The Cutting Edge - Blog #1

The Cutting Edge

The cutting Edge explained to it's audience how editing was one of the most important aspects of film. And they were right! Editing is what pulls a film together. Sure, you could have just one long run of scenes with no cuts or edits. However, How would this look to the audience? It would be messy and almost painful to watch. Their would be nothing to intrigue or make us feel like we were in the story line.

They say it themselves, if it weren't for editing, movies probably would be as popular as they are. Editing is what made film what it is. With out it, it's just a bunch of shots. One aspect they talked about that makes editors so amazing, is actors. Actors come in, shoot the scene the way the feel a character would, and go home. However, They don't understand positioning. So, when one character has his head down, and then up in another shot, things can go as-cue. This is where Editors would come in and make their magic to edit around this little mistake. And voila! The bad shot is covered up and made to look gorgeous!

Eventually, editors would start to step out of their comfort zones and those who did would make great waves of new ideas and styles to edit with. Editors become more creative and conscious about their edits. They're weren't just clean cuts from scene to scene. They were basically psychological and put their to add even more depth to a film.

Film editing has, is, and always will bee an important aspect of film. 

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     Soviet Cinema primarily focuses on ideas and signs. The Soviet editing theory came about in the 1920s and was developed by Kuleshov , Vertov, Pudovkin, and Eisenstein. They each contributed different but are famously known for it. Soviet montage is the focus and understanding of creating cinema using certain editing techniques.  

                First there was Lev Kuleshov who was the found of the Moscow Film School in 1919. He is known for his experiment now known as the Kuleshov Effect, which was conducted with the assistance of his student V.I. Pudovkin. It’s three series of cut images that are presented to 3 separate audiences. In each series there is a shot of an expressionless man. However, with each series there is a different image the man is reacting too. For the first audience it was a baby and his mother, the second a woman in a bikini, and I believe the third was a coffin. Different images equal different opinions. What is chosen and cut tells a story.The student, V.I. Pudovkin, wrote a book in 1958 entitled “Film technique and Film Acting.”   Pudovkin believes in certain foundations of Kuleshov but he has developed some of his own. He believes that film is not shut but it is built. He believes film is a dead object until it is presented in a synthesis with other images. 

Then Vertov who is known for Man with a Movie Camera strays differently from the others. He focuses less on emotion and more on the cuts. He doesn’t create the emotion but he lets the cuts create their own emotion. The cuts in this film are fast, sharp, and provide a lot of information.

Then there is Sergi Eisenstein who was also a film student of Kuleshov. He believes cinema equals language of visual symbols which are often 2 juxtaposed images that create a third symbol of meaning. All four men brought very unique talents and opinions. They butted heads on montage and editing overall on the right way to put something together. Eisenstein fought with Pudovkin about collision for example. There isn’t really a right way when it comes to editing but there are many different ways to make it look good. 

Soviet Editing

When it comes to the Soviet’s perspectives on editing, four men have had the most significant impact.  Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and Vertov have had a lasting impression on not just the Soviet film industry but also the world as a whole.  In contrast to the American way of editing which focuses heavily on narrative storytelling, the Soviets have a larger focus on signs and ideas,

                For starters, Kuleshov completely reinvented the way we think of editing and cinematography as a whole.  Kuleshov focused highly on montage and the interrelationship between shots.  Rather than shots being strung together to form a narrative story like how we Americans think of it, Kuleshov suggests that the shots alone are cinematic material.  The way shots are juxtaposed together makes all the difference.  The Kuleshov Effect demonstrates this idea by showing an expressionless man followed by different shots such as a bowl of soup, a baby in a coffin, or a beautiful woman.  With each shot the audience saw in the man feelings of hunger, grief, or desire respectively even though in reality the man is looking at none of these images and he remains completely expressionless.  This perfectly demonstrates the power of editing; whichever shots one chooses to juxtapose together makes all the difference and one shot opposed to another can completely tell a different story.

                Pudovkin and Eisenstein show similar ideas to their teacher, Kuleshov.  Pudovkin elaborates on Kuleshov’s views on editing by saying that editing is the foundation of film and is basically the most important aspect.  Pudovkin suggests that film is not shot but built and this goes along with Kuleshov’s idea of montage.  Eisenstein also elaborates on Kuleshov’s ideas such as the Kuleshov Effect by comparing film editing to Japanese hieroglyphics.  He suggests that two juxtaposed images create a third meaning and this is perfectly demonstrated in his film Battleship Potemkin.  He juxtaposed images such as a baby carriage falling down the staircase and people screaming unrelatedly to perceive the emotion of sadness and fear.

                Lastly, Vertov uses all of these Soviet editing techniques and his idea of the “Kino eye” in his monumental film, Man with a Movie Camera.  In it he brilliantly juxtaposes images of daily life in Russian cities.  People are seen from all aspects of human life, from work to play and life and death.  Vertov brings all the Soviet ideas of editing and the importance of the pairing of shots together.  The way a film is edited makes all the difference in how we perceive it and is arguably the most important aspect of the film making process.

