Cinematic Expression: A Look at Eisenstein's Silent Montage

Author(s): John B. Kuiper

Source: Art Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Autumn, 1962), pp. 34+36-39
Published by: CAA
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/774607
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John B. Kuiper
oversimplification. Essential features of the new form may be
overlooked or minimized. The use of an analogy, like Mitry's,
is justified and useful only if it is clearly understood how a mo-
tion picture can be constructed by the use of what may be called
cinematic equivalents of the literary figure. A close and careful
CINEMATIC EXPRESSION: look at Eisenstein's silent films reveals that these productions,
despite their often mentioned "realism," are virtually a
A LOOK AT EISENSTEIN'S SILENT MONTAGE syllabus of figurative motion picture technique.
In his four full-length silent films Eisenstein used two
basic patterns of organization that may be called figurative.
One can be described as a film passage which gives rise to a
new dimension of meaning in the mind of a spectator through
the juxtaposition, comparison, and consequent combination
of the associations generated in his mind as he watches the pas-
Innovation has long been recognized as a majorsage.
char-Such passages force a spectator to generalize about what
acteristic of the arts during the early years of this century.
he is seeing. Howver, because the spectator is forced to make
The creative elation which produced so many formal exper-
use of mental comparisons this device differs from other figur-
iments in literature, and the fine arts also infused the ative
newerpatterns employed by Eisenstein. The image on the
art of cinema. Foremost among the ranks of cinematic inno-
screen is compared with what went before and to some extent
vators stands the Russian film director, Sergei Mikhailovich
with which the spectator expects to come next. This is the
Eisenstein (1898-1948). However, the exact nature specific of hismethod by which generalization operates in what I call
innovations remains blurred in the minds of his many admirers
a cinematic trope.4
in spite of the extensive theoretical speculation he left behind.
These cinematic tropes can be grouped into three broad
As interesting as his own theories may be, a careful analysis
categories: similarity-contrast, similar, and metaphor. How-
of his silent films provides the best key to the understanding
ever, I do not mean to imply that only one form of organization
of his work. This is not to say, however, that Eisenstein him-
is operating in any given film passage. The categories are con-
self or his many commentators have completely overlooked sig-
venient reference points but they are not definitive labels.
nificant points. As early as 1928, while his silent films wereWhat
be- do we mean by the trope, similarity-contrast? In a
ing exhibited in this country, American critics took note of the
passage of this type there is a striking similarity in the visual
unusual construction of his work. One of them, Alexander form Bak-
of compared objects or actions. However, much of the
shy, announced that the Russian director believed "thatmeaning
visual stems from a contrast of other qualities associated
images, like words, can be joined into sentences, with the
withdif-
the objects or actions compared. The illustrations in Fig-
ference that the cementing medium is provided by the ureasso-
1 were reproduced from a print of Eisenstein's first full-
ciations arising out of the meanings of the images . . length
and not silent film, Strike (1925).5 In this sequence of shots
by the etymological forms, as in word sentences." the director makes brutal comments about four men who play
Eisenstein's use of this type of film construction has
the led
part of police spies, members of a vagrant gang reduced
the French film critic, Jean Mitry, to compare an Eisenstein
to spying for factory owners against their fellow workers in
film to a poem divided into several cantos in which each canto
order to make an easy living. Man and animal are compared
has a different meaning and a different style.2 The validity of of the inherent visual similarities in either physical
by means
Mitry's comparison is reinforced by Eisenstein's own appearance
copious or in action.
references to the construction of the epic poetry of Pushkin The result, is to accentuate certain similarities and con-
and the fact, noted by film critics, that the Russian director's
trasts and to emphasize the animal-like nature of police spies.
method is roughly analogous to the use of metaphor and Theother
comparison performs a double function when considered
figures of speech in verbal language.3 in the light of the total film. It debases the human qualitities of
However, this comparison has its dangers and can be by suggesting that they belong to a lower order of
the spies
quite misleading. Comparing a relatively new art form tothan
life a do the factory workers upon whom they spy. They are
more traditional art in a different medium runs the risk of
animal-like and consequently sub-human. And, conversely,
it elevates the human qualities of the factory workers.
The author is a member of the Departmenf of Speech and Dramatic
Simile, the second category of cinematic tropes arises from
Art, Division of Television-Radio-Film, The State University of Iowa.
a comparison of essentially unlike objects or actions. In the
1Alexander Bakshy, "The Language of Images," The Nation. similarity-contrast example the objects or actions were more
December 26, 1928, 720. Eisenstein himself, in a retrospective article like than unlike. They shared a common visual form or a
written in 1944, covers similar ground and suggests that the early
years of the Soviet film were devoted to exploring the realm of trope 4In addition to cinematic tropes Eisenstein made use of what
and metaphor. See: "Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today," in Film may be called figures of expression. This term refers to those passages
Form (New York, 1949), 240, 246. in Eisenstein's silent work which do not rely primarily upon the
2See: Jean Mitry, S. M. Eisenstein (Paris, 1955), 105. comparison method of yielding meaning.
3 See: S. M. Eisenstein, The Film Sense (New York, 1942), 3- Strike i[Stachka], Goskino, 1924, 6 reels, 1969 meters. The
65, and Film Form, 240 if. Bakshy and Rudolph Arnheim also com- reproductions used here were made from a Museum of Modern Art
ment upon the metaphoric qualities of Eisenstein's film work. See: 16mm print from dup. neg., 6290 feet, furnished by British Film In-
Rudolph Arnheim, Film As Art (Berkeley, 1957), 153. George Blue- stitute in 1957. Jay Leyda, in a letter to the author dated June 20,
stone in Novels Into Film (Baltimore, 1957) is one of the most re- 1959, states that the BFI print of Strike is reliable and that it was
cent writers to comment upon this quality of film images. found by Soviet authorities in East Berlin.

