The Theory of Montage

Sergei Eisenstein

• Developed montage through theory.• Breaking the confines of space and time to

make film a unique language.• A process that operated in the same as a

Marxist Dialectic, which is a way of looking at the course of history as a perpetual conflict in which a thesis or force collides with an anti thesis or counterforce to create a new phenomenon called a synthesis.

Five Methods of Montage1. Metric – cutting based purely on the length of the shot. This elicits the

most basic emotional response, that of tempo which can be raised or lowered for effect.

2. Rhythmic – based on time and temp, concerns itself with what’s in the frame – cutting in tempo with the action

3. Tonal – Isn’t concerned with time but with tone of the shot – from the lighting, shadows and shapes in the frame. Cutting between different shots of different aesthetic tones creates these Marxist Dialects.

4. Over-Tonal – which is on a larger scale macro cell that combines metric, rhythmic and tonal montage – essentially how whole sequences play against each other.

5. Intellectual or Ideological – expresses abstract ideas by creating relationship between opposing visual intellectual concepts.

• By definition, a montage is "a single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or superimposing many pictures or designs." In filmmaking, a montage is an editing technique in which shots are juxtaposed in an often fast-paced fashion that compresses time and conveys a lot of information in a relatively short period.

• Montages cannot create strong emotions. Ergo, they are not used to make the audience feel, rather they make the audience know. Montages inform. For this reason, it is often said that characters cannot fall in love during montages. The courtship and romance would be too bland or dull. Love deserves a better treatment.