                 

Thoughts on Soviet Editing Theory

Thoughts on Soviet Editing Theory

                When the Soviet Editing Theory comes to mind, so do four names; Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and Vertov. The films Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) and Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), also come to mind as well.  

                The Soviet Editing Theory heavily relies on how single images are juxtaposed together to create a montage.

                Going off of Eisenstein’s view of editing as “a montage is an idea that arises from the of independent shots,” his student Kuleshov, Kuleshov’s student Pudovkin, as well as Dziga Vertov, not one of Eisenstein’s students, all furthered Eisenstein’s idea of editing. From this group of people, Sergei Eisenstein, Vesvolod Pudovkin and Lev Kuleshov founded and taught at the Moscow Film School (c. 1919).

                Pudovkin believed editing was a mean of expression, which could be depicted by 5 different techniques: contrast, parallelism, symbolism, simultaneity, and leit motif. Pudovkin was taught by Lev Kuleshov, whose theory of editing was it meant more than just splicing film together to create a coherent story. Kuleshov believed that film should be juxtaposed in such a certain, powerful, way, that the montage evokes emotion from its audience.

                A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. So if you take multiple pictures and juxtapose them a certain way, you can evoke a certain emotion from people. They don’t even need those thousands of words per photo to describe their emotion. Their emotion is too powerful for words. The same goes for film. You can juxtapose a scene an array of ways to create a plethora of emotions. You can create it to make people feel sad. You can create it to make people feel angry. You can create it to make people feel happy. It is up to you, the editor, to create these emotions. Sometimes all you need are images to speak for you.

                Dziga Vertov, as well as his wife Elizaveta Vertov, was an editor. Vertov was known for his theory of the Kino-eye and documentary filmmaking. He was especially known for his film Man with a Movie Camera (1929). In this film it shows the daily life of people living in different cities in Russia. People are shown working, playing, getting married, getting divorced, being born and dying; just to name a few. Vertov develops and uses techniques such as fast and slow motion, jump cuts, freeze frames, double exposure and extreme close-ups. These are techniques that we still use today! 

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The film A Man with a Camera was a very interesting film created by Vertov. It seemed like he tried to capture the audience with the whole idea of life and death. That part, in turn gave me chills personally. I’ve always been interested in death and the whole, “what happens after” idea, and he captured all of it beautifully. Overall he seemed like he knew what he was doing when compared to other films we watched. He paid very close and detailed attention by taking certain pictures and images in ways that really impressed me and can probably impress the audience as well. Some examples of interesting sequences of camera shots and clips were actually the part of the woman giving birth, people getting married and death. In a way it showed how life can begin and then inevitably end. No one is immortal. No one can escape death. The scene itself was very interesting because it showed the complete circle of life, from start to finish. It began with the birth of a baby and ending with the death of a man or a woman. By not having sound in the film, he is making you (the audience) think about the scene and really figure out what is actually happening on your own, which I really like. He flashes quickly from one image to another making the viewer decide what’s happening. The cuts in order are important because they can be interpreted differently depending on the order or how one views them in general. By planning the cuts from one image to another in a certain rhythm he made the film seem more realistic and creative as a whole. I also enjoyed how he made the funeral slower than normal, making sure the viewer or audience pay attention to what was going on which almost makes you feel like you’re there, feeling the dread.  Overall, Vertov is a great editor and can really manipulate images which can make the audience feel differently, or make them interpret it differently than others.

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The film The Man with a Camera was a very creative and elaborate film. Vertov paid very close attention to detail and capturing the shots and images in ways that stun and amaze the audience. There were also some interesting sequences of camera shots and clips. For example the sequence that included a woman giving birth, a couple getting married, and a person’s funeral. This was interesting because it showed the complete circle of life. The sequence had started with the birth of a baby and ending with the death of either a man or a woman. He captured the realism and the simplistic yet elaborate parts to each clip. The funeral procession for one was slow and showed the people walking slowly behind the hearse covered in flowers with the body inside, this really captivates and portrays the reality and realism of a funeral and how the people feel who are mourning the loss of a loved one.

            He furthermore, is creating a silent language by not having sound. He does this by flashing from one image to another creating a story. When he flashes from an old woman, to a young child, and then to homeless person sleeping on the streets. All of the images and clips in his film capture events and activities of every dad life. Just like the circle of life montage the entire film is basically is very well edited and creatively done. The specific timing of the cuts is another thing that makes the film. These cuts are an important part of tying the film all together. Vertov planned and edited the timing of the cuts from one image to another precisely to make the film realistic and creative. Vertov created a genius film I enjoyed. Vertov is a brilliant editor and used creative and idealistic images that everyone can relate too.  