ART JOURNAL XXII 1 34

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Fig. 1. Similarity-contrast: The Spies from Strike. This series of
shots, from Eisenstein's first full-length film, Strike, illustrates a
sequence in which a close-up of a monkey drinking from a bottle
(left) is compared, by means of a dissolve (center) to a human
spy named "Monkey." (right)
This sequence of the film also contains three other compari-
sons of this type. "Bulldog," another spy, is compared to a real
very similar physical nature. In the simile category, are film
passages in which the visual qualities are of a much more gen-
eral and associative nature. The objects compared are essentially
more unlike than they are like in their normal physical nature
and their comparison brings to light several similarities
which exist by virtue of the associations they have for the
spectator.
The shots in Figure 2 drawn from Eisentein's fourth silent
film, Old and New, will serve to illustrate his use of simile.
In this sequence the farmer, his house, and his environment
are imaginatively alike even though the actual physical nature
of the objects shown is vastly different. Their comparison
brings to light associative qualities and communicates a power-
ful comment about the relationship of Martha, the poor
peasant girl, to the world about her.
There is, however, an even wider, more striking, and
richer use of comparison to be found in the continuation of
this sequence as illustrated by Figure 3.6 In the passage de-
scribed in the cutlines of Figure 3 it is possible to say that
the ladle is like the sinking vessel. But it seems much more ap-
propriate to say that, in an imaginative sense, the objects and
actions shown are not only like one another but actually are
equal to one another. To passages demonstrating this relation-
ship between compared actions and objects I have given the
classification, metaphor, my third category.
Into what sort of theoretical framework does Eisenstein's
use of the film medium seem to fit? One theoretical position
that fits the facts is suggested by Susanne K. Langer's differ-
entation between the discursive and non-discursive arts, a dif-
ferentation which is derived from her examination of tra-
6 Old and New [Staroe 4i novoe}, Sovkino, 1926-1929, 6 reels,
2469 meters. The reproductions used in Figs. 2 and 3 were made from
a Museum of Modern Art 35mm print of 5705 feet assembled from
material furnished by the Cinemateque Francaise in 1938. This print
was checked closely with other available material.
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bulldog by connecting similar actions of man and dog. The man,
"Owl," is compared to a real owl through the use of a dissolve
that connects the man, wide-eyed and blinking, with a real
owl, also wide-eyed and blinking. Similarily, the man called
"Fox" in the film is compared to a real fox by joining similar
actions and by virtue of a certain physical resemblance be-
tween the two. (All illustrations are from the Film Library of the
Museum of Modern Art.)
ditional verbal and visual art forms.7 Without attempting to
rehearse the complexity of Mrs. Langer's distinctions, it seems
sufficient to point out that discursive forms of symbolism oper-
ate in a manner which requires that ideas be strung out one
after another in a temporal succession even though the objects
of these ideas rest one within the other. For example, language,
a primary discursive form, articulates thought through the use
of discrete symbols (words) which carry denotations and are
arranged in a temporal order. If we wish to understand a speaker,
we do not interrupt him in the middle of his sentence for his
thought is not yet revealed. However, the objects which his
discrete words symbolize may all exist together in the outer
7See: Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy In A New Key (New
York: Mentor, 1956), Chapter IV.
(Facing Page)
Fig. 2. Simile: Martha and the farmer from Old and New.
Martha, the poor peasant girl visible in shot 1 (upper left corner),
has been forced by poverty to go begging for a horse in order
to plow her fields. Her first attempt at begging is shown in the
film sequence from which these reproductions were made.
As she arrives at the farm of a wealthy landowner and
farmer, Eisenstein keeps her figure small in relationship to the
extremely ornate woodwork of the house and its surroundings.
Shots 2-7 serve to emphasize the luxuriant nature of the farmer's
environment and provide for a straight-forward visual compari-
son between Martha's small, drab figure and the richness of
her "patron." This comparison also emphasizes Martha's inferior
