Film Form

by Sergei Eisenstein

  It was on the cutting table that I detected the sharply defined scope of the particular montage of Old and New. This was when the film had to be condensed and shortened. The “creative ecstasy” attending the assembly and montage—the “creative ecstasy” of “hearing and feeling” the shots—all this was already in the past. Abbreviations and cuts require no inspiration, only technique and skill.

  And there, examining the sequence of the religious procession on the table, I could not fit the combination of its pieces into any one of the orthodox categories, within which one can apply one’s pure experience. On the table, deprived of motion, the reasons for their choice seem completely incomprehensible. The criteria for their assembly appear to be outside formally normal cinematographic criteria.

  And here is observed one further curious parallel between the visual and the musical overtone: It cannot be traced in the static frame, just as it cannot be traced in the musical score. Both emerge as genuine values only in the dynamics of the musical or cinematographic process.

  Overtonal conflicts, foreseen but unwritten in the score, cannot emerge without the dialectic process of the passage of the film through the projection apparatus, or that of the performance by a symphony orchestra.

  The visual overtone is proved to be an actual piece, an actual element of—a fourth dimension!

  In three-dimensional space, spatially inexpressible, and only emerging and existing in the fourth dimension (time added to the three dimensions).

  The fourth dimension?! Einstein? Or mysticism? Or a joke?

  It’s time to stop being frightened of this new knowledge of a fourth dimension. Einstein himself assures us:

  The non-mathematician is seized by a mysterious shuddering when he hears of “four-dimensional” things, by a feeling not unlike that awakened by thoughts of the occult. And yet there is no more common-place statement than that the world in which we live is a four-dimensional space-time continuum.1

  Possessing such an excellent instrument of perception as the cinema—even on its primitive level—for the sensation of movement, we should soon learn a concrete orientation in this fourdimensional space-time continuum, and feel as much at home in it as in our own house-slippers. And we’ll soon be posing the question of a fifth dimension!

  Overtonal montage is revealed as a new category among the other montage processes known up till now. The applied significance of this method is immediately immense. And that is why this article appears in a number devoted to the sound film!*

  In the article cited at the beginning, pointing to the “unexpected junction”—a similarity between the Kabuki theater and the sound film, I wrote on the contrapuntal method of combining the visual and aural images:

  To possess this method one must develop in oneself a new sense: the capacity of reducing visual and aural perceptions to a “common denominator.”

  And yet we cannot reduce aural and visual perceptions to a common denominator. They are values of different dimensions. But the visual overtone and the sound overtone are values of a singly measured substance. Because, if the frame is a visual perception, and the tone is an aural perception, visual as well as aural overtones are a totally physiological sensation. And, consequently, they are of one and the same kind, outside the sound or aural categories that serve as guides, conductors to its achievement.

  For the musical overtone (a throb) it is not strictly fitting to say: “I hear.”

  Nor for the visual overtone: “I see.”

  For both, a new uniform formula must enter our vocabulary: “I feel.”

  The theory and methodology of the overtone have been cultivated and made familiar by, among others, Debussy and Scriabin. Old and New introduces a concept of the visual overtone. And from the contrapuntal conflict between the visual and aural overtones will be born the composition of the Soviet sound film.

  [1929]

  Methods of Montage

  In every art and every discovery, experience has always preceded precepts. In the course of time, a method has been assigned to the practice of the invention.

  GOLDONI1

  IS THE method of overtonal montage unrelated to our previous experience, artificially grafted onto cinematography, or is it simply a quantitative accumulation of one attribute that makes a dialectic leap and begins to function as a new qualitative attribute?

  In other words, is overtonal montage a dialectical stage of development within the development of the whole montage system of methods, standing in a successive relation to other forms of montage?

  These are the formal categories of montage that we know:

  1. Metric Montage

  The fundamental criterion for this construction is the absolute lengths of the pieces. The pieces are joined together according to their lengths, in a formula-scheme corresponding to a measure of music. Realization is in the repetition of these “measures.”

  Tension is obtained by the effect of mechanical acceleration by shortening the pieces while preserving the original proportions of the formula. Primitive of the method: three-quartertime, march-time, waltz-time (¾, 2/4, ¼, etc.), used by Kuleshov; degeneration of the method: metric montage using a measure of complicated irregularity (16/17, 22/57 etc.).

  Such a measure ceases to have a physiological effect, for it is contrary to the “law of simple numbers” (relationships). Simple relationships, giving a clarity of impression, are for this reason necessary for maximum effectiveness. They are therefore found in healthy classics of every field: architecture; the color in a painting; a complex composition by Scriabin (always crystal clear in the relations between its parts); geometrical mises-en-scène; precise state planning, etc.

  A similar example may be found in Vertov’s Eleventh Year, where the metric beat is mathematically so complex that it is only “with a ruler” that one can discover the proportional law that governs it. Not by impression as perceived, but by measurement.

