Vertov and Eisenstein Essay

It was estimated that by the late teens of the 20th century, Zukor held 75% of the best talent in the filmmaking business. I was baffled by this statistic when I read it. For one studio to hold ¾’s of the best talent in the industry is nearly a monopoly. Another thing I found interesting was that Fox worked on 70 mm wide-screen techniques. This was thought provoking to me because this summer I saw the film Dunkirk, and my friends and I saw it with the 70 mm wide-screen edition. I had never seen a movie with this wide-screen 70 mm and it was definitely different from a regular screen. Another thing that caught my attention was the connection between film and politics. I was interested to learn that MGM used a film to bring down Upton Sinclair as he was running for office. I was also shocked to read that Charlie Chaplin was not let into the United States because of his progressive political views. I was baffled that a man that was once called the “king of comedy” in the United States was denied entry because of his political

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

With that thought in mind, we are back to looking at how Arthur Koestler portrayed the character of Rubashov as a vehicle to illustrate the struggle between the ideas of the party and of the individual. The conspicuous disagreement of the Communist Party is the contention between

Many composers use various techniques in which they communicate the distinctly visual. John Misto’s ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ and Alexander Kimel’s ‘The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942’ represent significant issues in our world by using various literary and dramatic techniques. Through using these techniques it is evident that the composers of these texts allow the audience to ‘see’ with our eyes as well as with our minds. The many literary and dramatic techniques have the ability to create a visual that

The use of distinctively visual images allows an audience to perceive and distinguish the composer’s specific representation. From these distinctive visuals, the audience’s perceptions force them to respond in a particular way. In ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, Ang Lee utilises a range of film techniques to position his audience through a combination of quiet, dramatic scenes and choreographed action sequences. In his painting, ‘Third of May, 1808’ Fransisco Goya conveys meaning exclusively with distinctively visual techniques. Both the composers are able to effectively convey their message and

8). The main point(s) of view presented in the film are that visual media should change as what we see as “normal” in our

The engulfing size of the painting (250.5 x 159.5 cm) drives the audiences mind into a hypnotic frenzy as they are overwhelmed by bright and sensual colours, which, have the ability to evoke deep emotions and realisations. Kandinsky has portrayed this through the disorientation of his own personal visions of society during the industrial revolution. The rough yet expressive outline of buildings, a rainbow and the sun gives reference to realism as it allows viewers to connect and understand underlying motifs and shapes yet is painted abstractly to move away from the oppressive and consumerist society. Thus, Kandinsky breaks boundaries through his innovative approach to his art-making practise concluded from his personal belief of ‘art for arts sake’. He believed that art should mainly convey the artist’s personal views and self-expressionism that translated a constant individuality throughout his work from an inner intentional emotive drive. This broke traditional boundaries as art in the renaissance period was meant to be a ‘narration’ or an artwork where an audience could learn and benefit from. This is evidently shown in Composition IV as it exemplifies Kandinsky’s inner feelings towards the industrialised society

Soviet Montage is a movement driven by “Marxist [politics]” and an “economic philosophy” developed in Soviet Russia at the time of revolution. Lenin himself considered film, as an art form as the “most influential of all arts” as it not only entertained but could be used to “[mould] and reinforce values.”( Mast, G. & Kawin, B. F.) Sergei Eisenstein, himself a Marxist, is no exception to this and not only are his films are full of political propaganda, but he is also considered “the greatest master of montage.” .”( Mast, G. & Kawin, B. F.) His film October, called Ten Days That Shook The World in the Western world at the time and butchered due to its content, has always been considered problematic for audiences and critics alike and the standard critique of the film soon became “The Film as a whole is difficult and incoherent.” (Sperbur) Although if analysed properly, you can see that it has powerful political and social messages to convey and comprises of film form that Eisenstein himself called “intellectual film.”

Theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin claims that narrative films are mainly a “product of construction” and cautious compilations of “selections of images that have been shot” (Renée).

‘There are…two kinds of film makers: one invents an imaginary reality; the other confronts an existing reality and attempts to understand it, criticise it…and finally, translate it into film’

Gunning goes on to define the cinema of attraction as “a cinema that bases itself on the quality that Leger celebrated: its ability to show something. Contrasted to the voyeuristic aspect of narrative cinema analyzed by Christian Metz, this is an exhibitionist cinema,” (Gunning, 230). It’s a cinema before narrative where the focus lied in testing the boundaries of what was possible with the medium, much like avant-garde today. It’s a cinema where narrative was always second, if even there, to the spectacle of what was possible with the medium. Lumiere’s Demolition of a Wall displays some of the possibilities of the medium quite clearly in its later half when the reel is re-winded to create the effect of the wall rebuilding itself. As Gunning reminds us, we should never forget that “in the earliest years of exhibition the cinema itself was an attraction,” (231). Cinema was defined by the machine instead of the films in this period, and thus the simple fact of being able to see moving pictures was itself astounding. Looking at Maxim Gorky’s first accounts of viewing a motion picture in his article The Kingdom of Shadows, he writes the “extraordinary impression it (cinema) creates is so unique and complex that I doubt my ability to describe it with all its nuances,” (Gorky 7). The people of the

While watching Man With A Movie Camera, I was fascinated by the amount of extreme close ups used by Vertov. Considering the year the film was made and the films I have seen from the 1920’s, the extreme close up was not used very often as a technique from what I remember. I noticed Vertov would sometimes start in a wider establishing shot, then either use a double exposure or a cut into an extreme close up that created a variety of emotions as I viewed it. Sometimes I felt as though, the extreme close ups were used to convey a feeling of intimacy or affection. On the other hand, some of the extreme close ups were quite disturbing and created a feeling of uneasiness as when Vertov shows a woman dealing with what looks like a fever with a washcloth

Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov are among the most identifiable names in early Soviet film. Their contributions to film, in the areas of montage and documentary film respectively, have helped to structure film, as we know it today. However, apart from their theoretical contributions to the field, both directors played an imperative role in Soviet film during the 1920s and 1930s. This paper examines historical revisionism within their film, how their theories of montage influenced the revisionism, and how they were persistent in the use montage throughout their careers as filmmakers to assert themselves as artists.

Montage, a name synonymous with Editing, is an original film style with different techniques used by the Soviet filmmakers between 1924 and 1930 to construct a film narrative. Montage is the connection between one shot and the other, a continuous or discontinuous relationship between shots. According to David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (2012: 478), Soviet directors maintained that, “through editing, two shots give birth to a feeling or idea not present in either one”. This ‘feeling’ or ‘idea’ then guides a viewer into understanding or making a “conceptual connection” of the narrative (Bordwell 1972: 10). Strike (1925) and Mother (1926), directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin respectively, are films made in the Soviet Montage era that show a juxtaposition between shots across the film. This essay discusses the different techniques used in these films that show the functions and effects of Montage.

In the presented essay I will compare the style of work of selected artists in the montage of the film. I will try to point out some general regularities and features of Soviet cinema. At the same time I will try to capture especially what is common in their systems and similar or conversely what differ. For my analysis, I will draw on the feature films of the Soviet avantgarde, namely these are the movies - The Battleship Potemkin (S. Eisenstein, 1925), Mother (V. Pudovkin, 1926) and The Man with a movie camera (D. Vertov, 1929).