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Notes on Soviet Montage Cinema, German expressionistic cinema and Indian New Wave (Parallel/art cinema). These all comes under film studies.
Typology: Study notes
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The Russian film was born with the Russian Revolution. Costume films, horror films and melodramas-the typical formulas of Europe and America-were the staples of the pre 1917 Russian film diet. The revolution changed that all. Lenin considered the cinema the most influential of all the arts. Movies not only entertained, but in the process, moulded and reinforced the values.
While the German innovators concentrated on the pictorial values of the individual shot, the Soviet innovators concentrated on the effects of joining the shots together. The Soviet discoveries were the products of experience and experiment rather than abstract theorizing.
In 1919, after getting hands on Griffith’s Intolerance , Kuleshov made it his primer and his student examined its boldness in cutting. They screened Intolerance incessantly, even re-editing its sequences. They experimented, and several of his experiments became classics.
One experiment: From a stock footage of Ivan Mozhukin (pre-revolutionary actor), he cut the strip of his face into three pieces and juxtaposed each with a shot of a plate of hot soup, a dead woman and a little girl playing with a toy. The viewers praised his acting for hunger, sorrow and joy for each shot respectively. Editing alone had created the emotion-as well as a brilliant acting performance.
Kuleshov taught three primary purposes served by editing, in building a film.
Narrative Function
A man walks towards the camera; suddenly, something to his right catches his attention and he turns his head. The audience’s natural question is: what does he see? The director then cuts to an old tramp, who pulls a pistol on the man. And so on. ( Sequential action )
Flash back or forward. A cut that furthers the action by revealing a character’s thoughts at a particular moment.
Cross-cut. While the tramp attacks the man with a pistol, the police, the police, aware of the attack, charge to the rescue. These lessons of cutting had been learnt from Griffith.
Intellectual Response
Metaphorical Cut/Associational Cut: From a group of workers being mowed down by rifles of soldiers, the director could cut to the slaughter of an ox in a stockyard. The image of the slaughtered ox comments on the action of the slaughtered workers.
Contrast cut: Cut from the dinner table of a poor man with a few pieces of bread, to the table of a rich man laden with meats, candles and wine.
Parallel cut: The condemned man sentenced to die at 5’o clock, a cut is made on a thief who murders a victim at precisely 5’o clock.
Emotional Cut: The very method of joining the strips of celluloid together, rather than their content.
Rhythmically: Shorter/Longer pieces of film, increasing the tempo and tension or producing a feeling of slowness and languidness. Strips of equal length can produce a feeling of regular beat.
Tonal cut: A cut to darker pictures can produce the impression of oncoming night and growing despair, or lighter pictures produce impression of dawn.
Form cut: Cutting on a similarity or difference in the form of an object in the frame. Spinning roulette wheel to a turning wagon wheel.
Directional cut: Use of direction across the frame either to keep the action flowing or to produce a dynamic collision.
The Soviet directors discovered that the most cuts must function on all three levels at once. To this discovery they gave the name ‘montage’, which signified the particular way of editing could control the film’s structure, meaning and effect.
which relate individual percepts. Like Eisenstein, they broke the cognitive process down into sequences of individual imagistic elements, related not by syntax as is language but by sheer juxtaposition” (55). This and and especially theories of dialectical thinking that arrived from Hegel, Marx and others during this milieu can all be seen as contributors to Montage Theory. If you are interested in the precursors to Montage Theory you may want to read more about these figures, movements, and concepts:
Kabuki Theatre
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Jean Piaget
Constructivism
Ivan Pavlov
Ideogram (Japanese language)
Roman Jakobson’s “The Dominant”
Eisenstein argued that montage, especially intellectual montage, is an alternative system to continuity editing. He argued that “Montage is conflict” (dialectical) where new ideas, emerge from the collision of the montage sequence (synthesis) and where the new emerging ideas are not innate in any of the images of the edited sequence. A new concept explodes into being. His understanding of montage, thus, illustrates Marxist dialectics.
Eisenstein relates this to non-literary “writing” in pre-literate societies, such as the ancient use of pictures and images in sequence, that are therefore in “conflict”. Because the pictures are relating to each other, their collision creates the meaning of the “writing”. Similarly, he describes this phenomenon as dialectical materialism. Eisenstein argued that the new meaning that emerged out of conflict is the same phenomenon found in the course of historical events of social and revolutionary change.
