MONTAGE TECHNIQUES

Montage Techniques



Montage Techniques

Introduction

Montage is an art or technique of making a multiple combination picture by making all the scenes in a sequence composition. Different parts of the picture; and scenes arranged by superimposing one on another, to make them in a form of blend. According to Film it is a process for editing to produce a sequence of quickly alternating scenes or a sequence or images, in which apply to images shown whirling about, flashing into focus, etc., to convey an idea. The montages, usually accompanied by a beautiful and soothing song, tell a lot of back stories without having to waste a lot of unnecessary time explaining the back story. An editor can splice together images quickly and thoughtfully and have they told an entire back story within the span of just a few fleeting moments (Buckland, 2008, pp.49-52).

Discussion

Although montage is from the French is a term used in relation to the cinema, it has also come to have a wider application in the idea of juxtaposing elements originating in different contexts. By splicing images together in a way, a film director can put his or her stamp firmly on the final product, which is a continuous film. This film is a new interlacing, or interweaving, of relatively heterogeneous elements. A new whole is created; the whole is not given automatically through pointing the camera at reality and letting the film roll. Along with cuts and takes (including out-takes) in the making of a film, there is above all the editing cut based on final montage of images. The Russian film director, Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), developed what came to be called a conceptual montage, where strikingly different images were juxtaposed in order to suggest a concept (see Eisenstein 1949). The goal is to convey thought as well as action (Ulmer, 1985, pp.265-315).

This is a very physicalist view of the montage process, as simply related to the splicing together of different celluloid images. The issue is about ideas in cinema, a notion that is sharpened by Eisenstein's desire to film. Here, the task is to work out how philosophical ideas can be translated into a medium like film. What kinds of the image would suggest the idea of a commodity? Clearly, a traditional, realist approach is not going to work; only a highly innovative approach will have any hope of success. Although Eisenstein only made notes for the project, the very idea of it broadens an understanding of what montage can be. It is the technique of montage as suggestive of ideas (rather than objects) that would be the vehicle for the presentation of Marx's text on the 'big screen'. Cinema becomes metaphorical through montage (Eisenstein, 1988, Pp.138-150).

Eisenstein also planned to make a film, based on a similarly inventive use of montage, of James Joyce's Ulysses. The aim was to have images that suggested a multitude of associations, much as occurs in dreams. In short, the images could not simply be read literally; they would require interpretive work as significant as that of Freud's when he set to work to make sense of ...