Monday, January 28, 2013
The Politics of Soviet Montage
Eisenstein believed that by juxtaposing disparate images in his editing process he could awake the masses from their ideological slumber and engage them to work for a progressive society. Recall the Odessa Steps sequence. The various jump cuts of horror and outrage are supposed to mobilize us to work to prevent such abuses in the future. How realistic is this theory? Does the technique of montage engage us emotionally? Does it mobilize us to action? Or perhaps could it lead to other reactions? Consider, for example, the montage a viewer may assemble by clicking various channels on one's television. Or consider a similar editing for an action or war movie. Or consider an even more radical application of this process (with images without any logical relation). Is montage always connected to radical politics or can it be used for other purposes?
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Battleship Potemkin moved me. I was emotional during that Odessa Steps scene, watching the mother and her sadness juxtaposed with the unfeeling army, shooting blindly at anyone and everyone in its path. The back and forth between the two sides, along with other shots of people watching the situation unfold, brought me in to the scene. It almost felt like I was watching what was happening in real time.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the way Eisenstein edited moved people emotionally. The Odessa Steps montage was successful in making viewers emotional. I equate this idea to seeing a commercial asking for donations. Usually, people change the channel during commercials, but the montage of jump cuts and sad stories are successful at keeping viewers emotionally interested. Those stories make a viewer more curious about that cause and direct their thoughts away from what is actually on screen, but what they just saw. Viewers want to know what is going to happen based on what they saw, so they must continue to pay attention to what they are watching. They become emotionally interested and vested in the scene.
One example I think of is the commercial for the ASPCA, when they show the abused pets for a few seconds apiece and then ask viewers to donate. The first part of the commercial draws a viewer in with the videos of abused and sad pets, and the “aww” moments continue throughout the commercial before the ASPCA asks for donations. Forcing a viewer to focus and think about an image they just saw is the main goal for these montages, both in sad commercials and in Battleship Potemkin.
While the montages used by Eisenstein in Battleship Potemkin may be intended to inspire viewers to take action against oppressive governments, I think the use of the device in film has a far more fundamental purpose: to create confusion. Even in Potemkin, that is a definite result of the various montages. The Odessa Steps sequence is not only moving but (and this is arguably an intensifier of the previous attribute) incredibly disorienting. People running down the steps at all wild angles, the soldiers methodically following them, the mother carrying her son’s body, the old woman with glasses; these are only some of the numerous images and threads that fly by in rapid succession during the crazy montage. As we, the viewer, try to determine where each of these figures are and how they fit together, we ourselves are transported into the chaos of the moment, perhaps feeling at least a little of the sensation of being there. Over the years, countless other movies have used a similar approach to throw audiences into the heat of the action. Especially in war movies which attempt to demonstrate the commotion of the battlefield, sequences of fast-moving unconnected images and brief clips are rather common. Examples of such use of the montage include, among others, All Quiet on the Western Front, Platoon, Glory, and Saving Private Ryan. A similar application of the montage is found in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, where quick cuts between shots of the bomb removal squad and the buildings and Iraqi citizens around them massively heighten the tension, increasing the feeling that danger could emerge from any direction. A situation that bears some similarities to these appears in Fellini’s 8 ½, in which the montage is used to show Guido’s feeling of being trapped in an oppressive world. At his press conference, reporters asking him questions and, eventually, laughing at him, are shown at a very quick rate, creating a swell of individuals surrounding Guido to the point where, even as an audience member sitting comfortably, it feels hard to escape. For a filmmaker, one of the best ways to create that sense of disorientation is through a montage.