  I do not mean to imply that the beat should be recognizable as part of the perceived impression. On the contrary. Though unrecognized, it is nevertheless indispensable for the “organization” of the sensual impression. Its clarity can bring into unison the “pulsing” of the film and the “pulsing” of the audience. Without such a unison (obtainable by many means) there can be no contact between the two.

  Over-complexity of the metric beat produces a chaos of impressions, instead of a distinct emotional tension.

  A third use of metric montage lies between its two extremes of simplicity and complexity: alternating two varying piece-lengths according to two kinds of content within the pieces. Examples: the sequence of the lezginka in October and the patriotic demonstration in The End of St. Petersburg. (The latter example can be considered as classic in the field of purely metric montage.)

  In this type of metric montage the content within the frame of the piece is subordinated to the absolute length of the piece. Therefore, only the broadly dominant content-character of the piece is regarded; these would be “synonymous” shots.

  2. Rhythmic Montage

  Here, in determining the lengths of the pieces, the content within the frame is a factor possessing equal rights to consideration.

  Abstract determination of the piece-lengths gives way to a flexible relationship of the actual lengths.

  Here the actual length does not coincide with the mathematically determined length of the piece according to a metric formula. Here its practical length derives from the specifics of the piece, and from its planned length according to the structure of the sequence.

  It is quite possible here to find cases of complete metric identity of the pieces and their rhythmic measures, obtained through a combination of the pieces according to their content.

  Formal tension by acceleration is obtained here by shortening the pieces not only in accordance with the fundamental plan, but also by violating this plan. The most affective violation is by the introduction of material more intense in an easily distinguished tempo.

  The “Odes
sa steps” sequence in Potemkin is a clear example of this. In this the rhythmic drum of the soldiers’ feet as they descend the steps violates all metrical demands. Unsynchronized with the beat of the cutting, this drumming comes in off-beat each time, and the shot itself is entirely different in its solution with each of these appearances. The final pull of tension is supplied by the transfer from the rhythm of the descending feet to another rhythm—a new kind of downward movement—the next intensity level of the same activity—the baby-carriage rolling down the steps. The carriage functions as a directly progressing accelerator of the advancing feet. The stepping descent passes into a rolling descent.

  Contrast this with the above example from The End of St. Petersburg, where intensity is gained by cutting each and every piece to its required minimum within the single metric measure.

  Such metrical montage is perfectly suitable for similarly simple march-time solutions. But it is inadequate for more complex rhythmic needs.

  When it is forcibly applied to such a problem, we find montage failure. This explains such an unsuccessful sequence as that of the religious mask dance in Storm Over Asia. Executed on the basis of a complex metrical beat, unadjusted to the specific content of the pieces, this neither reproduces the rhythm of the original ceremony nor organizes a cinematically affective rhythm.

  In most cases of this sort, nothing more than perplexity is excited in the specialist, and nothing more than a confused impression is aroused in the lay spectator. (Although an artificial crutch of musical accompaniment may give some support to such a shaky sequence—as it did in the cited example—the basic weakness is still present.)

  3. Tonal Montage

  This term is employed for the first time. It expresses a stage beyond rhythmic montage.

  In rhythmic montage it is movement within the frame that impels the montage movement from frame to frame. Such movements within the frame may be of objects in motion, or of the spectator’s eye directed along the lines of some immobile object.

  In tonal montage, movement is perceived in a wider sense. The concept of movement embraces all affects of the montage piece. Here montage is based on the characteristic emotional sound of the piece—of its dominant. The general tone of the piece.

  I do not mean to say that the emotional sound of the piece is to be measured “impressionistically.” The piece’s characteristics in this respect can be measured with as much exactitude as in the most elementary case of “by the ruler” measurement in metrical montage. But the units of measurement differ. And the amounts to be measured are different.

  For example, the degree of light vibration in a piece cannot only be gauged by a selenium light-element, but every gradation of this vibration is perceptible to the naked eye. If we give the comparative and emotional designation of “more gloomy” to a piece, we can also find for the piece a mathematical co-efficient for its degree of illumination. This is a case of “light tonality.” Or, if the piece is described as having a “shrill sound,” it is possible to find, behind this description, the many acutely angled elements within the frame, in comparison with other shape-elements. This is a case of “graphic tonality.”

  Working with combinations of varying degrees of softfocus or varying degrees of “shrillness” would be a typical use of tonal montage.

  As I have said, this would be based on the dominant emotional sound of the pieces. An example: the “fog sequence” in Potemkin (preceding the mass mourning over the body of Vakulinchuk). Here the montage was based exclusively on the emotional “sound” of the pieces—on rhythmic vibrations that do not affect spatial alterations. In this example it is interesting that, alongside the basic tonal dominant, a secondary, accessory rhythmic dominant is also operating. This links the tonal construction of the scene with the tradition of rhythmic montage, the furthest development of which is tonal montage. And, like rhythmic montage, this is also a special variation of metric montage.

