There are several ideas that are associated with the role of editing in film criticism, which can be categorized generally according to the stylistic elements of realism and formalism and the ways in which they both build into the classical paradigm.
             LetÕs begin, though, with three definitions of editing and montage:
             1. A technical definition of editing is the splicing together of strips of film footage (two strips of film, two shots cut together, for example).
             However, there are many conceptual issues involved with the way film editing makes meanings within narratives.
             2. Montage, from the French for ÒmountingÓ or Òassembling,Ó is synonymous with editing in some respects. It can mean a transitional sequence suggesting a lapse of time and/or a passage of space and/or action of a process.
             Consider, for example, when Thelma and Louise are driving across country, we have short sequences that reveal our two heroines in different landscapes and at different times of the day, so time and space is compressed to highlight the dramatic points of interest within the story. One might even argue that a sequence as such might also reveal symbolically a process toward liberation (or at least a process of separation from authoritative control) and/or individual growth.
             The second definition of montage is historically more American and less European.
             3. In France and Russia, especially, montage has traditionally stood for a more broad and theoretical notion for how shots, when placed in series and combination with one another, accrue specialized meanings.
             At first glance, we might think that this would be a logical and linear progression: shot ÔaÕ+ shot ÔbÕ + shot ÔcÕ = meanings a+b+c. These meanings transcend, though, an additive structure; therefore, an equation for the assemblage of shots ÔaÕ, ÔbÕ, and ÔcÕ would be more than a+b+c, b
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