He also believed that intellectual montage expresses how everyday thought processes happen. In this sense, the montage will in fact form thoughts in the minds of the viewer, and is therefore a powerful tool for propaganda. (Film Form)
How Does One Create Soviet Montage Film Techniques?
Sergei Eisenstein developed the theory further, identifying five different ways to use montage, listed here courtesy of Wikipedia:
Methods of montage:
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.
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).
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.
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.
Intellectual – uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.
Probably the most famous movie produced by any of these directors is Eisenstein’s ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (1925), often referred to as the most influential silent film of all time, and the most famous part of that movie is the ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence, which uses montage to great effect.
German Expressionistic Cinema:
German Expressionism is an artistic genre that originated in Europe in the 1920s, and is broadly defined as the rejection of Western conventions, and the depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect. Heavily influenced by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and El Greco, Expressionists were less concerned with producing aesthetically pleasing compositions as they were with creating powerful reactions to their work through the use of bright, clashing colors, flat shapes, and jagged brushstrokes. In its nature, the movement was interested in the relationship between art and society, and encompassed a broad range of fields, including architecture, painting, and film. Expressionist films were initially born out of Germany’s relative isolation during the 1910s, and quickly generated high demand due to the government’s ban on foreign films. The films’ appeal soon spread to an international audience, and by the early 1920s, many European filmmakers had begun experimenting with the absurd and wild aesthetics of German cinema. Two of the most influential films of the era were Metropolis (1927), by Fritz Lang (Austrian, 1877– 1961), and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), by Robert Wiene (German, 1873–1938). Similar to Expressionist paintings, Expressionist films sought to convey the inner, subjective experience of its subjects.
Director Robert Wiene hired Expressionist painters Walter Reimann and Hermann Warm (German) to create the sets. Like many of their contemporaries, Reimann and Warm were interested in challenging Modernism’s formal and stylistic elements, and used Expressionism as a means to experiment with perception, constructing a nightmarish world of jagged lines and incongruous patterns. The film’s use of expressionistic elements is a prime example of the genre’s power to establish a narrative that creates a disconnect between subjectivity and reality. In scenes throughout the film, sidewalks lead nowhere, walls appear warped, creating strange shapes, and buildings rise at distorted angles in the background. Considering the cultural context in which Caligari was created, it makes sense that German Expressionism was such a widely used device in film, visual art, and literature. The sense of anxiety, distrust, and uneasiness were at an all-time high in Germany following World War I, and films such as Caligari were examples of art imitating life.
Expressionist film in the 1920s was based on the premise that film becomes art only to the extent that the film image differs from reality. This particular interpretation of cinema-as-art would go on to influence some of the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, including Alfred Hitchcock, Werner Herzog, and Tim Burton. The style of seminal Expressionist artists such as Erich Heckel, Wassily Kandinsky, and Emil Nolde perfectly lent itself to cinematic reinterpretation, as one that spoke to the most prevalent cultural conditions of the time. During a tumultuous and difficult period in German history, these talented filmmakers tapped into the popular zeitgeist and created powerful works that have stood the test of time. The films of this era are, in their own way, a revealing look at a society at a particular moment in history, expressing the disillusionment, distrust, and isolation experienced by many people living in Germany at the time.
When Neorealism finally emerged it had a number a traits and characteristics that set it apart from the popular Hollywood model and the fascist controlled cinema of the war era. Â They are filmed almost entirely on location, for the most part in poor neighbourhoods or the countryside. Its subject matter usually consists entirely of or involves life among the poor and the working classes. Realism is emphasized and performances are mainly constructed from scenes of people performing fairly mundane day to day activities and tasks, whilst remaining completely devoid of the self-consciousness that amateur acting usually incorporates. Neorealist films also generally feature children in major roles, though these roles are often more observational than participatory parts.
Early neorealist films such as Rossellini's 'Rome Open City' (1945). Which received the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival contained many of these elements which are associated with neorealist cinema. However Rossellini was also able reverse the ideological and cultural emphasis of the film as discussed by Bondanella:
"It is a fascinating paradox that Roma città aperta continued many of the stylistic characteristics of cinema produced during the Fascist era, but it embodied, at the same time, a clear antifascist ideology that attempted to reconcile all of the different and conflicting political positions of the various groups making up the Italian antifascist resistance." (Bondanella in Gottlieb, 2004)
Rossellini was especially able to maintain his reversal of occupation era realism and expressionism by keeping his primary focus on the character Pina (Anna Magnani), a woman engaged to marry a dedicated typesetter with whose child she is already pregnant with. Instead of sticking with the traditional main focus of the Gestapo whilst they search for and find a key member of the Italian Resistance.
