History of Montage

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Definition: "the technique of selecting, editing and piercing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole."

History of Montage 


"Father of Montage" = Sergei Eisenstein - main goal with the use of montage was for propaganda. He would take images and alter how long they would stay on the screen, specific movement and change of scenery to associate with a particular emotion.

Soviet Montage - editing of clips or photos together in order to get a certain point across. Goal is to create an idea which is clearer when the images are shown together. It began around 1924 until 1930, after Russian Revolution in 1917.




          

Montage today 

Today, montage is a series of quick shots that condense time and story.
Don Siegel, edited over 20 montage movies for Warner Brothers (including Casablanca). Casablanca is famous for its opening sequence which transported the audience across the globe over a map.

Alfred Hitchcock adapted the theory of Soviet Montage to create montages that progresses his story e.g. Psycho (driving car scene - raining shows the day going by - voiceover).

The 1970s redefined montage. Francis Ford Coppala did this in the movie "The Godfather" - the baptism of a child was intercut with the series of murders which captured the rise to power of the mafia. Also, in 1979, the most famous montage clip was from Rocky - the training sequence. The movie was so successful that it became a series, and the majority of the fourth movie was montage. The training montages in Rocky IV relates really well to the Soviet Montage theory as it was released during the Cold War.

But, by the 1980s, montage had become so over used and was in most movies (comedy, drama, teen movies) and then later on in 2000s was even featured in animation.



References 
http://filmstudies.info/terminology/manuscripts/soviet-montague.html
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/montage
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/making-modern-movie-montage/

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