Film: Strike and Montage Trope
Montage Trope is one of the critical techniques in filmmaking as it consists of putting a series of shots together to make a meaningful scene. It is done to maintain coherence between the shots and the characters actions to make a dialogue and performance of a task. This paper aims to present a discussion of the slaughter sequence in the movieStrike(1925) in relevance to the given readings of Eisenstein.
The significance of the slaughter scene within the movieStrikeis that it shows the cutting of a bull in line with the attack on the striking workers. It is a metaphor suggesting that the workers are treated like cattle and slaughtered like a bull, as in the scene of attack over the laborers (Matthew). The slaughter scene is not shown individually or separately from the scene of striking workers; it is shown within the same scene by cutting technique in a meaningful and apt manner. The slaughter scene was meant to represent the suppressed workers. Their strike resulted from that suppression, which was again suppressed by a greater kind of violence, shooting them down with machine guns and making a connection with the slaughterhouse (Mitry). The stylistic and continuous deployment of the shots for the entire scene displays a visual metaphor as it becomes the language of the several images and shots that came together to
For instance, the slaughter scene had altogether 40 shots, in which if we take only two to make a connection, like shot 14, in which the medium close up shows a cow being slit and the in the very next shot 15, a long shot showing the army shooting fire at the people make strong relevance with each other. Eisenstein created this masterful allegorical relationship with a symbolic pedagogy (Brown 62).
Further, a temporal relationship between the two views and shows them in sequence...
…However, it should be discerned that Dickens had given a
framework far back then when no one had ever realized its importance. The persuasion tactics with montage parallel influential in his writings are now comprehended well in its
nature. Similar is the case in the slaughter sequence for the movieStrikesince montage that has been presented for the concept of slaughtering and killing in line with each other is highly dependent on the camera position (for which, cut-in and cut-away references are made for taking the scene closely or from a long shot), the
logic of the director himself and the materialization of the concept (Layden 40). On the whole, the scene may be too violent or full of fear for the audience; however, the masterpiece Eisenstein has created with his insightful image juxtaposition or montage skills is commendable for arousing an experience of anger and resentment in the ending sequence of slaughter for the movie.
Works Cited
Brown, Ashley. Visual Metaphors for the…