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Another important use of the montage in cinema is to emphasize a point. If a director wants to make it clear to audiences that a character is seriously focused on some action or a large mass of characters are coming together for some reason, showing the action done once or just by one character is hardly enough to prove the point. For example, in Battleship Potemkin, at Vakulinchuk’s funeral, the crowd is driven into a frenzy by the speakers, vowing to aid the mutinous sailors against the Tsarist regime. Eisenstein understands that simply showing one or two angry individuals is not enough to highlight the whole throng’s anger. Instead he creates a montage of fists being shaken and held up in the air, hand after hand in a rapid series of short takes. While this montage is also a little disorienting, its purpose is more to demonstrate the sprawl of the movement and its dramatic spread. Numerous filmmakers since Eisenstein have used montages to this effect, adding support to an idea. For example, in Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump, when Forrest runs across the country and back, gaining a huge crowd of followers on the way, there is not merely one take of him running. Instead, the viewer is dazzled by a flood of images of beautiful natural tableaus across the country, each one featuring a clearly visible Forrest running in front of them with his steadily growing following. In this way Zemeckis takes the viewer on Forrest’s massive journey without having to bring them the whole way and emphasizes the swift growth in his entourage. Similarly, one of the most dramatic sequences in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is the montage of beacons being lit across Middle Earth to call the kingdoms to join the fight against evil. Various giant snow-capped peaks, each one more gorgeous than its predecessor, are seen, and quickly a little fire begins to burn on top of each. The viewer flies hundreds of miles across the land in only the span of seconds, but, thanks to the montage, the journey feels fluid and complete. Finally, no discussion of the montage would be complete without mentioning perhaps American cinema’s most famous example: John G. Avildsen’s Rocky. In the epic training montage, Rocky prepares for his climactic fight against superstar Apollo Creed by countless methods – punching, running, jumping rope, lifting weights, and then doing it all again and again. As the movie’s inspiration theme song plays, Rocky runs up the massive staircase of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Odessa Steps sequence reference, anyone?) and, with brief images of his other activities flashing as well, ultimately reaches the top and lifts his arms in the air in triumph. This montage makes its point very clear: Rocky has been working his hardest and is in his fight to win it. Far more cheerful than the confusing war montages mentioned earlier, this is another now-common (in large part thanks to Rocky’s success) use of the device. Indeed, there are arguably few movies that do not use it in some capacity, making the importance of Battleship Potemkin all the more apparent.
DeleteWhile Eisenstein's goal of political awareness and sensitivity to the oppressiveness of totalitarianism may or may not have been fully realized in Battleship Potemkin, the art of cinematic montage certainly has a unique way of engaging the viewer. Contemporary montage, with its confluence of different camera angles and subject matter, has a very recognizable quality that can be observed most easily in music videos. Montage is usually associated with rapid cuts and is often used to juxtapose a scene, setting, or simple storyline, with random bold images that contribute to the mood of the piece. Mood is an important element or goal of music and it is no coincidence that most music videos aim to achieve a mood through montage. Shots of band members wailing on their guitars are combined with extreme close-ups of red lips, which are connected with shots of buildings on fire at night, which are connected with shots of complex forests which are connected with low angle shots of random people running as fast as they can. These images create a mood of tension and excitement, engaging the viewer. Mood then leads the viewer towards emotion (if done successfully). A music video can make a person feel exuberant or rebellious or shocked. At the very least, montage makes the viewer feel alert and poised. Montage has the ability to give the viewer a heightened sensitivity towards things because montage is all about the barrage of stimuli.
ReplyDeleteI believe Eisenstein accomplishes his goal of political awakening to the extent that Battleship Potemkin makes the viewer tense and engaged. In the Odessa Steps scene, becomes swept up in the motion and commotion of the scene. There are tons of simultaneous actions and situations that the viewer only gets a fleeting glimpse of. There are people running down the stairs, people jumping over bodies, soldiers on horseback chasing people down the street, and people holder their heads and crying. It is all very flustering if not emotionally engaging. I think Eisenstein might even have been able to go further with the montage effect by significantly shortening the cuts. In scenes like the opening to Saving Private Ryan, the rapid cuts, frequent close-up explosions, and sporadic camera movement create a montage effect that (I believe) far surpasses Battleship Potemkin in agitating and engaging the viewer. As Russell said, montage produces chaos. The quicker and more obscure the stimuli, the more the brain has to work to decipher and piece together what is going on in the film. Thus, the more sensitive and reactive the mind becomes. On the flip side, the mind also becomes less reflective in acknowledging the importance of what is happening on screen. With so much going on, it becomes hard to sympathize with or care about the people caught up in the action. This is where montage fails Eisenstein in his quest for political awakening. While the viewers might very well be awakening, they're not quite getting the powerful insight that Eisenstein intended. While in the Odessa steps sequence the Tzar's soldiers clearly come off as evil mechanized automatons, we are more likely to leave in a state of fear and agitation rather than resolute in the support of socialist ideals. Then again, I am not watching the scene in the context of early 19th century communist Russia, where the scene must surely have a different political stigma. Even so, montage is most effective at getting the viewer amused and riled up.