However despite the fact that 'Rome, Open City' contained and combined the cinematic elements of the old German dominated realism and the new budding Italian neorealism. It is not solely these aspects that made neorealist cinema popular in Italy or even the world. It was the fact that the films clearly depicted clearly the struggle of the Italian people. Whilst living through the oppression of the German occupation of Rome and doing everything within their power to resist the occupation. Which hit home with the Italian audience as a way to see how the resistance stood up to the German occupation whilst with other cinema going audiences allowed them to peer into the internal social and economic affairs of post war Italy and how the general populace was dealing with their situation.
Children were often cast in neorealist cinema to play a key role in not only creating a character for all audiences to sympathise with but as a symbol for the future generations. As a child's characters presence throughout the film but especially during the climax of a film is indicative of their role in neorealism. As the children become observers of the difficulties of the present bit it is they who hold the key to make a better future.
'Rome, Open City' features the clearest link between neo-realism and the Resistance movement. Being set during the Nazi occupation of Rome, it probes and explores the tensions of this foreign presence and the divisions it created between those who abetted the Germans and those who opposed the occupation. The film was made using "black market film stock, little studio shooting, rushes unexamined, sound synchronized in post-production, and, no surprise, a tiny budget" (Ratner, n.d.)The film therefore has immediacy to it whilst blended with an operatic emotion. Pragmatic realities drove the film forward equally as much as its script did. This hybrid of melodrama and recorded footage was the result of Rossellini telling the story in short bursts that emphasize the intense and unsparing details of ordinary people's lives that have been destroyed by the occupation. As a result the narrative is driven by veracity rather than comfort.
With the Cinécittà (Rome's studio complex) being used as a shelter for refugee's, films had to be shot on location. Totally encompassed by the shambolic ruins of World War II. Filmmakers had a ready-made atmosphere present even in their backdrop. As a result Visconti only "shot only on location in Rome."(Associated Press, 1983) This is evident for example in the opening sequence of the film 'Bicycle Thieves' directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1948. During this sequence the camera performs a long pan into a desolate and barren landscape featuring a few rundown apartment blocks. This sequence alone demonstrates
how badly Italy was hit by fascist rule and German occupation as even this apartment complex block which shows no obvious battle scars or destruction from the war has been reduced to a residential district that is barely functioning as an internal sub-section of society. This is depicted to the audience by showing the working class men of the settlement desperately looking for and even begging for work from the local recruiting agency. With each and every member of this cross section of the Italian working class society willing to abandon their fellow countrymen in order to get some valuable paid work. This is just one example of Visconti using a combination of complex shots and long takes to convey the dismal world of his characters and how they interact with the world. This allows for Visconti to "heighten the interplay between characters and surroundings, the bleak, unforgiving interiors and street shots reflective of the lousy hand these no-hopers have been dealt." (Ratner,n.d.) This is a feat he would not of been able to accomplish without the charismatic albeit war torn landscapes of post war Italy and combining them with the afore mentioned amateur actors. Visconti "instead of professional actors used nonactors with no training in performance; for example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the leading actor, was a factory worker." (Associated Press, 1983) It's this absence of professional actors that is real key to the authenticity of the characters in a neorealist film. With real people instead of actors you can see the hardship they have been through not only in their acting but also in their physical appearance. Whilst this is a normal convention for neorealism on the whole, the use of amateur actors in 'Bicycle Thieves' further increases the realism of the film. Since the character blends with the already bleak background for example as Maggiorani was already a factory worker he fit the role perfectly as he was a part of the working class that was being portrayed in the film but also he does not look like a well-trained actor like you would expect if this had been shot in Hollywood. The fact that the actors lack the face of glitz and glamour add a gritty texture of realism to the film.  "The amateur actors in this film enhance the feeling of suffering that a neorealist film attempts to portray." (Famodimu, 2006) Another factor that defines "The Bicycle Thieves" as being a classic example of a neorealist film is that the central aspect of the film is about how the characters are struggling to survive. The father for example is frantically searching for a job in post-war Italy, the son who works at a petrol station despite his very young age, and the mother who washes clothes to scrape up a little bit more money to allow their family to continue to live their lives. As a result the father worriedly and hurriedly looks to get a bike in the film so he can get the job he desperately needs so that he can give his family a little glimmer of hope so that they will have hope that they can make it through their tough times. This further emphasises the importance of the role of the children in neorealism as a beacon pointing towards the better future to come. In conclusion we can see that neorealism was a truly a product that only post war Italy could have produced with its unique transition from German Expressionist cinema to what is now known as Neorealist cinema. Only through the dramatic and expressionist war torn back drops and the way that neorealist cinema gave Italy and the World a view into the acts the resistance carried out in order to oppose the German occupation as well as depicting the economic and social implications that the people, especially the working classes, were suffering as a result of the war and the downfall of Mussolini's fascist government. Combining this with the use of non-professional actors to further develop the sense of realism and how the audience both become involved with the characters but also allows the audience to see how difficult life was in post war Italy.
