The History of Cutting - The Soviet Theory of Montage

Main Ideas, Concepts, and Lessons

Post–World War I Context in Soviet Russia

• After World War I, Russia was destabilized: the Bolsheviks (led by Vladimir Lenin) overthrew the Tsar in 1917, followed by civil war, widespread poverty, and low literacy.
• The new government needed to consolidate power and communicate with the public.
• Film became a valuable mass communication tool.

Institution-Building for Soviet Filmmaking

• Many pre-revolution film workers were capitalists, and many were removed or became uncooperative with the Bolsheviks.
• With scarce resources, film production and training were organized through a Cinema Committee in the New People’s Commissariat of Education.
• The committee founded a film school, VGIK (All-Union State Institute of Cinematography / Moscow Film School), established in 1919—described as the first film school in the world.
• The school’s mission was to train filmmakers for agitprop (agitation propaganda), especially newsreels and propaganda supporting the Bolshevik party.

Kuleshov’s Role: Turning Filmmaking Into Theory

• A major figure at VGIK was Lev Kuleshov, a prerevolutionary filmmaker who stayed in Russia after 1917.
• Kuleshov helped found VGIK and led a semi-independent, more radical study group (the Kuleshov Workshop), since some superiors didn’t see him fitting conventional classroom structures.
• Because film stock was limited, Kuleshov often trained students using mock filmmaking and scenario-based assembly rather than extensive footage.

Impact of D. W. Griffith’s Influence (“Intolerance”)

• In May 1919, D. W. Griffith’s film “Intolerance” screened in Moscow.
• Lenin admired it for its agitation qualities and ordered it screened widely across the Soviet Union.
• The Kuleshov Workshop intensely studied Griffith’s editing structure, deconstructing shots and reassembling them to examine how different cuts alter meaning.

The Kuleshov Effect: Meaning Created by Editing

• By 1922, with more film stock available, Kuleshov tested how editing shapes audience interpretation.

Experiment 1: One Face, Three Contexts

An expressionless face was edited into three different short films:

• with hot soup
• with a girl in a coffin
• with a seductive woman on a couch

Audiences reported different emotions/interpretations (e.g., thoughtfulness, mourning, lust) even though the face shot remained the same.

Experiment 2: Same Shots, Different Order

• Three shots: an actor smiling, a revolver, and the actor looking frightened.
• In one sequence, audiences interpreted the actor as becoming cowardly.
• When the shot order was reversed, audiences interpreted the actor as becoming brave.

Core lesson: film meaning is not only what appears in a single frame, but what meaning emerges from the sequence of shots.

“Creative Geography” and Breaking Spatial Continuity

• Kuleshov used artificial landscapes (“creative geography”) by cutting footage from different locations to create convincing fictional space.
• This contrasted with Western continuity editing practices (e.g., matching action and rules like the 180-degree rule).
• Lesson: cinema can transcend real space, and viewers build geography through editing.

Montage as the Birth of Film

• The video emphasizes that a film is not “complete” when cameras roll—the film is “born in the edit.”
• Montage is presented as an assembly process (from French monter, meaning to assemble).

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Sergei Eisenstein: Montage Theory Refined Into Dialectical Editing

From Practice (Griffith) to Intellectual Method (Eisenstein)

• Sergei Eisenstein is presented as a major theorist and “silent cinema” master, linked to Kuleshov’s influence.
• The video contrasts their approaches:
  • Griffith: develops continuity language practically, using editing to intensify emotion in line with theatrical tradition.
  • Eisenstein: uses editing to break time/space constraints and communicate abstract ideas.

Battleship Potemkin as the Montage Landmark

• Eisenstein’s most acclaimed film is “Battleship Potemkin” (shot in 1925).
• It was created to commemorate the 1905 Revolution against the Tsar.
• Production details cited:
  • 10 weeks shooting
  • Odessa Steps sequence shot in 7 days
  • Editing took another 2 weeks
  • Runtime: 86 minutes
  • Shot count: 1,346 shots
• The film’s international impact is attributed to its montage/editing ability to provoke emotional response.
• It is described as pure propaganda, accompanied by a quote attributed to Joseph Goebbels (framed as praise for its political power).

Montage Explained as Marxist Dialectic

• Eisenstein’s key theoretical contribution: montage works like Marxist dialectic:
  • a “thesis” collides with an “anti-thesis”
  • producing a “synthesis” (a new meaning/idea)
• In film terms:
  • collision of one shot (or “montage cell”) with another creates conflict
  • the conflict generates a new idea
  • that idea collides with the next, pushing the film forward.

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Eisenstein’s Five Methods of Montage

1. Metric Montage

   • Cuts based on the length of shots.
   • Produces a basic emotional effect: tempo.
   • Tempo can be raised or lowered for effect.

2. Rhythmic Montage

   • Similar to metric, relying on time/tempo.
   • More concerned with what’s in the frame (e.g., action).
   • Example: marching soldiers’ legs can generate movement beyond just the cut tempo.

3. Tonal Montage

   • Not primarily about time.
   • Focused on the tone of shots:
     • lighting
     • shadows
     • shapes/composition
   • Contrasting aesthetic tones can produce dialectic meaning.

4. Overtonal Montage

   • Works on a larger scale (“macro cell”).
   • Combines metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage.
   • Emphasizes how whole sequences relate to each other.

5. Intellectual / Ideological Montage

   • The method emphasized most in the video.
   • Rather than focusing mainly on emotion, it aims to express abstract ideas through relationships between opposing visual concepts.
   • Examples:
     • In Battleship Potemkin: intercutting a priest tapping a cross with an officer tapping a sword hilt to imply “corrupt association” between church and state.
     • In the Odessa Steps finale: three quick shots of a rising stone lion, representing the rise of the proletariat.

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Reception, Controversy, and Legacy

• “October” as an Extension That Didn’t Land

  • Eisenstein’s next major film: “October” (a 10th-anniversary recreation of the Bolshevik Revolution).
  • Described as extremely ambitious and heavy with intellectual/ideological montage.
  • Result: audiences were left “cold” because the cuts were “too much” to follow—too abstract without sufficient narrative anchoring.

• Criticism by Film Theorists

  • André Bazin (French film critic) criticized dialectical montage as:
    • too manipulative
    • too totalitarian
  • He argued it ignores natural spatial/time relationships associated with continuity editing.

• Long-Term Influence Beyond the USSR

  • Despite debates, montage influenced later cinema.
  • The video claims montage was refined further in the 1950s by:
    • the French New Wave
    • and Hollywood visionaries like Alfred Hitchcock
  • Final takeaway: early cinema (roughly its first 30 years) rapidly developed into a nuanced art form through experimentation and theory, with each generation building on the last.

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Speakers or Sources Featured (As Mentioned)

• John Hess (host; FilmmakerIQ.com)
• Vladimir Lenin
• Lev Kuleshov
• D. W. Griffith
• Sergei Eisenstein
• Joseph Goebbels
• André Bazin
• Alfred Hitchcock
• French New Wave