Eisenstein's Montage Technique in the 1925 Film Strike

Introduction: Eisenstein's Cinematic Vision

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).

The Theory of Montage of Attractions

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.

Plot and Political Context of Strike

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.

Conclusion

Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) was one of the most famous filmmakers of the early 20th century. His formal training as an engineer and architect in St. Petersburg, combined with his Russian heritage and Marxist beliefs, greatly influenced his career in filmmaking. One of Eisenstein's greatest contributions is the montage — a sequence of images chosen arbitrarily and independently from the action and presented for maximum impact rather than in chronological sequence. For Eisenstein, each shot becomes a fragment or montage cell, and the montage itself acts as a bridge between the laws of aesthetic form and the laws of the mind. His analogy of Japanese hieroglyphic images, which combine to create meanings beyond the sum of their parts, remained central to his theoretical argument.

Eisenstein's first film, the 1925 release Strike, was a revolutionary application of his "montage of attractions" method through which he expressed his beliefs about Russian class warfare. The film's editing produced multiple montages by juxtaposing images to exert emotional impact: dancing bears with factory workers, to suggest the workers' docile and tame nature; an owl with a spy, to convey the spy's cunning watchfulness; a fox with a conman, to suggest his beautifully deceptive shape-shifting; a bulldog with another spy, to imply dogged determination and fearsomeness; a squeezed lemon with striking workers, to show management wringing the life from its laborers; and the murder of workers intercut with the slaughter of a cow, to evoke the bloody persecution and death of the workers. By juxtaposing, dissolving, and intercutting unrelated shots, Eisenstein aroused a third image in the viewer's mind with considerable and unmistakable emotional impact.

Eisenstein's use of montage has been criticized for bludgeoning the viewer with blunt messages and for trivializing individual characters in favor of a single ideological argument — generating more adrenaline than genuine sympathy. Despite this criticism, other film experts argue that Eisenstein's work forms the basis of modern cinema. Consequently, Eisenstein's contributions are widely regarded as foundational to much of the cinematic work produced to this day.

Bibliography

Anonymous. "Sergei Eisenstein." n.d. isites.harvard.edu Web site. Web. 31 October 2012.

Archive Media Project, LP. Russian Archives Online > Gallery > Eisenstein. 2008. Web. 31 October 2012.

Shaw, Dan. Sergei Eisenstein. 2012. Web. 31 October 2012.

Strike. Dir. Sergei M. Eisenstein. Perf. Grigori Aleksandrov and Maksim Shtraukh. 1925. DVD.

Taylor, Richard. The Eisenstein Reader. London, UK: British Film Institute, 1998. Print.