French New Wave Cinema:
The French New Wave was a group of trailblazing directors who exploded onto the film scene in the late 1950s; revolutionising cinematic conventions by marrying the rapid cuts of Hollywood with philosophical trends. Lindsay Parnell explores how this group of young directors reshaped cinema.
With an emphasis on invigorating cinematic narrative, French New Wave Cinema rejected traditional linear tropes of storytelling and created a new language of film. Inspired by both depictions of the common, lower class workers of Italian Neorealism and Hollywood’s beloved ‘Golden Age’, the French New Wave became a vibrant influence on international cinema which is still being felt today.
Originating from the artistic philosophy of ‘auteur theory’; a concept that acknowledges film as a product of the director’s absolute imaginative and inspired aesthetic vision, new wave filmmakers inspired the cult of the director as artistic icon on a par with writers and painters.
character shoots someone, but all the viewer sees is the gun being pointed then there is a jump cut to the other character falling over. Godard was no doubt the most prolific user of the jump cut.
Other innovations in new wave cinema included a large use of close ups and a lack of establishing shots. The filmmakers weren’t as concerned about establishing spatial and contextual relationships as they were about the mise-en-scene. A viewer was supposed to feel the setting, not necessarily see it. Alain Resnais uses this a lot in his two films studied, Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Muriel.
Indian New Wave Cinema:
talk about a ‘New Wave’ in Indian cinema is complicated, for unlike the French New wave and Italian Neorealism of the 1950s, and indeed several prominent film movements around the globe, the Indian New Wave has no clear beginning and end, and no defined aesthetics or issues. While Mrinal Sen’s NFDC- financed ‘Bhuvan Shome’ is widely considered to be the beginning of the New cinema movement, it has no clear culmination. The Avant Garde bug has caught Indian filmmakers in bursts and pauses. For example— Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak in the 1960s and 70s, Shyam Benegal, Kamal Swaroop, Mani Kaul in the 80s, and Ram Gopal Varma, Mani Ratnam, Aparna Sen in the 90s and early 2000s—all brought new grammar and ideology to Indian cinema. But their films remained commendable singular works rather than culminating into a movement, and the makers themselves, with the exception of Ray, were either unable to continue with the kind of cinema they wanted to make, or adjusted and assimilated with the mainstream bandwagon.
Every year a bevy of films strive to tackle new concerns and do away with the aesthetics of mainstream Indian cinema to a certain extent, and are thus marked harbingers of a ‘New Wave’ movement; but a movement is much more than that—it is not only a cumulative shift in the ideology, aesthetics, modes of finance, production, and distribution of films, but also of audience appreciation. However, when a blind, middle-eastern girl appears on screen photographing the by lanes of Mumbai in Soap opera writer turned Avant Garde filmmaker Anand Gandhi’s ‘Ship of Theseus’, it becomes clear that something is afoot in the world of Indian cinema.
Gandhi’s is a film that uses three stories—those of a blind photographer who grows uneasy about her craft once her sight is restored, a monk who is forced to consume allopathic medicine—against which he is campaigning—to save his own life, and a stock broker who feels guilty after a kidney transplant by possibly dubious means—as pieces of a puzzle which finally unravel the makers thoughts on an age old philosophical conundrum (If each of the parts of Theseus’s Ship needed repair, and were replaced one by one, is the resultant vessel still “The Ship of Theseus”?). The filmmaker uses characters and their stories to discuss his thoughts on the matter, rather than the film being driven by plot or characterization, as is the case with mainstream cinema. ‘Ship of Theseus’, which delves into intricacies of everyday life and transcends the material to philosophical discourse, is as much an experiment of the cinematic form as it is of the stories and characters it brings to screen. The film, which is densely packed with textual matter and comprises of scenes that seem more like panel discussions on art, philosophy, theology, and the universe, than conversations between two people, often frustrates the viewer. Nevertheless, this enigmatic and unique film can certainly claim to be ‘New Wave’ because to find an equivalent of ‘Ship of Theseus’ for what it aims to say, and how, one would need to do a thorough examination of contemporary cinema from all over the world. Interestingly, the film was presented by Kiran Rao, filmmaker and wife of actor Aamir Khan (and hence indirectly by the superstar himself), and thus acquired a kind of release, reception, and visibility that a film like this would find hard to secure in cinema markets anywhere in the world, let alone in India. For a brief moment, the makers managed to get actors, filmmakers, mainstream media, and the paying public sit up and
take notice of the film. That a film of this kind was supported by mainstream star giants, and did the kind of business it managed to is certainly indicative of a new wave in audience appetite for cinema in India.
