Task 5 – Understanding Montage Theory

Montage 

 The term montage has a slightly different meaning when refereed to the following three contexts:

• French film 
• Hollywood cinema 
• Early Soviet film making  

Montage is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. The term has been used in various contexts. It was introduced to cinema primarily by Eisenstein, and early Soviet directors used it as a synonym for creative editing.In France the word ''Montage'' simply denotes cutting. The montage sequence is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create a symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory. 

The French Montage 

in the film practice 'Montage' simply means assembly/ editing.  Therefore, in French film the term simply identifies the process of editing. 

French montage is the process by which an editor takes two pieces of film of tape and combines them to emphasise their meaning. It is a method by which through two unrelated shots we may create a third and different meaning.

Hollywood style montage 

Hollywood film makers choose to include a montage to show the viewer different part of film shot. For example, the movie Rocky uses this the best as it shows part of the long period of time in a space of 2 minute. In addition, it include different aspect that's use in his training. furthermore, Hollywood montage is used to condense a long narrative sequence into a short compact sequence. For example if a film maker is trying to show a week of someone training for football, they could do this by condensing the one week of training to become a two minute sequence. 

Soviet Montage

The Soviet Montage movement started in 1924/25 and ended at 1930. During the Montage movement's existence, perhaps less than thirty films were made in the style. But the films were very powerful at that time.
In 1920, montage had different meaning, film makers started Juxtaposition* shot to create new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone. 

*Juxtaposition means placing two deliberately contrasting images next to each other.

Lev kuleshov did an experiment in around 1920. Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist matinee idol Ivan Mosjoukine was alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, a woman on a divan). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mosjoukine's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup, the girl in the coffin, or the woman on the divan, showing an expression of hunger, grief or desire, respectively. 

Sergei Eisenstein was a significant filmmaker because he showed off the Soviet Montage. His feature length film was called strike and he showed a video of the strikers and cross-cuts it to show a cattle being executed. This done this to show his audience the way in the strikers were treated.

He also compared and contrast a clip with another clip, in order to show this he created a Soviet Montage called Strike. furthermore, this is used to reveal a hidden, deeper meaning. For example A shots of a butcher slaughtering a cattle is used to suggest the Russian troops were mistreating the striking workers.