Moving Images, Understanding Media

194 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

starring a famous French swimmer which starts by demonstrating swimming

technique and ends as a poetic evocation of the human body in water. Before

his tragically early death, Vigo made the notable narrative fi lms Zéro de

Conduite (1933) and L’ A t a l a n t e (1934), which are infused with the lyrical

and groundbreaking spirit of the non-narrative cinema.

New techniques of faster editing and linking shots through a variety of

patterns soon became part of Hollywood practice. In what became known

as a montage sequence, a series of images could express an idea or feeling

in a non-narrative manner but still add to the storytelling of the entire fi lm.

Early Soviet fi lmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Sergei

Eisenstein created montage sequences that featured provocative juxtapositions

of shots described as “collision” or “linkage.” Montage is also used to augment

narrative by condensing time and relating key information, as in A Farewell

to Arms from 1931 (directed by Frank Borzage). When the main character

engages in battle and is wounded, there is a sustained sequence of shots that

depicts the disjointed violence of a terrible defeat but does not focus on events

that proceed in a cause-and-eff ect manner from shot to shot. It is a series of

images linked by the overall experience of war—a non-narrative sequence

used to advance the narrative of the fi lm.

In the 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the history of Wolverine

and his brother Sabertooth is shown through a montage that spans their

participation in wars over the course of a century. Th e uses of motion and

exposure eff ects heighten the stylized compression of time. Montage types

of editing are used consistently in commercials and Internet applications to

express ideas and impressions through associative cuts and visual impact.

Th ese types of cutting, both narrative and non-narrative, oft en work well

with musical passages in motion pictures and are seen in a wide variety of

fi ction fi lms and in many music videos today.

Figure 5-26 The lyrical,

distinctly personal

perspective of Carlo Delle

Piane’s character takes

form through the editing

of director Ermanno Olmi’s

section of Tickets. (Courtesy

Fandango/Medusa Produzione/

Photofest)

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