Middle School Media

Montage is the process of using a ‘collision of images’ to create an idea in the minds of the audience. Each image contains ideas and meanings. If separate shots with different meanings are placed side by side — even if they mean opposite things — then a third meaning can arise. For example, imagine a shot of a man lying on the ground; next to this imagine a shot of another man holding a gun. Neither shot on its own indicates that a murder has occurred. However, the collision of the two independent images suggests this third meaning.

 

 

The Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein developed the theory of montage from this effect. Eisenstein worked with a film movement called Soviet montage (see page 227). Montage proved to be one of the most important developments of early cinema. Collision of images formed the basis of almost all Hollywood special effects up to the development of computer- generated imagery.