Montage

Montage

History of the term

The film term montage comes from the French:

Monter (verb) – to assemble;

Montage (noun) – assembly;

When montage refers to techniques in film editing techniques it has three senses:

In French film practice, “montage” has its own literal French meaning (assembly, installation) and simply identifies editing.

In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920’s, “montage” was a methods of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.

In classical Hollywood cinema, a “montage sequence” is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion.

Hollywood montage is a montage style that suddenly became a convention during the classical Hollywood era and remained very popular technique amongst directors and editors throughout the twentieth century and into our current one.

The montage sequence consists of a series of short shots that are then edited into a sequence to condense narrative which is displayed. It is usually used to advance the story as a whole (often to suggest the passage of time), rather than to create symbolic meaning.

In many cases, a song plays in the background to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed.

Examples #1

My first example is from ‘Hot Fuzz Opening Sequence’ which clearly conveys montage, although with a difference as it’s V/O (Voice over) montage which has somebody talking over the scene as they are almost narrating the story and the beginning of the scene alongside music as it gradually fades in. we see the first character walking through a building, training with the police force as part of his job, handling a street riot situation, sitting an exam as part of his police training, being awarded, being photographed with his colleagues, running up a set of stairs, helping members of the public, presenting in front of his colleagues, cycling, playing and fencing  and this is all happening at different times and that gives us the sense of montage as we are condensing time. 

Soviet montage edit - Lev Kuelshov

in soviet montage theory, the editing of shots creates symbolic meaning. 

For Kuleshov, editing a film is like constructing a building. Brick-by-Brick (shot-by-shot).

Kuleshov conducted an experiment to show that montage can lead the viewer to reach certain conclusions about the action in a film. 

The Kuleshove experiment

Kuelshov edited together a short film i which a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist Matinee idol Ivan Mosjoukine was alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a gin in a coffin, a woman on a divan). 

Experiment explained

The audience believed that Mosjoukine's face displayed three different expressions according to what he was "looking at":

soup - hunger

girl in coffin - grief

woman on the divan - desire

Actual truth; 

*The footage of Mosjoukine was actually the same piece of shot each time. *

Montage works because viewers infer meaning based on context - we interpret based on the context and construct our own meaning.