Eisenstein's Montage Technique in the 1925 Film Strike

A Marxist engineer and architect by formal training, Sergei Eisenstein used his background to create the technique known as the "montage." Though Eisenstein's work has attracted criticism for using blunt imagery to convey heavy-handed propaganda, his seminal contributions are widely regarded as the basis for montage sequences in the work of such eminent directors as Hitchcock, De Palma, and Coppola. By arousing strong emotional impact from the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated images, Eisenstein demonstrated the power of montage most effectively in his first film, Strike.

Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) was one of the most famous filmmakers of the early 20th century (Archive Media Project, LP). His formal training as an engineer and architect in St. Petersburg greatly influenced his eventual career in filmmaking. In addition, his Marxist ideology and Russian heritage profoundly shaped his work. Eisenstein experimented with several cinematic devices, and due to his contributions, was recognized by the British Film Institute as one of a triumvirate — alongside D. W. Griffith and Charles Chaplin — that laid the artistic foundations of cinema (Shaw).

According to Eisenstein, "Cinema is, first and foremost, montage" (Taylor 82). Explaining his concept of the "montage of attractions" in his groundbreaking works — The Montage of Attractions in 1923 and Beyond the Shot in 1929 (Taylor) — Eisenstein proposed a new form of editing in which images are chosen arbitrarily and independently from the action, presented for maximum impact rather than in chronological sequence (Archive Media Project, LP). For Eisenstein, the shot becomes a fragment or montage cell which, in combination with another shot, forms the montage (Anonymous). The montage, in turn, acts as a bridge between the laws of aesthetic form and the laws of the mind. In this framework, the "montage of attractions" functions simultaneously as a measurement unit for determining art's influence on the observer, as a unit of structure based on shock principles, and as an artistic strategy that is aggressively anti-illusionist (Anonymous).

To illustrate his concept, Eisenstein drew on the example of Japanese writing, which uses simple hieroglyphic images in combination to create meanings greater than the sum of their parts. For example, the hieroglyphic symbol for a dog placed next to the symbol for a mouth does not merely denote a dog's mouth; rather, it signifies a barking dog (Taylor 84). Similarly, the juxtaposition of the Japanese hieroglyphic for a child with that for a mouth does not merely indicate a child's mouth, but evokes the image of a screaming child (Shaw). This linguistic analogy was central to Eisenstein's argument that cinematic images, when combined, generate meanings beyond what either image conveys alone.

Eisenstein's first film, the 1925 release Strike (Aleksandrov and Shtraukh), was a revolutionary application of his "montage of attractions" editing method. Set in the factory region of 1912 Czarist Russia, the film follows locomotive factory workers who grumble and plan a strike due to low wages, long working hours, and harsh conditions. The fat, cigar-smoking managers, on learning of the workers' discontent, bring in outside agents and spies to mingle with the workers and report back to management. One worker is falsely accused of stealing and hangs himself; his suicide sparks the strike.

Initially, the workers are excited and unified as they draw up their demands. Management, however, refuses, and the strike drags on. Through the combined efforts of unscrupulous managers and their hired provocateurs, the workers and their families suffer hunger, domestic strife, and civil unrest. Municipal officials — including the fire department and police — join with troublemakers to create incidents that can be blamed on the strikers. Eventually, the military is brought in to crush the strike by beating, capturing, whipping, and murdering the workers. The film closes with an image of workers' bodies strewn across a field. In sum, Strike served as Marxist propaganda illustrating Russian class warfare.

The editing of Strike produced multiple montages by juxtaposing seemingly unrelated images to create emotional impact. For example, early in the film, Eisenstein intermingles different animals with notable characters to create an emotional impact about the natures of those characters. Shots of dancing bears are juxtaposed against shots of the workers to represent their peaceful, tamed nature (Aleksandrov and Shtraukh).

The spies brought into the factory are literally given animal names according to their specialties, and several montages are used to portray them. A shot of a shrewd, constantly observing owl dissolves into an owl-like spy who studies the workers and covertly photographs one of them, resulting in that worker's arrest and beating. A shot of a beautiful, sly fox dissolves into a shot of a shape-shifting conman, conveying his deceptively attractive and cunning character. A shot of a bulldog — dogged, determined, strong, and fearsome — is juxtaposed with a physically similar spy, implying that he shares those same characteristics (Aleksandrov and Shtraukh).

During the latter stages of the strike, a shot of a boss squeezing a lemon to make himself a drink is juxtaposed with a shot of workers being "squeezed" by strike-breaking police, creating the emotional image of management wringing the life out of the workers (Aleksandrov and Shtraukh). Finally, when the strike is crushed, shots of the military murdering the strikers are intercut with shots of a cow being slaughtered — its throat slit, slowly bleeding to death — exerting the powerful emotional impact of the bloody persecution and murder of the workers by management (Aleksandrov and Shtraukh). This final montage is widely regarded as one of the most strikingly impactful sequences in all of film history (Shaw). By juxtaposing, dissolving, and intercutting unrelated shots, Eisenstein's montage technique arouses a third image in the viewer's mind with considerable, unmistakable emotional force.