social and economic position in comparison to the farmer's
wealth and high status.
At point 8, middle right, there are ten shots in the film
omitted. In these Martha is shown entering the barnyard of the
farmer's place. She appears to be dwarfed by animals placed
ART JOURNAL XXII 1 36
close to the camera, by machinery, and by the buildings of
the farmyard. The farm animals, a dog, a goat, a ram with
large horns, and a cow turn to look at her. Clearly seen are
two horses. Martha looks around and hesitantly begins to
approach the farmer who is asleep on a porch.
During the next three shots (9-10-11 and 11A) the emphasis
upon Martha's inferior social and economic position begun
by shots 1-7 is continued. In shot 9 she stands before the sleep-
ing farmer. The camera is placed very high above his body;
while Martha stands in a brightly lighted spot of ground at his
feet. She hesitantly raises her hand to her mouth as if to speak.
Then she drops it abruptly. In shot 10 the sleeping farmer is
seen from Martha's position. Beside him rests a large jar of
home-made beverage, probably kvass. The farmer awakes and
begins to rise from the waist. Reproductions 11 and 11A repre-
sent one shot. At the beginning of it (11), Martha is seen roughly
from the point of view of the farmer. She stands with her hand
37 Kuiper: Eisenstein's Silent Montage
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to her mouth. As she drops it the shoulders and head of the
farmer come up into the frame, blocking her from view (11A).
The remaining four shots, 12-13-14-15, show extremely de-
tailed parts of the farmer's corpulent face. In this series the
farmer frowns and looks down and to screen right. He appears
to be looking out the frame, apparently at Martha.
The discussion of the above shots has thus far been limited
mostly to individual shots. However, complex associations arise
from a comparison of several groups of shots within the se-
quence represented by this plate. Notice, for example, th
richness and overlapping qualities of the woodwork shown in
shots 1-6. Compare the mental associations suggested to you
by these architectural details to the associations suggested by
the folded, corpulent, and visually rich human forms of the
farmer, as shown in shots 12-15. The farmer, his house, and his
environment are imaginatively alike.
Fig. 3. Metaphor: Martha and the farmer (continued) from Old of the frame. He blows off foam from the top of the liquid and
and New. In the sequence of shots illustrated by this plate drinks. Some of the liquid falls and runs down the outside of
Martha's cause; that is, her need for a horse and the physical his throat. Clearly, the home-brew and the ladle distract the
necessities of life that are related to it, is linked with the sinking farmer's attention from Martha, thus postponing his decision of
action of the ladle shown in shot 28 at the end of the sequence. her fate.
The ladle and Martha's relationship to it is established by The blank space, 22, indicates that another sequence of
shots 16-21. Shot 15, Figure 2, showed the farmer glancing shots not immediately relevant to this discussion intervenes.
downward, apparently at Martha, a supposition which is However, in shot 23 the spectator is returned abruptly to the
strengthened by shot 16 above of Martha's folded and waiting relationship between Martha and the farmer. This return is em-
hands. In shot 17 the farmer, seen from Martha's position, turns phasized by the action of the ladle as it drops violently back
toward the jar of liquid refreshment seen at frame right. He into the jar of liquid and sinks below the surface. At this
takes off the lid and places it by his bed. Shot 18 shows only point in the sequence the ladle and the home-brewed liquid are
one of his feet and his actions with the ladle. He picks it up more than mere visible objects or props! They have become
and mixes the liquid with it. symbols of Martha's sinking cause!
His motions are slow and deliberate. Martha waits, hands The remainder of the sequence, shots 24-28, shows the
folded, in shot 19. Shot 20 is a return to the camera set-up farmer and his wife scowling at Martha and the farmer going
used for shot 18. In it the farmer removes the ladle filled with back to sleep. The sequence ends with the extreme close-up
the home-made beer. He holds it outside the jar for a moment seen in shot 28. In it the ladle sinks slowly to the bottom of
and then brings it slowly up and out of frame. Shot 21 shows the vessel emphasizing and reinforcing the symbolic quality of
his face and shoulders. The ladle and his hand enter the bottom the objects and actions presented.