  This secondary dominant is expressed in barely perceptible changing movements: the agitation of the water; the slight rocking of the anchored vessels and buoys; the slowly ascending vapor; the sea-gulls settling gently onto the water.

  Strictly speaking, these too are elements of a tonal order. These are movements that move according to tonal rather than to spatial-rhythmic characteristics. Here spatially immeasurable changes are combined according to their emotional sound. But the chief indicator for the assembly of the pieces was according to their basic element—optical light-vibrations (varying degrees of “haze” and “luminosity”). And the organization of these vibrations reveals a complete identity with a minor harmony in music. Moreover, this example furnishes a demonstration of consonance in combining movement as change and movement as light-vibration.

  Increased tension in this level of montage, too, is produced by an intensification of the same “musical” dominant. An espedally clear example of such intensification is furnished by the sequence of the delayed harvest in Old and New. The construction of this film as a whole, as in this particular sequence, adheres to a basic constructive process. Namely: a conflict between story and its traditional form.

  Emotive structures applied to non-emotional material. The stimulus is transferred from its usual use as situation (for example, as eroticism is usually used in films) to structures paradoxical in tone. When “the pillar of industry” is finally discovered—it is a typewriter. The hero bull and heroine cow are happily wed. It is not the Holy Grail that inspires both doubt and ecstasy—but a cream-separator.*

  Therefore, the thematic minor of the harvesting is resolved by the thematic major of the tempest, of the rain. Yes, and even the stacked harvest, itself—traditional major theme of fecundity basking in the sun—is a resolution of the minor theme, wetted as it is by the rain.

  Here the increase of tension proceeds by internal reinforcement of a relentless dominant chord—by the growing feeling within the piece of “oppression before the storm.”

  As in the preceding example, the tonal dominant—movement as light-vibration—is accompanied by a secondary rhythmic dominant, i.e., movement as change.

  Here it is expressed in the growing violence of the wind, embodied in a transfer from currents of air to torrents of rain—a definite analogy with the transfer from the downward steps to the downward rolling carriage.

  In general structure the wind-rain element in relation to the dominant can be identified with the bond in the first example (the harbor mists) between its rhythmic rockings and its reticular afocality. Actually, the character of the inter-relation is quite different. In contrast with the consonance of the first example, we have here the reverse.

  The gathering the skies into a black, threatening mass is contrasted with the intensifying dynamic force of the wind, and the solidification implied in the transition from currents of air to torrents of water is intensified by the dynamically blown petticoats and the scattering sheaves of the harvest.

  Here a collision of tendencies—an intensification of the static and an intensification of the dynamic—gives us a clear example of dissonance in tonal montage construction.

  From the viewpoint of emotional impression, the harvest sequence exemplifies the tragic (active) minor, in distinction from the lyrical (passive) minor of the harbor fog sequence.

  It is interesting that in both examples the montage grows with the increasing change of its basic element—color: in the “harbor” from dark gray to misty white (life analogy—the dawn); in the “harvest” from light gray to leaden black (life analogy—the approach of crisis). I.e., along a line of light vibrations increasing in frequency in the one case, and diminishing in frequency in the other.

  A construction in simple metrics has been elevated to a new category of movement—a category of higher significance.

  This brings us to a category of montage that we may justly name:

  4. Overtonal Montage

  In my opinion, overtonal montage (as described in the preceding essay) is organically the furthest develop
ment along the line of tonal montage. As I have indicated, it is distinguishable from tonal montage by the collective calculation of all the piece’s appeals.

  This characteristic steps up the impression from a melodically emotional coloring to a directly physiological perception. This, too, represents a level related to the preceding levels.

  These four categories are methods of montage. They become montage constructions proper when they enter into relations of conflict with each other—as in the examples cited.

  Within a scheme of mutual relations, echoing and conflicting with one another, they move to a more and more strongly defined type of montage, each one organically growing from the other.

  Thus the transition from metrics to rhythmics came about in the conflict between the length of the shot and the movement within the frame.

  Tonal montage grows out of the conflict between the rhythmic and tonal principles of the piece.

  And finally—overtonal montage, from the conflict between the principal tone of the piece (its dominant) and the overtone.

  These considerations provide, in the first place, an interesting criterion for the appreciation of montage-construction from a “pictorial” point of view. Pictorialism is here contrasted with “cinematicism,” esthetic pictorialism with physiological reality.

  To argue about the pictorialism of the film-shot is naive. This is typical of persons possessing a decent esthetic culture that has never been logically applied to films. To this kind of thinking belong, for instance, the remarks on cinema coming from Kasimir Malevich.* The veriest novice in films would not think of analyzing the film-shot from an identical point of view with landscape painting.