While Eisenstein believed the juxtaposing of disparate images awakened the masses from their ideological slumber and engaged them in the film; I believe he also used this editing process to reiterate his point thoroughly throughout each sequence and therefore creating an emotional experience for the viewer. Reminiscing back to the Odessa Steps sequence, Eisenstein’s various jump cuts, created to help mobilize the effort to prevent such abuses in the future, strikes me as being considerably realistic. In my opinion, the Odessa Steps sequence was the most striking and alluring scene in Battleship Potemkin because of the numerous film splices. For every action there is an equal reaction corresponding to the film’s splices during the action of the movie. Even though Eisenstein is violating the rules of continuity editing, with this new, very abrupt, “discontinuity”, he creates a new image with film that no one has seen before. Montage, also called creative editing, is seen throughout Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin as it distorts the viewers place in time and, in a way, lacks in giving out information such as what event is occurring when. The Odessa Steps sequence is a prime example of the montage used throughout the film. With each splice jumping from one person to the next, and each with different locations and places in time, the scene is a chaotic run of events. While the propaganda and connection to radical politics is key for the use of montage in Battleship Potemkin, it does not always have to be the only place for it to be used.
ReplyDeleteIn numerous other films, I believe montage can contribute to rising action and dramatic scenes very well. After watching The General, I feel that montage would have been received well in that film. The splices could have been used between chase scenes between the Union and Confederate armies, causing the dramatic irony in the movie to be cast as a broader, more incorporated theme. There are many more movies that I feel montage could easily be cast in because of the way the scenes could be divided up. All in all Eisenstein’s ability to use montage and discontinuity have proven to be useful in the “awakening” factor of his films. This fulfills his theory that montage engages the viewer through emotional and sporadic events.
Montage doesn't have to always be connected with radical politics, but it was created by radicals. The montage shot could be used successfully by any filmmaker regardless of views who is trying to build up a tense or dramatic scene. The camera can flash between several different shots, which builds up the pressure in the scene. One of the reasons Eisenstein and the Soviets did it was to show various groups of people belonging to the masses who were being beat down by the Czar's oppression. The camera cuts between shots of the Czar's soldiers methodically advancing down the hill, and various groups of the people of Odessa who are facing the danger. The advantage to this is that there is no specific hero to the film, everything is put in the context of the people as a whole. This fits perfectly into Soviet ideology. One of the main goals of Marxists is to destroy individualism, independence, and self-sufficiency within a person and a family, so that the state can move in and provide for them, while at the same time, taking control of their lives and society. This is why Soviet montage works in this film. The message of the film is Communist, and with montage, the form of the film is also suited for communism because it depicts all the people together, not individual characters and heroes.
ReplyDeleteI never like to be the one to harp on a topic that has already been thoroughly discussed, but I would like to attempt at approaching the use of montage from a somewhat different angle. While watching Battleship Potemkin, I could not help but notice Eisenstein’s use of the music of Dimitri Shostakovich—particularly the Fifth Symphony during the battleship scene and the Odessa step scene. As we converse about the possible motives and effects behind the montage technique—and its prevalence in music videos--I think it would be wise to consider how Shostakovich’s music may clear up questions of possible motivations. As far as the original post is concerned, I am inclined to see Eisenstein’s montage technique as he saw it; a new artistic and subliminal approach to the juxtaposition of different and random perspectives and angles in an attempt to forge a new foundation for political unrest.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the use of Shostakovich’s fifth symphony is an apt example of what Geiger and Rutsky--in their Norton Reader Film Analysis Textbook—a “film of retroactive fulfillment” (164). What they mean by this is that Eisenstein, in Battleship Potemkin, presents a historical context through the lens of a political revolutionary. Shostakovich, in my view, aimed for a similar goal in composing the fifth symphony. After receiving Stalinist rejection for earlier works, he subtitled the symphony, "A Soviet Artist's Response to Just Criticism,” (Greene--Biographical Dictionary of Composers) and this is the first indicator of a political shadow. Throughout the piece, Shostakovich juxtaposes traditional Russian melodies, allusions to Tsarist music of praise and references to the Russian Orthodox Church with moments of irony and discord (not to mention the fact that he wrote the piece in the symphonic style associated with Beethoven as opposed to the Russian nationalist style). One could look closely and illustrate this phenomenon in all movements of the symphony, but the two most relevant to Potemkin in my opinion, are the ironic waltz of the second movement and the lament of the third. In the waltz, when the sailors aboard the Potemkin are awakening to the Tsarist abuse (act II?), we hear a traditional Russian melody with a minor twist slapped on top. This adds to the effect of highlighting the sheer backwardness of the regime’s plundering and also complements the scene’s pace well. As the Odessa step scene arrives, it is no surprise that Eisenstein chooses Shostakovich’s heart-wrenching requiem to heighten the tension of the mother inching against the grain of the crowd to pick up her trampled son and face the line of shadowed soldiers. The piece reaches a shrieking climax just as the screen shots jut back and forth between soldiers and random characters caught in the frenzy.
