Blog 3

The Soviet Editing Theory was impacted by the influences of four main people, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Vertov, and Eisentein.  These men used a different approach than what most other editors were doing like those in America.  Americans at the time geared their editing toward more of a narrative way of telling a storyline. These four major editors understood that through cutting a film a certain way it completely impacted the viewer’s perception.  This theory focused on new ideas and began in the 1920s.

                The most influential of the four most believe was Kuleshov.  He was the person who founded the Moscow Film School during 1919.  His biggest impact was named after him, the Kuleshov Effects.  He was assisted by V.I. Pudovkin, Pudovkin studied under Kuleshov and was actually his student.  The basics of this affect is there are 3 separate images that are juxtaposed to create an emotional story.  Most believed this could only be told through films with narratives were you told and explained the emotions that were occurring.  Kuleshov and Pudovkin used three images, each shown to different audiences. The first was shown o image of a woman in a bikini, than a bowl of soup, and the last a crying baby.  Between each of these images they edited in shots of a man staring.  This showed how editing the same image of a man with different things he was reacting to create a completely different emotion and story. Finally there was Vertov and Eisenstien, Verov was mostly know for Man with a Movie Camera.  Unlike the emotional aspect we already talked about, he focused more on the actual cuts themselves.  He believes the better the cut the emotion will come on its own. Finally there is Sergi Eisenstein was also a student of Kuleshov.  Eisenstien expanded on his teachers editing theory, by comparing it to other editing theory’s, like Japanese hieroglyphics.