Montage (filmmaking)

Montage (filmmaking)
Montage is a film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information.
The term has been used in various contexts. In French, the word applied to cinema simply denotes editing. In Soviet montage theory, as originally introduced outside the USSR by Sergei Eisenstein, it was used to create symbolism. Later, the term "montage sequence", used primarily by British and American studios, became the common technique to suggest the passage of time.
A montage is a French term meaning "assembling shots" or "putting together". It is a film technique for putting together a series of short shots that create a composite picture. A montage can be described as a series of separate images, moving or still, that are edited together to create a continuous sequence. Montages enable filmmakers to communicate a large amount of information to an audience over a shorter span of time by juxtaposing different shots, compressing time through editing, or intertwining multiple storylines of a narrative.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, montage sequences often combined numerous short shots with special optical effects (fades/dissolves, split screens, double and triple exposures), dance, and music.
Development
Two common montage devices used are newsreels and railroads. In the first, as in Citizen Kane, there are multiple shots of newspapers being printed (multiple layered shots of papers moving between rollers, papers coming off the end of the press, a pressman looking at a paper) and headlines zooming on to the screen telling whatever needs to be told. In a typical railroad montage, the shots include engines racing toward the camera, giant engine wheels moving across the screen, and long trains racing past the camera as destination signs fill the screen.
"Scroll montage" is a form of multiple-screen montage developed specifically for the moving image in an internet browser. It plays with Italian theatre director Eugenio Barba's "space river" montage in which the spectators' attention is said to "[sail] on a tide of actions which their gaze [can never] fully encompass". "Scroll montage" is usually used in online audio-visual works in which sound and the moving image are separated and can exist autonomously: audio in these works is usually streamed on internet radio and video is posted on a separate site.
Noted directors
Film critic Ezra Goodman discusses the contributions of Slavko Vorkapić, who worked at MGM and was the best-known montage specialist of the 1930s:
From 1933 to 1942, Don Siegel, later a noted feature film director, was the head of the montage department at Warner Brothers. He did montage sequences for hundreds of features, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy; Knute Rockne, All American; Blues in the Night; Yankee Doodle Dandy; Casablanca; Action in the North Atlantic; Gentleman Jim; and They Drive by Night.
Siegel told Peter Bogdanovich how his montages differed from the usual ones:
In contrast, Siegel would read the motion picture's script to find out the story and action, then take the script's one line description of the montage and write his own five page script. The directors and the studio bosses left him alone because no one could figure out what he was doing. Left alone with his own crew, he constantly experimented to find out what he could do. He also tried to make the montage match the director's style, dull for a dull director, exciting for an exciting director.
Siegel selected the montages he did for Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and Confessions of a Nazi Spy, as especially good ones. "I thought the montages were absolutely extraordinary in 'The Adventures of Mark Twain'—not a particularly good picture, by the way."
Sports training montage
The sports training montage is a standard explanatory montage. It originated in American cinema but has since spread to modern martial arts films from East Asia. Originally depicting a character engaging in physical or sports training, the form has been extended to other activities or themes.
Conventions and clichés
The standard elements of a sports training montage include a build-up where the potential sports hero confronts his failure to train adequately. The solution is a serious, individual training regimen. The individual is shown engaging in physical training through a series of short, cut sequences. An inspirational song (often fast-paced rock music) typically provides the only sound. At the end of the montage several weeks have elapsed in the course of just a few minutes and the hero is now prepared for the big competition. One of the best-known examples is the training sequence in the 1976 movie Rocky, which culminates in Rocky's run up the Rocky Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The simplicity of the technique and its over-use in American film vocabulary has led to its status as a film cliché. A notable parody of the sports training montage appears in the South Park episode, "Asspen". When Stan Marsh must become an expert skier quickly, he begins training in a montage where the inspirational song explicitly spells out the techniques and requirements of a successful sports training montage sequence as they occur on screen. It was also spoofed in Team America: World Police in a similar sequence.
The music in these training montage scenes has garnered a cult following, with such artists as Robert Tepper, Stan Bush and Survivor appearing on several '80s soundtracks. Songs like Frank Stallone's "Far from Over," and John Farnham's "Break the Ice" are examples of high-energy rock songs that typify the music that appeared during montages in '80s action films.
See also
Bonnie and Clyde — 1967 film notable for its montage finale edited by Dede Allen
Collage film — similar in content
Video essay — similar in content
References
External links
Movie Montages, Cracked.com
Top 10 "Best of..." Film Montages, The Script Lab
Film editing
Cinematic techniques
Soviet inventions
Concepts in film theory