012, March 4). Notes on sergei eisenstein [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://greenskyatnight.wordpress.com/tag/soviet-montage/

Marko. (2011, December 18). The difference between Hollywood realism and Soviet montage. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://markoleosk.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/the-difference-between-hollywood-realism-and-soviet-montage/the-difference-between-hollywood-realism-and-soviet-montage/

James Thompson. (2012, March 4). Notes on sergei eisenstein [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://greenskyatnight.wordpress.com/tag/soviet-montage/

Jeff Mellinger. (n.d.). Requiem for a dream. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/ 

Top 10: movie montages. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://au.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment_250/261_top_10_list.html