1. Soviet Montage: What is it all about?
By Alex Mowbray
I aim on breaking down what soviet montage and montage itself really
is and how it had an effect on the Russian revolution. I will seek
ideas and techniques on the matter and compare them to the
dialectical approach to film form, in order to find any connection,
between the two readings that could help with a better understanding
of Soviet montage and its purpose.
 Eisenstein, Sergei (1999) ‘The Dialectic Approach to Film Form’
in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (eds) Film Theory and
Criticism, Oxford: Oxford UP.
Braudy and Cohen, critically break down how the dialectical approach
to film form has an effect on social standings as well as political. They
break down how it fits into Soviet montage following up with their
theory on the audience’s perception of objects onto the brain, by
presenting visual diagrams of how conflict comes into play in many
areas such as graphic conflict, volumes, spatial, lighting and even
tempo.
 Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin (2004) ‘Film Form and
Film History: Soviet Montage (1924-1930)’ in Film Art: An
Introduction – seventh edition, NY: McGraw Hill.
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson introduce the life and death of
Soviet montage that transpires throughout the 1920’s within the four
page reading entitled, ‘Film Form and Film History: Soviet Montage’. It
covers four theoreticians and their influential methods towards Soviet
montage and its effect on the government after the Russian revolution.
Lets start off by asking the question, what is Montage? Montage is a
process of editing film material, breaking it down and cutting it into
several shots. In order to gain a sequential flow of clips from different
angles. Nowadays, we take montage for granted; we seem to watch
movies, get a thrill, and go home. But in the 1920’s, during the
Russian revolution, montage was a radical thought to many viewers. It
was the first manifestation from an overtly use from Avant garde. It
broke past the ideological practice of filming a scene in one shot, and
recreated a technique of getting multiple shot angles in a clip and
deeming it revolutionary for its time. It seems the Russian revolution
wasn’t the only thing that revolutionised in this time period.
In ‘Film Art: An Introduction’, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Vertov and
Dovzhenko all declared that film does not exist in its individual shots
but only in their combination through editing into a whole. They were
at a huge advantage since the primitive cinema held no national film
style of a long take which had appeared thus far. However, not all of

2. these men agreed on what exactly the approach to montage was to
be. Pudovkin; perceived the shots in a montage were like “bricks to be
joined together to build a sequence”. Where as Eisenstein disagreed, he
believed the maximum effect of a montage would be gained if the
shots did not fit perfectly together. However Cohen and Braudy believe
Eisenstein’s method to be “a fundamentally false notion”, they believe
they cannot characterise his kind of relationship with the clips and the
audience between lengths as rhythm. Their statements just seem to be
structured as insults rather than backing their opinion on evidential
evidence. I reckon this sort of view point was very similar in the eyes
of audiences that watched Eisenstein’s methods unfold, along with
others who thought them marvellous. There was already conflict from
the start. But I reckon their theory had a weakness to it, considering
montage has continuously been used right up to this day, and all four
theoreticians backed each of their methods with movies, and proved
popular at the time as a result. Cohen and Braudy may not have liked
the idea of it, and it may have broken the regular practice to what
they’re used to, but that was only due to their belief of art always
being conflict. Its social mission, nature and methodology. Maybe they
didn’t enjoy conflict and preferred remain within the walls of Avant
garde? I’m not sure, I need to research more into their methods and
their purpose behind them.
All these methods had some sort of effect on the government;
especially Dziga Vertovs creative and artistic methods of using visual
metaphors in his montage’s that produced a certain typage, in which
classical realism was expressed through visual metaphors and
presented a contingent/ selective view of the world. Just like in his film,
“Man with a camera; where real life dwells” (1929); a documentary
filming life as it is; could he be implying, that life is transparent and
boring? If so, could that be the governments scheme of gaining free
access to control the viewers tired perspective on life, and aim it
towards a new dialectic of conflict to produce new resolution or
synthesis; towards communism and capitalism? Braudy and Cohen
mention the process of conflict and the dialectical effect, which art has
on the viewer in their book, “Film Theory Criticism”. Quoting Mark and
Engels, “the system of the dialectic is only the reproduction of the
dialectical course (essence) of the external events of the world”. So
when the dialectical system of objects are observed by the viewer and
create an abstract creation, it creates thought, when this is created,
materialism is created, which henceforth creates philosophy. Therefore
when the similar objects are in are more “concrete creation”, such as a
movie, it produces art, which then creates conflict.

3. Art:
Produced by film
makers
Conflict/ Tension:
Divides opinions in
audience, likes/ dislikes
art
New resolution:
Splits public and forms
groups. Creates capitalism
Government
Get what they want, and continue cycle
by creating more art. They have main
power back

4. After the Russian revolution, and the governments failed attempt at a
central distribution company (Gosinko) in 1922, (due to domesticated
audience-driven film companies who refused to go under government
controlled theatres) the government started taking notes on Vertovs
methods, as well as the other theoreticians previously mentioned, and
sought a way of gaining control over the film industry by being
inhibitive, and creating social awareness in political montage.
Montage itself was inevitably going to be mostly politically based, so as
montage became socially useful art, the government aimed to make
what was invisible, visible; slowly introducing capitalism and
communism. What I must follow up on, is why the government was so
interested in gaining control over the film industry? Other than trying to
control every sector of life. Was it just another opportunity to install
capitalism, through art? I reckon their method was almost like abusing
Noam Chomsky’s theory of the audience being able to make decisions
for themselves, but for the wrong reasons, and abusing the
breakthrough art form known as montage.
It definitely seems that just from the readings themselves, art was a
huge conflict from how it was done, and how it wanted to be done. It
also seemed that the art of Soviet Montage itself was more of a
tempting bargaining chip issued by the government once the
revolutionary art of editing clips came through. Rather than what I think
it should have been; an expression of ones self, for everyone to enjoy.
Maybe that was the purpose of Soviet Montage, to create conflict? Or
just for freedom of self expression.