Monday, May 5, 2014

Soviet Editing Theory

Soviet Editing Theory took the analysis of films to a completely new level. Great theorists, such as Eisenstein, understood the thorough impact that could be made upon the viewers if the correct actions were made. Now it's interesting to me that back during the first two decades of the conception of film, there were people that could already see the potential of cinema.  It could be used to influence masses to think differently about certain ideas.  Brainwashing could already be seen as a possibility for the Communist regime of the Soviet Union.  Through the use of techniques, such as montage, Lev Kuleshov was able to discover that the order in which the images were placed together had a certain effect on the audience.  The main idea of this order is to change the meaning of each shot by the one either before or after.

Personally, I found this part of Soviet Editing Theory very fascinating.  I had never before thought that the order of clips could change the meaning so much.  However, I decided to take this aspect of Soviet Editing Theory and see how true it was as I watched the 2006 film, "Alex Rider: Stormbreaker".  Within the first few minutes of the movie, I realized that one cut in particular had employed the use of montage.  When Ian Rider, a spy who was running from enemies at the time, is driving away from a place where his cover had been blown, you see a shot of him looking out the passenger side window at an assassin.  The cut then goes back to his close up and then to the assassin who pulls out two pistols and fires, "breaking" the glass and fading the clip into darkness.  Through the order of the cuts you immediately know that Ian Rider had not survived the bullets.  The two clips by themselves or perhaps in a different order would have left a completely different mental image of what was going on.  Before learning about this aspect of Soviet Editing Theory, I had not payed that much attention to how much the order of shots can truly change their effect on the audience.

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