11/28/2023 0 Comments Collision montage definitionThe Soviet pioneers, along with other filmmakers such as David Mamet and Alfred Hitchcock had convinced me of this. I even went as far as to say that the very definition of a movie is two images cut together to give a third meaning. Another example would be the intercutting of a soldier’s murder with the slaughtering of a water buffalo in “Apocalypse Now” (idea: the soldier’s life must be sacrificed for the war just as the buffalo must be sacrificed for the tribe), or the cut from Lenny Bruce’s courtroom plea to an image of his dead body at the climax of “Lenny” (idea: the court killed Lenny when they censored him).Įver since learning about Soviet Montage Theory, I have been a huge believer in it. The most famous use of this method may also be the single most famous cut in cinema history: when the ape throws up a bone in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, then cutting to a bone-shaped spacecraft in the distant future (idea: the dawn of man). This method is the END ALL, BE ALL of Soviet Montage Theory – cutting two images together to create a third meaning. Intellectual: When done correctly, Intellectual Montage might be the most exciting form of cutting. Yes, there are beats (metric), there are scenes (rhythmic) and there are sequences (tonal), but put them all together and you have your Spine (overtonal).ĥ. ![]() A writing analogy would probably be the “Spine” of a story. It took me a while to understand the difference between Overtonal and Tonal, and I’m not sure I fully get it yet, but I believe Overtonal Montage simply stands for the feeling the viewer has after watching the film. Overtonal: Combining Metric, Rhythmic and Tonal cutting together creates Overtonal Montage. Two shots with two tones cut together to create a third tone/meaning.Ĥ. Imagine a scene in which you cut between a loud, crazy party on the first floor of a house and the quiet, secluded loneliness of a boy in his room upstairs. But the idea here is that you can create a stronger meaning by cutting images together with the same or conflicting tones. At first, this method may seem to fly in the face of Soviet Montage Theory, given that it acknowledges the possibility of individual meaning within the shot, outside of the cut. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation. Tonal: Cutting based on the emotional meaning of the shots – not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmic characteristics - to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. Watch Lee Van Cleef’s fingers inch closer and closer to his gun, dictating a cut back to Eastwood’s reacting eyes.ģ. Watch Clint Eastwood’s eyes move back and forth, dictating where the shot cuts to next. The most famous use of Rhythmic Montage is the climax to “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly”. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds). ![]() Here, movement takes precedence over length. It’s about how the movement in one image affects the movement of the next. Rhythmic: Cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots - along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts - to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. Metric: Basic cutting from one moment to the next (based purely on the physical nature of time) no matter what is happening in the image.Ģ. While Kuleshov, Pudovkin and Vertov put forth explanations of what constitutes the montage effect, Eisenstein’s view that “montage is an idea that arises from the collision of independent shots” wherein “each sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of the other” has become most widely accepted.Īccording to Eisenstein, there are five METHODS OF MONTAGE.ġ. These four pioneers founded an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing which we call Soviet Montage Theory. Among these minds were Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov. While Sergei Eisenstein is the most remembered today, it’s important not to forget that he was but one member of an entire movement in world cinema history that took place in the USSR from 1910 to the mid-1930s. I have recently been studying the works of the early Soviet film pioneers and their respective texts.
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