Eisensteins Theory of Montage - Assignment Example

One cannot understand Eisenstein’s theories of film if one forgets the relationship his work maintained between theory and practice.’ Discuss. Introduction: Modernism, Exploration of Intellectual Perspectives in Film Making and Relevance of Eisenstein’s theory The 20th century intellectual movement, widely known as modernism, was not entirely a product of the Western socio-cultural discourse; rather foundation of the movement, to a large extent was inspired by the socio-cultural trends from different parts of the world. While artistic forms, prior to this time, were generally more concerned to represent reality in a metaphoric way and remained more focused over generating aesthetics from a sophisticated approach. Modernism emphasized representation of the truth in its original form and attempted to derive aesthetics without sacrificing the nature of the reality. The idea that a human being, while living in a social context, is not only an organic embodiment, rather diverse aspects of his entity are considerably influenced by socio-political, cultural, economic and gender discourse, have also received special attention from intellectual as well as general section of the society. Film making, as one of the most important forms of artistic representation, received special importance in this context and ample experimentations were made in this domain to provide the audience with an impression that they are actually witnessing a piece of life that they encounter in their daily course of action. However, during the course of attainment of the goal, directors provided ample importance to development of new techniques depending on diverse theories of film making so that along with visual aesthetics, the touch of realism can also be reflected in its original form. Emergence of world famous Soviet Director Sergei Eisenstein and application of his theories regarding film making can be evaluated from a new perspective as the art of film making received a fitting impetus due to these factors. Sergei Eisenstein can be observed as one of the pioneers in the context of modern artistic film making as he explicitly showed how, by maintaining balance between theory and artistic application in films, a successful creative effort can be generated. Thesis Statement: Eisenstein, throughout his career, has maintained a harmonious balance between his theory and works. Film, as he believed, should transcend the limited scope of providing aesthetic pleasure and consequently help the audience to encounter reality in its actual form: this approach has adequately been fulfilled though his creative efforts. The integral connection between his theory and its successful implementation in films is the most explicit proof in support of the observation. Factors Influencing development of theoretical foundation: Eisenstein commenced his career as a director as a recognized figure in Soviet stage performances and reached the culmination of directorial craftsmanship during the 1920s. Within the time limit of five years, he directed four films that opened a new horizon within the domain of modern film making, namely, Strike (1924), The Battleship Potemkin (1925), October (1927), and Old and New (1928). However, in the later part of his career he was recognized worldwide basically as a film theorist and teacher. Compared to the earlier part of his career, in the later half (that is: 1930-40) he only completed three films, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible and Parts I and II (Braudy, Cohen 2). The socio-political situation and hypocritical appreciation of aesthetics, especially of the Soviet political leaders in the contemporary time, are considered to be mainly responsible for his conversion to a theorist from an artist: “Eisenstein’s conversion from an artist to a theorist is to be explained in part by political realities, for his emphasis on cinematic “form” was uncongenial to his government’s official aesthetics of social realism” (Braudy, Cohen 2). The most fertile period of Eisenstein’s career ranged from 1917 to 1923 and works produced during this time span evoked “broad debate and open experimentation about the connections between art and radical politics in the Soviet Union (Goodwin 1). Such observation receives a stronger foundation as further elaboration of conflict between directorial observation and contemporary Soviet concept of socialism has been encompassed within scope of the following statement, “By the end of the 1920s there are clear hints of the divergence between Eisenstein’s creative tendencies and the political situation. Increasingly, his work came to diverge from the official party line, marking him with disfavor by the authorities” (LaValley, and Scherr 3). Though it has been argued by several critics that “his conception of montage did not easily accommodate itself to the use of synchronized dialogue” (Braudy, Cohen 2), however, the technique of conflict between shots, which he first theorized and also applied successfully in the context of film making, have been used also by successive directors as an extremely effective device to provide a comprehensive understanding the situation, which is depicted in the film, consequently evoking