But in spite of its undeniable influence on the film fraternity, ‘Ship of Theseus’ fell short of making much impact at the box office. The monopolization of the distribution and exhibition network by the major studios and stars in Mumbai, and indeed in regional cinema hubs too, make it impossible for small independent films to find breathing space. Moreover, the multiplexes, which often credit themselves as supporters of Indie films, hike up ticket rates and give the best show times to the masala star vehicles. In recent times, debutant Ritesh Batra’s film ‘The Lunchbox’ was able to navigate through this nexus and to find box office success and global appreciation; and that in itself makes it a remarkable film. Of course, the film was able to get that kind of visibility because it was backed by mainstream giants in India, as well as renowned film personnel from over the world; which is reassuring because global players are beginning to take notice of Indian films enough to invest their faith and fortunes in them.
The film’s story about desperate loneliness shared by two strangers—Saajan Fernandez, a grumpy widower who is about to opt for voluntary retirement, and Ila, a housewife and mother who is feverishly trying to win back her husband’s affection—turning into love within the backdrop of urban chaos is certainly not a novel one, but the film managed to strike a global chord because of the universal emotions it captures. The film espouses a rare quality which is often attributed to Satyajit Ray’s work—it is so deeply rooted in its cultural milieu that the world it creates is almost completely real and thus immediately relatable. Subsequently the sentiments attached become as real and passionate as human emotions can be on screen. This in turn lends a universal quality to the conditions of the characters, and indeed the film too. The ‘Dabbawallah’ culture through which Ila and Saajan make their initial contact is unique to Mumbai and may take outsiders a moment to orient themselves to it, but the idea of something mystical lending itself to make unlikely love happen is an universal one. The film uses the claustrophobia of Mumbai to further separate Saajan and Ila from everything around them and add to their isolation, thus heightening the passions associated with the individuals and making them more unanimously relatable. For example, the extent of Saajan’s loneliness is fully realized by the audience, and indeed Saajan himself, when he cannot help himself from peeking into the happy dining room of a neighboring family while he smokes alone on his balcony.
The contemporary New Wave in Indian cinema is distinguishable from previous movements through several factors, the most relevant of which are the issues and themes it concerns itself with. Unlike in the past when India’s existence was a story of nation building, and thus the works of Avante Garde filmmakers were entirely socio-political in nature where the plot and characters served only as commentary on worldly matters concerning the Indian nation, today India is a nation that has made its mark on the global landscape and is now debating its identity. It is a relatively more affluent and secure state, and consequently the concerns of people have moved away from the world outside to the world inside—or perhaps it is a reflection of the egocentric times we live in, that matters concerning personal well being of the individual have taken precedence over well being of the state as overarching entity. It is the characters and their unique psychological issues that take the forefront in contemporary New Wave Indian films. Of course, the socio- political climate still plays an integral part, but as a backdrop. While Lakshmi in ‘Ankur’ had to deal with her tribulations because of her caste and position in society, Ila’s troubles in ‘The Lunchbox’ arise out of her personal relationship with her husband. Yes, the fact that she is a middle class housewife with a child does restrict her to a large extent, but her conflict does not directly arise out of that.
With the exception of the Bengali trio of Ray, Ghatak, and Sen, almost every New Wave Indian filmmaker had adopted a laissez faire approach as far as the craft of their making went. Films like ‘Ankur’, ‘Uski Roti’, and ‘Ardh Satya’ kept the focus on the narrative and adopted an almost dry approach in utilizing cinematography and other tools of filmmaking. Of course, there was the odd ‘Om Dar Badar’, which twisted cinematic storytelling on its head, but such incidents remained a rarity in Indian cinema. The current crop of New Wave filmmakers, like the Hollywood brat pack of the 1970s, are aware of their role as artistes and