Vertov & montage

Personally, for me, the Man with the movie camera was an elaborately created  film.The details in the montages Vertov creates is what really resonates. Take for instance the cut to a birds eye view of a field, and the geometric shapes that it creates and then juxtapose it next to a close up of the revolving door. At a glance these two shots don't really elicit any thought or feeling but at a closer look you realize these two completely unrelated images are in fact identical. I think that kind of take and uniqueness on a montage is what sets the film apart. Another example could be the silent language Vertov is speaking. He cuts back and forth between a woman, and homeless people sleeping, and then to a movie poster of a man with a finger over his lips 'shhhhhing' the audience if you will. I mean the whole film is revolved around these cuts and the list is endless but I think the one that stuck out the most, for me at least, would have to be the the cut of a camera man, riding a motorcycle and shooting, then it's cut to the audience, from the beginning of the film, watching the cut we just watched. Vertov intertwined the making of the movie, to us seeing the making of the movie, to the audience watching the movie and us watching the theatre watch the movie we watched being created. 

 Vertov also created montages with idealogical views. He cuts between mindless activities like getting a shave to labor necessities like sharpening an axe; from a woman being pampered and getting her nails done to a woman working intently with those "same" hands.

Vertov takes everyday frivolous activities and productive labor and creates a web entwining the two. The Man with the movie camera is nothing short of genius.

Contemplation on Vertov

For me, what Vertov has accomplished in Man with a Movie Camera, is a sense of social consciousness—an interconnectivity of the social sphere accomplished through the editing itself. Take, for instance, the juxtaposition—where, perhaps, juxtaposition isn’t even the right word—of the film editor and seamstress, the barber and the miner. There’s a sense that labor, as the base of the social order’s superstructure (to use Marxist terms) actually unifies the populace; and it’s conveyed through Vertov’s montages. Furthermore, there’s an emphasis on travel, I think—especially during a time when complex machinery needed to be made sense of, and thought through. Trains and cars expanded the boundaries of transport, as the telephone and mass media (i.e. newspaper) did with communication. This was an introduction to extrasensory perception; now, while that phrase may suggest something else entirely—there was a very real phenomenon occurring wherein reality was being experienced, as it never was before (as it is today, as well). And, perhaps, this is where the kino eye comes in—to make sense of and represent this experience; which may explain the cameraman’s association with movement—standing atop vehicles in motion, capturing reality from this perspective and it moves through (and subsequently intertwines) the social order.

I wonder, however, what Vertov would say of the image’s soundtrack. While the image captured by the movie camera may be objective—the music is ultimately a subjective choice; a choice which certainly can influence the ‘truth’ of the image.

This is more of an ethical question, I suppose; but—is the mechanization of humankind a positive thing? Or an attempt at divinity (both in the sense of omniscience and in evolving the perfect human self)?

Also, for what it’s worth—the conception of the kino eye reminded me of David Lynch’s Lost Highway—thematically, and specifically in a certain line: “I like to remember things my own way […] not necessarily the way they happened.”

Blog Response #3

Cinematographic Effects 

In the early 1900's there were several perspectives about Cinematic structure and effects that surfaced within the cinematic sphere of the Soviets. Lev Kuleshov, the founder of the Moscow Film School, argues that the organization, construction, and interrelationship of cinematic materials are cinematography. In a more narrow sense, he thinks that the shots are like the letters in a word. These letters, put together in a specific order, creates a third and separate meaning. Likewise, he thinks the shots in a sequence do the same, and, to a certain extent, create the potential reaction of the viewer. To defend his theory, Kuleshov did an experiment called the Kuleshov Effect. The result of this experiment creates a legitimate platform for Kuleshov argument. Kuleshov took three pictures of a man with the same expression and combined them with three different images. In each scenario Kuleshov the emotional response was different which lead him to believe that the emotional response of the audience is because of the cut itself and not the some of the images.

Pudovkin, a student of Kuleshov, argues that film is not shot but built. He thinks that the images or cinematic materials are lifeless until edited together; at this point they become alive. Sergei Eisenstein, also a student of Kuleshov, argues that cinema is a language of visual symbols, for example hieroglyphs, which creates a third symbol when juxtaposed. One may see that both students had two opposing ideas as Pudovkin see it as a series and Eisenstein sees it has a collision.

However, after watching the film, “Battleship Potemkin” (1925), I realize that Kuleshov argument reflected soundly. During the film, without sound, a series of cuts were made which created a series of response from me. At first a flag flowing high was intercut with a group of people waving which signifies pride. These two images being intercut may not have been related in any way but because of its organization they seem to be related. From a critical sense, these images may have been from a different scene but because they were juxtaposed that way I felt as though it symbolizes pride and dignity, the third meaning that it creates. In this film Pudovkin’s argument about series was also partially reflected. There was a shot of the people running down the stairs but then a shot of the men marching and firing at what appears to be the same people. These shots were constantly showed which not only directed my emotional response but also gave life to the scene. The scene would be soulless if there was only the people running down the steps but because of editing the scene was built from the lifeless cinematic material.

While Kuleshov’s and Pudovkin’s arguments seem logical, I find it hard to relate to Eisenstein argument. There is also Vertov, whose perspective is directly opposite from Eisenstein, which I have still not comprehended. Whether it's Montage, editing or the organization of cinematic material I find that the editor has the ability to create or direct the response he wants from his audience. As far as I am concerned, having such ability will help to make anyone a great film editor.

-Danangelowe Spencer

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