Sergei Eisenstein's Montage
Sergei Eisenstein's theory of montage involves the combining of fragmental shots of film into intellectual series and contexts. How the fragments combine and are formed is the essence of his notion of montage by conflict. This theory challenges traditional narrative movies because it involves taking an idea and recombining broken fragments in an incongruent way to produce new ideas, and occasional shocks. As a result, montage reflects more on community because it requires a wider range of images and ideas to communicate a broader concept. Traditional narrative movies reflect more on the individual because they require more of the same type images.The concept of how film narration communicates depends entirely on the structure or ordering of the sequence. Eisenstein structures the sequences of shots abruptly whereas traditional narrative movies rely mostly on the smooth flowing of shots of scenes to tell a story. Traditional narratives
To emphasize that the shooting victims were powerless to flee, a shot is taken showing one revolutionary citizen without legs mixed with shots of the troops. However, realism was not Eisenstein's intentions: "Absolute realism is by no means the correct form of perception. This highly centralized style opposes the type of montages used by Eisenstein, which are boarder in context. Wider range of images used may create bigger conflicts, thus communicating a broader concept--broad enough to become symbols. In North by Northwest, the story centers on the protagonist, Grant, and by how the traditional narrative progresses, as explained above, the sequences taken naturally may focus on an individual and carry out a story. Again, time and space are limitless as Carl Reisz evaluates Eisenstein: "He envisaged that experiments along these lines would lead towards a purely intellectual film, freed from traditional limitations, achieving direct forms for ideas, systems and concepts, without any need for transitions. These two shots conflict with one another conceptually and thus move the story forward. Permitting repetitious images of the same object (Grant), the story is progressed by, and centralizes more on the individual. " Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin uses various images to create the community of images that represent social conflict. Therefore, it cannot rely solely on individualism, as do traditional narratives. Whereas between these two shots are actually timeless and spaceless, the particular juxapositioning of them creates new meaning and suggests newly built time and space. It is simply the function of a certain form of social structure. This theory was rooted to the Japanese representational culture: "From separate hieroglyphs has been fused--the ideogram. For example, a shot shows Grant's face turning frightful after a shot showing the crop duster coming his way. Then a point of view shot in the eyes of the Star showing a car passing by.
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Acceptance Essays
