战舰波将金号1925

During the Montage movement, Soviet films were relatively similar in terms of genres. As Lenin declared, “Of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important,” (Bordwell, 107) The Bolshevik regime realized that the cinema was the most powerful tool for propaganda and education, given the 80% rates of illiteracy and the mix of vernaculars straddled across the country. Hence, we could see a great similarity in films directed by most of the Montage directors during that time. Depictions of uprisings, strikes, and rebellion against the authoritarian regime were extremely popular among directors who emphasized the Bolshevik ideology in films. BothBattleship Potemkin(Eisenstein, 1925) andMother(Pudovkin, 1926) include various strikes and demonstration sequences to highlight the tension between the authorities and civilians, commemorating the failed Revolution of 1905. In order to be as comprehensible to the viewers as possible, intertitles in bothMotherandBattleship Potemkinwere simple and concise. Phrases like “It was spring”, “Even a dog wouldn’t eat this”, and “Brothers!” helped to maintain the continuity in the narratives, but also powerful enough to evoke the spectator’s emotion about the Bolsheviks’ solidarity in the revolution.

As Bordwell points out inFilm History, “…it [montage] also served more abstract purposes, linking two actions for the sake of a thematic point.” (117) The use of montage to construct narrative and court spectators’ attention was prevalent among Soviets directors, and Pudovkin and Eisenstein are prime examples. Despite their consensus on the search for dynamism through montage, Pudovkin and Eisenstein, however, diverged drastically regarding the role which montage played in film narration. Greatly influenced by Kuleshov, Pudovkin inherited the idea of continuity editing from Hollywood, in which filmmaker created an immersive experience for the viewer to match reality in a natural way. Pointed out by Pudovkin in hisSelected Essays, “The director despotically manipulate the viewer’s attention. The viewer sees only what the director shows him”(35). He stressed the use of montage to achieve the “the maximum simplicity”(36) and “clarity in resolving each individual problem”(36) when constructing a sequence. In the first sequence ofMother, when the mother (Vera Baranovskaya) is being abused by the alcoholic husband (Aleksandr Chistyakov), Pudovkin employed techniques like match-on-action and eye-line matches to cut between numerous shots to highlight each protagonist’s personality, but also intelligibly establish the family dynamics with little explanation. The back-and-forth cuts of father and the son (Nikolay Batalov) and respective close-ups of the hammer and the father’s clenched hands, captures the family’s extreme tension and the son’s resolution to protect his mother. Reminiscent of the last-minute rescue sequence inThe Birth of a Nation(D. W. Griffith, 1915), the crosscutting between the prison riot and the protest march in the last sequence of Mother, helps to build up the final culmination, and captivate the audience’s attention in a state of intense excitement.

Rather than paying excessive attention to maintain a comprehensible narrative like Pudovkin, Eisenstein was more radical and more experimental in terms of what montage could achieve. In his theory of film, Eisenstein often brought up the term “conflict” in which “antithetical elements clash and produce a synthesis that goes beyond both.” (Bordwell, 113) Eisenstein did not see montage as an implement to maintain a clear temporal and spatial relationship, guiding the spectator through the entire narrative. Rather he envisioned each individual shot or sequence as if it was a puzzle with meanings of their own. When combined, however, these individual shots created an utterly different picture, sparking new meaning that was not present in either of the original shots. The infamous Odessa stairs sequence inBattleship Potemkinis the moment when Eisenstein fully actualizes his “intellectual montage” theory. Shots of soldiers marching down steps symbolize an oppressive force juxtaposed with unarmed civilians fleeing, barring the straightforward indication of the helplessness of the Russian people, offers new meanings of the Russian Empire’s forces’ brutality. The last sequence of the Odessa massacre constitutes shots of the stroller sliding downstairs across dead bodies, the slaughter of civilians, and close-ups of a woman’s face, covered with blood. Albeit the considerable lack of spatial and temporal relation, the sequence’s short and sharp intercuts epitomize the agony of innocuous civilians, insinuating the viciousness of the Russian army. Besides, Eisenstein deliberately intercut three consecutive shots of stone lion statues when illustrating the bombardment of the Odess theater.Although shots of the lion may not mean much on their own, when combined, it seems like the lion is rising from its sleep. They signify the Odessa people waking up and fighting against the totalitarian regime and seemingly paralleled with the first half of the film, where asleep crews ignite the revolution on battleship Potemkin.

The divergence of editing styles also leads to some nuances in respect to Pudovkin and Eisenstein’s film narrative. Pudovkin considered close-ups not simply as a tool for continuity editing, but also a powerful measure to symbolize the protagonist’s distinct characteristics. Without close-ups, according to Pudovkin, “(viewers) would have received only a general impression of the scene and not had the opportunity to examine any of the characters in isolation.”(58) InMother, the mother and the son do represent the collective but they are also strong characters on their own. Close-ups often are inserted to match by the characters’ behaviors, directing the spectator’s attention to details which seemingly embody the character’s idiosyncrasy. Eisenstein experimentation with the film narrative even appeared to be more radical when shooting theBattleship Potemkin. Shots of major characters were eliminated, instead the film focused on telling a story of a mutiny on a Russian battleship and the protest march of Odessa civilians, at the same time, dramatizing the miserable conditions of the sailors and the cruelty of the Russian authoritarian regime.

