Beyond the shot [the cinematographic principle & the ideogram]

1. Sergei Eisenstein From Film Form Beyond the shot [the cinematographic principle & the ideogram]

2. Cinema is: • so many firms • so much working capital • such & such a ‘star’ • so many dramas • First and foremost, montage • Japanese cinema is well provided with firms, actors & plots • Ts’angChieh in 2650 BC, the first ‘contingent’ of hieroglyphs • Copulation- the combination of 2 hieroglyphs regarded as their product • Combination corresponds to a concept • This is montage!

3. Do in cinema, juxtaposing representational shots • The starting-point for ‘intellectual cinema’ • Japan possesses the most laconic forms of poetry, the hai-kai & the tanka • Figurative effect • The hai-kai is a concentrated Impressionist sketch • We see these as montage phrases, montage lists • Finished representation of another order, the psychological • In emotional terms • Born from a cross between the figurative mode & the denotative purpose

4. Sharaku was the creator of the finest prints of the 18th century • Same Daumier whom Balzac (the Bonaparte of literature) in turn caled the ‘Michelangelo of caricature’ • We reassemble the disintegrated phenomena into a single whole but from our own perspective • This dual divergence in yet a fourth sphere – theatre • The theatre is in its cradle – present in parallel form, in a curious dualism • The denotation of the action is carried out by the so-called Joruri, a silent puppet on the satge

5. This antiquated practice passes into the early Kabuki theatre, preserved to this day, as a partial method, in the classical repertoire • The shot, a tiny rectangle with some fragment of an event organized within it • Glued together, these shots form montage • The shot is an element of montage • Montage is the assembling of these elements • The shot is a montage cell

6. Conflict between 2 neighbouring fragments: Conflict, Collision • A graduate of the Kuleshov school defends the concepts of montage as a series of fragmentsin a chain, ‘Bricks’ – expound an idea serially • Opposed him with the view of montage as a collision, the view that the collision of 2 factors gives rise to an idea • Montage is conflict, lies at the basis of every art • Conflict within the shot, can take many forms • Close-ups & long shots • The reduction of all the properties

7. Sergei Eisenstein From Film Form The dramaturgy of film form [the dialectical approach to film form

8. Dialectical materialism - PHILOSOPHY • In form – produces ART • Synthesis that evolves from the opposition between thesis & antithesis • FOR ART IS ALWAYS CONFLICT • Its social mission • Its nature • Its methodology • The hypertrophy of purposeful initiative – of the principle of rational logic – leaves art frozen in mathematical technicism

9. The interaction between the 2 produces and determines the dynamic • The basis of distance determines the intensity of the tension • The spatial form of this dynamic is the expression of the phases in its tension – rhythm • ‘Architecture is frozen music’ • Together with the conflict of social conditionality & the conflict of reality, principle of conflict serves as the foundation stone for the methodology of art • Because of its methodology: shot & montage are the basic elements of film

10. MONTAGE • Lev Kuleshov, adding individual shots to one another like building blocks • Movement within these shots & the resulting length of the pieces regarded as rhythm • Mesendick system VS. Bode school • Not next to the one it follows, but on top of it • Ex. The phenomenon of spatial depth as the optical superimposition of two planes in stereoscopy arises

11. MONTAGE • Material ideogram set against material ideogram produces transcendental result (concept) • The degree of incongruity determines the intensity of impression, determines the tension, become authentic rhythm • I. linear: Fernand Léger, Suprematism II. ‘anecdotal’ III. Primitive Italian Futurism lies somewhere between I & II IV. It can be of ideographic kind. Characterisation of a Sharaku (18-century Japan) • The resolution of the representation • Finally, colour • Move from the realm of the spatial-pictorial to the realm of the temporal-pictorial

12. VISUAL COUNTERPOINT • The relationship between the three: conflict within a thesis (an abstract idea) • Is formulated in the dialectic of the title • Is formed spatially in the conflict within the shot • Explodes with the growing intensity of the conflict montage between the shots

13. VISUAL COUNTERPOINT • Conflict between matter & shot (achieved by spatial distortion using camera angle) • “Meaning from their juxtaposition” • Conflict between matter & its spatiality (achieved by optical distortion using the lens) • Conflict between an event & its temporality (achieved by slowing down & speeding up • Conflict between the entire optical complex & a quite different sphere • The conflict between optical & acoustic experience produces: SOUND FILM which is realizable as AUDIO-VISUAL COUNTERPOINT

14. FILM SYNTAX • I. Each moving piece of montage in its own right II. Artificially produced representation of movement • A. Logical: example 2. Potemkin (1925), Sensation of a shot hitting the eye B. Alogical: example 3. Potemkin • Marble lions – one sleeping, one waking, one rising • The examples have shown primitive-psychological cases – using only the optical superimposition of movement

15. FILM SYNTAX • III. The chains of psychological association. Associational montage (1923-4). As a means of sharpening (heightening) a situation emotionally • By analogy this dynamization of the material produces, not in the spatial but in the psychological, i.e. the emotional field

17. EMOTIONAL DYNAMISATION • Unleashes a process that, in terms of its form, is identical to a process of logical deduction • The conventional descriptive form of the film becomes a kind of reasoning • Develops the emotions • Directing the entire thought process • This form that is best suited to express ideologically critical theses • SYNTHESIS OF ART AND SCIENCE • Lenin’s statement ‘of all the arts… cinema is the most important.’