Back to the blog - Montages!

Earlier this year I made a short film montage, and have decided to look into a short history of montages and find some examples myself.
From what I found, a montage is a short clip of a certain subject including various different shots of the same subject.

I also read into Soviet and Eisensteins montages and found that:

“In formal terms, this style of editing offers discontinuity in graphic qualities, violations of the 180 degree rule, and the creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless. “ - Wikipedia.

I also found this nice table describing the various forms of Montage:

Methods of montage

1. Metric - where the editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basal and emotional of reactions in the audience.

   • Metric montage example from Eisenstein's October.

2. Rhythmic - includes cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots -- along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts -- to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds).

   • Rhythmic montage example from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo where the protagonist and the two antagonists face off in a three-way duel

   • century.rojects/98-99/9505060m/sounds/steps.mov Another rhythmic montage example from The Battleship Potemkin's "Odessa steps" sequence.

3. Tonal - a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots -- not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics -- to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation.

   • Tonal example from Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. This is the clip following the death of the revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk, a martyr for sailors and workers.

4. Overtonal/Associational - the overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect.

   • Overtonal example from Pudovkin's Mother. In this clip, the men are workers walking towards a confrontation at their factory, and later in the movie, the protagonist uses ice as a means of escape.[1].

5. Intellectual - uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.[2]

   • Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and Strike. In Strike, a shot of striking workers being attacked cut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered creates a film metaphor suggesting that the workers are being treated like cattle. This meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only arises when they are juxtaposed.

   • Some contemporary examples of intellectual montage:

     • In The Godfather, during Michael's nephew's baptism, the priest performs the sacrament of baptism while we see killings ordered by Michael take place elsewhere. The murders thus "baptize" Michael into a life of crime.

     • At the end of Apocalypse Now the execution of Colonel Kurtz is juxtaposed with the villagers' slaughter of a water buffalo.

     • In Boogie Nights, Dirk Diggler announces at the conclusion of filming a pornographic scene that he can "do it again". There is then a quick cut to a champagne bottle uncorking at a post-shoot party, representing both ejaculation and Dirk's celebratory initiation into the world of porn.

-Wikipedia.