the subject of interest for the audience. The following elaborate passage, in context of the discussion, becomes relevant as it describes effectiveness of Eisenstein’s technique and its consequent application within the domain of film making: “Eisenstein viewed montage as a kind of collision or conflict, especially between a shot and its successor. He sees each shot as having a kind of potential energy which can display itself in purely visual terms: the direction of its movements, the volume of its shapes, the intensity of its light, and so forth. The potential energy becomes kinetic when the first shot collides with the succeeding one. The two shots can produce a conflict in their emotional content (happy versus sad), in their use of illumination (dark versus light), in their rhythms (slow versus fast), in their objects (large versus small), in their direction of movement (right versus left), in their distances (close-up versus far shot), or in any combination thereof. In his films, this conflict produced the tense, violent rhythms that became an Eisenstein trademark” (Braudy, Cohen 2). Considering the scope of film making during Eisenstein’s time, assimilation of these aspects can surely be regarded as extremely tough and unless a director has considerable understanding about cultural diversity from different social traditions, proper application of these elements could not be materialized. The relevance of Eisenstein’s theory, under this observation becomes even more relevant, as his theoretical approach not only emphasized a director’s capacity to deal with versatile subject matters to create a piece of art but also prepared a strong foundation for universalism, irrespective of the fact that a film has dealt with a particular socio-cultural and political context: “The question of how to read … film in its unfinished, fragmented, and yet expensive form is intimately tied to the shift in Eisenstein’s theoretical work” (Salazkina 3). Development of Eisenstein’s Theory: Influence of Social-Political observation and interest for different traditional traits: The art of Eisenstein’s film making finds a close association with contemporary social traditions, political movements, protest against socialism as an institution in the Soviet context and interest for modern mass movement, aimed at transforming the prevailing social scenario. Such dynamism of approach that emerged as an important reason behind developing hostility between the director and contemporary Soviet political institution, as acted as a major impetus for him to articulate his creative capacity in such a way to that his purpose to communicate with the audience and consequently provide them with reality of the ongoing situation, can be served. Film, for him, was a medium to reconstruct “the actions and events of human mind” and being essentially a form of art, he was of opinion that it should also develop conflict that would lead to “psychological sensations”, inciting an audience to ponder over reality of the situation from a neutral perspective and also excites his action in such a way so that the audience feels the urge to contribute in order to change the situation (Frampton 54). In the latter half of his career, as a film theorist, he provided his ideas with a proper, systematic and disciplined definition but in each of his works the principles as well as orientation of his theory was maintained. In this context a scene from the film Strike (1924) can be cited as an example. The scene depicts assassination of a child by a person but brutality and shock of the situation has been exposed not depicting the entire situation literally; rather, by showing slaughtering of a bull the director serves the purpose. Here lies the relevance of Eisenstein’s theory and its successful application in the context of his own film. Daniel Frampton, while reflecting over appeal and relevance of montage, has quite rightly suggested, “The filmgoer can almost do nothing except feel the meaning of the montage, can only receive the shock and feel thought. A carefully chosen pair of shots can ‘explode into a concept’ (Frampton 54). Eisenstein, like many other humanists celebrated the positives of socialism and in this context his earnest appreciation of the Marxian and Lenin’s principles regarding socialism can be cited in his works as well as in his theoretical approach. However, he never has encouraged the fact that institutions are larger than humanism. Thus, his creative efforts criticized such political and theoretical bias and in the process of such criticism he has empowered his medium, film, with creative and humanist traits from different cultural traditions only to show that no matter what political system is followed, the main purpose of all disciplines is to serve the humanity: “While he paid public homage to Marx and Lenin and was certainly committed to many of their theories, Eisenstein was not the kind of thinker who embraces a single idea or tradition which he then systematically develops. Eisenstein was interested in countless subjects and numerous theories about those subjects. … later he would apply to his own special passion film” (Andrew 42). In the quest of developing his theory and its application, accordingly, in films he derived