At the beginning of the 1930s, audiences, who were tired of the esoteric style of montage, began to demand for something more accessible and more evocative. Along with the permeation of series ofSocialist Realismfilms which focus on realistic stories that supported Communist values, the Soviet Montage movement eventually came to an end. Like many revolutionary cinema movements, however, techniques by the Soviet Montage filmmakers continue to influence movies, such asRear Window(Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) andThe Godfather(Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), to this day.

Reference:

1. Film History, An Introduction, David Bordwell, Fouth Edition, p103 -123

2. Vsevolod Pudovkin Selected Essas, The Construction of the Script, p35 - 62

形式上，俯拍对仰角，明亮对阴影，远景对中景，全景对特写，曲线对直线，构图的重心，反打镜头。以及影史经典的“奥德赛阶梯”，前一镜头与后一镜头或递进或因果或对比，紧张激烈。 沸水与愤怒交叉，蒙在头上的象征死亡的白布与踩在脚下的白布交叉，攥紧的拳头与起义的人民，“睡狮、卧狮、醒狮”，这些“冲撞蒙太奇”对比明显，具有戏剧冲突和视觉冲击。 既然摄影机不运动，就让剪辑代替机器的运动。大师不愧为大师，即使奉行蒙太奇理论，舍弃长镜头，也依然把节奏把握的很好。爱把文学性融入到蒙太奇的隐喻中，让艺术不再只是早期的影像记录，或舞台剧表演，电影和文学交相辉映。

从此，电影变得多元化和更具艺术感

片段从46分钟红旗飘扬开始自52分钟战舰出现为结束。其中大约出现了150个镜头。 片段的开头是红旗的特写，下一个镜头则是孩子和妇女们的招手、欢呼。在这里导演并没有运用一个大全景的镜头将这些画面概括在一个镜头内，而是运用了蒙太奇的手法，将两个毫无关系的镜头相接，使得人群像是在朝军舰欢呼和招手一般。 随着字幕和音乐中一个强音的出现，故事的节奏出现变化，字幕之后，是一个头发凌乱的女人脸部的特写，随后人群的慌乱移动，后以一个伞越来越大作为跳板，画面变成了一个全景，人群慌乱。这组镜头内有一个是铜像占据黄金分割线并且处于前景的镜头，我认为这个画面处理的非常好，因为除了铜像以外,画面的二分之一中景，分别被追逐的军队和逃跑的人群平分，而剩下的二分之一是处在后景的一栋阴郁的教堂，这个画面将电影的立体感表现得很好，也体现出故事当中人物之间、社会之间的矛盾。 然后是大全景，开始真正的“大屠杀”，这时人群从后景跑入。导演在这里所表现大屠杀并不是用大的场面来渲染其的宏大残忍，而是选取了几个小而独到的角度，尤其是两位母亲保护孩子的视角，使冲突逐渐提升，从而使影片达到全剧高潮。 人群跑入后，随之而来的就是特写一个人的腿部跪下的动作，这个镜头开始后，出现了很多人物摔倒（死亡）的镜头，这些镜头的转换很快，这组镜头内突出了一个小孩，开始他只是坐下，但是再又一个大全景人物奔跑后，小孩捂上了耳朵，这强加给观众的是枪声使得小孩捂上耳朵，而倒地的人都是被枪杀死的。 随后，又出现我最喜欢的，带有铜像的那一个画面，不过，不同的是军队渐渐将中景占据，而人群渐渐被逼出画面。而后的大逃难镜头延续了之前的拍摄方法，值得一提的是他们的灯光，是从人群的背后打来，这种灯光将人的影子无线拉长，让人的心里情绪通过影子表现出来，这种感觉，在之后一位母亲抱着死去的小孩向军队声讨时，更为具体和鲜明的表现。 对于人群逃跑的场面导演分别用了：在人群后大全景拍摄；人群侧面的全景拍摄；和中景拍摄某个人物或者一到三个人群的状态来表现。其中有一个，从侧面拍人群逃跑的画面，这个镜头，导演让演员从左边入场，右边出场，这个画面在构图上，有一个亮点，就是在后景的黄金比例处放置了一根棍子，而棍子的两边是对峙的两棵大树，这个非常具有表现里。这个段子里有很多镜头都可以看出来，是导演经过认真思索以后拍出来的，构图上是分得妙。 在小孩被枪打前的镜头是一个用移动镜头来跟踪小孩的状态。小孩摔倒后大叫“妈妈”是特写，而后是母亲回头的特写。在这之后是一系列的蒙太奇，我们可以看见人们先是绕过孩子，在是从腿间经过，最后将孩子替翻了面，从肚子上踩过，配上音乐，层层递进，中间穿插着对于母亲面部表情的特写，表现母亲的震惊、伤心、愤怒。而后的剧情则主要是用蒙太奇体现剧中女教士的发现、号召、维权。 之后，军队首先是以影子入场的，而之后，拍到妇女时，是将她的影子拉长，让观众在这种视觉效果下，自然而然的认为妇女是弱小的，军队的强大、霸道。之后的一个移动镜头将妇女与军队的影子重合，这个镜头，并没有出现军队的正面，便直接让军队开枪杀死了妇女。 之后人群的逃亡中，出现马的从幕的两侧出现在前景，这增加了画面的立体感和无序、混乱感。之后，有一组蒙太奇是枪和人群的倒下。而后婴儿车的奔跑和一位妇女的夸张表情，一个青年的表情，冒烟的枪，组成一组蒙太奇。 总体来说，在那个年代这是个伟大的影片。