ART JOURNAL XXII 1 38

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world. In contrast to discursive symbolism, non-discursive a complex chain of logical relationships in the mind of a spec-
forms of symbolism such as still photography, "speak" more tator.

directly through the senses without the reliance upon denota- Through the process of editing, Eisenstein was able to
tions that words must utilize in order to establish a meaning- capitalize upon the metaphoric quality that can arise from the
ful relationship with the physical world.8 juxtaposition and comparison of the mental attitudes arising
Within the framework of discursive and non-discursive from two or more shots. At its simplest, Eisenstein's much
forms set out by Langer, the film medium, as it was used bydiscussed concept of montage means this: when two strips of
Eisenstein in his full-length silent films, must be classified film are joined together they become more than two strips
as a hybrid-it is both. From the non-discursive point of viewfor the purposes of the meaning a spectator may draw from
it works with photographs which for the spectator bear athem.
remarkable similarity to what might be called the outer or phys- It is this additional dimension of meaning which is the
ical world-the world of things. Like a still photograph, essential element in Eisenstein's figurative use of the motion
the motion picture shot at any given instant, is a non-discur-picture medium. For example, recall the "monkey" sequence il-
sive symbol. "It has no vocabulary," as Mrs. Langer might putlustrated in Figure 1. By joining two disparate pictures of
it.9 And there can be no dictionary of meanings for the areasmonkey and man Eisenstein opened up numerous possibilities
of light and shade in a photograph because it is impossible to for generalization by his spectators. In a similar manner, by
isolate discrete elements in it. Even what appear to be lines, accentuating a series of overlapping human forms and com-
break down into haze gradations of light and shade upon closeparing them to architectural forms, as he does in the sequence of
inspection and, if a line could be isolated, a dictionary defini-Martha's visit to the farmer, Eisenstein taps whatever associa-
tion could not be assigned to it because its meaning depends tions a spectator's mind may form from the perception of
primarily upon the visual context in which it exists. The im-such a comparison. And finally, by thoroughly imbuing a ma-
portance of context suggests that the most important link be-terial object and its actions with associative meanings, as he
tween the outer world photographed by a camera a photographicdoes in the ladle sequence, Eisenstein's film work stimulates
representation of it given on the screen, and what the spectator a complex chain reaction of logical relationships in the specta-
perceives, exists in the spectator's mind, "In the associative linkstor's mind. Such a reaction is a unifying one for it binds to-
of his thought," to use a phrase coined by one of Eisenstein's gether the many possible meanings of non-discursive motion
own cameraman.10 picture shots.
It is through the associative links of his thought that a The relative value of the system of symbolic organiza-
tion used in the silent films of Eisenstein needs to be assessed
spectator creates a pictorial image of the shot or sequence shown
him on the screen. Although this image is a creation of his
in relationship to the value of more conventional narrative
senses, it is a mental product none the less and carries with it Conditioned as we are by the character-oriented plots
structures.
at least one mental attitude toward the object or event shown.ll
of Hollywood films as well as by the eyewitness approach of
The term mental attitude is meant to suggest the net result television, it is easy to overlook the fact that meaning in film
stems from both discursive and non-discursive structures. The
of the perceptions a spectator receives from a motion picture
shot or sequence of shots. It is inextricably bound up withgreatest
the film makers have used both methods; thereby utilizing
way a spectator constructs his pictorial image of a giventhe shot
total expressive strength of the film medium.
and the meanings he assigns to a sequence of shots. It is, in
other words, a non-verbal mental set or disposition to under-
stand other perceptions in a certain way. A mental attitude is
formed by the previous knowledge and experience of the spec-
tator as well as by the motion picture he is watching.
Considered as a strictly static, non-discursive form, the
motion picture shot cannot be regarded as anything but a men-
tal symbol standing for some aspects of the physical world.12
But the nature of a shot is such that whenever it represents an
event it also exists in a time dimension. Shots can be edited
and the events pictured in them cut short and left uncompleted.
In other words, the shot develops in an imaginary and sym-
bolic space and time. And the process of editing gives a se-
quence of shots a discursive dimension of meaning that creates

8 This observation at its simplest is nothing more than an il-

lustration of the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words."
9 Langer, 78-79.
10 Vladimir Nilsen, The Cinema As A Graphic Art (New York,
1959), 16-17.
" The mental nature of the pictorial image is suggested by Mrs.
Langer when she points out that "the nervous system is the organ of
the mind; its center is the brain, its extremities the sense organs; and
any characteristic function it may possess must govern the work of
all its parts." Langer, 73.
12A shot is a length of film that results from one continuousJohn Marin, Autumn Springtime, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, given by
run of the camera. Mr. Larry Aldrich.

39 Kuiper: Eisenstein's Silent Montage

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