inspiration from different cultural traditions across the globe. Starting from Western artistic influences to Eastern aesthetic essence, he incorporated diverse range of creative tends in his works and produced the charm of montage in the films. Robert Stam, while reflecting over diversity of his creative ingeniousness has correctly suggested him to be a multiculturalist and also has given an overview of the influences that led to the development of his theory: “Eisenstein’s thinking was also what would nowadays be called “multiculturalist,” in that he showed a more than exotic interest in African sculpture, Japanese kabuki, Chinese shadow plays, Hindu rasa aesthetics, and American indigenous forms, all seen, in a relatively non-primitivist manner, as germane to the foregoing of a “modern” cinema” (Stam 40). In his famous essay “The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram”, Eisenstein has clearly suggested that “Cinema is, first and foremost, montage” (Eisenstein 13) and this montage receives a fulfillment further with application of the ideogram. As a director, it was never Eisenstein’s primary concern to simply narrate an incident with the help of an individual or singular sign; rather he used ideograms in a copulative way to provide a totalitarian observation before the audience about the entire scenario. In this context, the aesthetics of Chinese writing, which he observed as basically representational, has attracted his attention. Thus, he started applying this representational technique in his films, by avoiding individual imagistic representation and provided highest importance over representation by aggregating several images and also appealing to the psyche of the audience so that an individual can logically cumulate all the scenes or shots or images and finally able to conclude what the director is actually aiming to convey. As it has been mentioned earlier that Eisenstein used film as a medium to reconstruct the actions of human mind and consequently aimed at creating a psychological sensation so that perception of the audience can be provided with adequate impetus, application of ideogram has successfully served the purpose to churn out the psychological sensation and convey the message that the director wishes to provide the audience: “As the ideogram provides a means for the laconic imprinting of an abstract concept, the same method, when transposed into literary exposition, gives rise to an identical laconism of pointed imagery (Eisenstein; Cited in Bohn 38). Cinema for Eisenstein has remained such a platform that is transformative, goes beyond the realms of aesthetic brilliance to point out the ills of social practice and shocks an audience by appealing to his consciousness; consequently, incite him to take actions against altering the prevailing condition of social existence. Thus, empowered by the knowledge from different cultural traditions across the globe, Eisenstein “privileged artistic discontinuity, seeing each part of film as part of powerful semantic construction based on principles of juxtaposition and conflict rather than organic seamlessness” (Stam 43). Conclusion: Eisenstein’s theory of montage is not only focused on providing aesthetic pleasure to the audience but consequently also deals deeply with responsibility of a film maker to make the audience aware about reality of the situation, so that he learns to look at the social affairs by going beyond the social, political or religious trivia. The director has adopted and implied the technique in his works successfully and it becomes evident from creative traits of his films that aim to shock the audience with realization about their actual existence. Individual imagistic representation has never been encouraged by the director, rather he has always been more focused on providing a totalitarian perspective to the audience so that they can judge and ponder over the situation according to their varied perspectives to interpret the film. The use of montage and ideogram in his films, have generated a copulative effect while dealing with images and consequently creates the desired psychological sensation so that the audience remains engrossed with course of the film on one hand, and on the other, he also finds himself capable enough to relate his personal existence in terms of the existing social scenario, by going beyond the apparent limitations of society, culture, political disciplines and time. Works Cited Andrew, Dudley. The major film theories: an introduction. New York: Oxford University Press US. 1976. Bohn, Willard. Modern visual poetry. Delaware: University of Delaware Press. 2001. Braudy, Leo. and Cohen, Marshall. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. 6th Ed. New York: Oxford University Press US. 2004. Frampton, Daniel. Filmosophy. London: Wallflower Press. 2006. Goodwin, James. Eisenstein, cinema, and history. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Salazkina, Masha. In excess: Sergei Eisensteins Mexico. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2009. Scherr, Barry P. and LaValley, Albert J. Eisenstein at 100: a reconsideration. North Carolina: Rutgers University Press. 2001. Stam, Robert. Film theory: an introduction. London: Wiley-Blackwell. 2000. Read More