In short, I think both Shostakovich and Eisenstein (they actually worked on other films together too, I think) were on the same page when it comes to the effect of stark juxtaposition and the political implications that can arise out of such extreme and stark transitions—both in music and in film. Both artists not only use these techniques to glue together the comparison of two extreme ideas (revolution and nationalism) but also seemed to end their works on a positive note (Shostakovich with a heroic, yet somewhat strained ending) as a sort of nod to the future.
Eisenstein tried to mimic the techniques of Marx and Hagel by visual taking them through the process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. He copied their idea of coming to a conclusion by means of conflict, and created Soviet Montage. This film technique uses multiple jump cuts and creates a story that’s meaning is completely wrapped up in the meaning of the shots. Watching these films is supposed to have some sort of subconscious effect that inspires us to take action. When viewing films like these, such as the Odessa Steps sequence, it is almost like you’re under hypnosis. There are so many images flashing across the screen that the only reaction you can have is to stare at it, and slowly try to find the meaning in all of the seemingly random images. However, the result by the end of the film is not the brainwashing technique that Eisenstein hoped for, but complete and utter confusion. When there is no anchor that gives the viewer at least some hint as to where they are or what is occurring, the film loses its intrigue. It does not invoke emotion, or inspire action, it merely confuses. The same cannot be said for similar editing techniques used in war movies. The build up to these movies are obvious, we know the characters, the story line, the conflict. It is therefore easier to follow the sequence of events as they transpire and the result is an emotional one due to a connection with the characters that had been previously established. The Odessa Steps scene does not have the same effect.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe this theory is very realistic because the uses of jump cuts prevent background knowledge from being explained. If the sole purpose of Soviet Montage was to “mobilize us to work to prevent such abuses in the future”, the way in which it was filmed doesn’t work towards that goal. The images being shown in the short scene we watched were jarring but there was no context; as an audience we don’t know why the characters are where they are, we don’t know where each person are located in relationship to each other, and we don’t know where they are in relationship to the soldiers. To some, these could be key pieces of information when deciding whether or not to go into action. For me, I feel many emotions at once when watching Soviet Montage. Certain sequences of images create a very confusing feeling and cause me to wonder what they have in common or what they add to the greater meaning of the film. Some interpretations of Soviet Montage have zero logical relationship between images and those films don’t have to be related to politics. Some films could be used for other purposes, like to evoke a desired emotion or reaction. I can’t think of any great examples where Soviet Montage could be used in other ways, but I do believe it isn’t just for politics.
ReplyDeleteEisenstein’s theory about awakening the masses through soviet montage is a little ridiculous, but he is right in a way. I disagree with his idea of being able to “awake the masses . . . and engage them to work,” however; I do think that his use of soviet montage was the best way to portray the atrocities of the event. This is because no single character is made out to be the protagonist or antagonist, and the closest thing to man characters were the mother and her child that was trampled by the frantic crowd. The scene at the Odessa steps makes it clear that Czar’s soldiers are portrayed as evil, and the people of Odessa are made to be helpless civilians who are weak and unable to fight back. As Joey said, this is a communist portrayal of the two sides, as no one individual stands out or takes charge. This stands true for Czar’s soldiers as well; neither side has one definite leader. The montage also helps us get the perspective of different types of people, such as the mother as well as her son. We also see the perspective of the scattered people of Odessa, as well as Czar’s soldiers. Montages can be used for scenes that are meant to capture the audience emotionally, and also for scenes where no one individual is portrayed as a main character. While montage worked very well for this scene in particular, it can be used for much more than just radical politics.
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