Montage (film)
Encyclopedia
Montage icon is a technique in film editing
in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. It is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory
.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, montage sequences often combined numerous short shots with special optical effects (fades, dissolves, split screens, double and triple exposures) dance and music. They were usually assembled by someone other than the director or the editor of the movie.
's editing:
Two common montage sequence devices of the period are a newspaper one and a railroad one. In the newspaper one, there are multiple shots of newspapers being printed (multiple layered shots of papers moving between rollers, papers coming off the end of the press, a pressman looking at a paper) and headlines zooming on to the screen telling whatever needs to be told. There are two montages like this in It Happened One Night
. In a typical railroad montage, the shots include engines racing toward the camera, giant engine wheels moving across the screen, and long trains racing past the camera as destination signs zoom into the screen....
, who worked at MGM and was the best-known montage specialist of the 1930s:
From 1933 to 1942, Donald Siegel, later a noted feature film director, was the head of the montage department at Warner Brothers. He did montage sequences for hundreds of features, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy
; Knute Rockne, All American
; Blues in the Night
; Yankee Doodle Dandy
; Casablanca
; Action in the North Atlantic
; Gentleman Jim
; and They Drive By Night
.
Siegel told Peter Bogdanovich
how his montages differed from the usual ones.
In contrast, Siegel would read the motion picture's script to find out the story and action, then take the script's one line description of the montage and write his own five page script. The directors and the studio bosses left him alone because no one could figure out what he was doing. Left alone with his own crew, he constantly experimented to find out what he could do. He also tried to make the montage match the director's style, dull for a dull director, exciting for an exciting director.
Siegel selected the montages he did for Yankee Doodle Dandy
(1942), The Adventures of Mark Twain
(1944), and Confessions of a Nazi Spy, as especially good ones. "I thought the montages were absolutely extraordinary in 'The Adventures of Mark Twain'—not a particularly good picture, by the way."
(1942) show the two basic montage styles. The focus of the movie is an inn that presents elaborate nightclub shows only on the holidays. The film was in production when the United States entered World War II.
The first montage occurs during the Independence Day
show, as Bing Crosby
sings "Song of Freedom". The 50 second montage combines several single screen sequences of workers in an aircraft factory and various military units in motion (troops marching, planes flying, tanks driving) with multiple split screens, with up to six images in one shot. The penultimate shot shows a center screen head shot of General Douglas MacArthur in a large star with military images in the four corners.
The second montage occurs near the end of the film, showing the passage of time. Unlike the clarity of the "Song of Freedom" montage, this one layers multiple images in an indistinct and dream-like fashion. In the film, the character played by Fred Astaire has taken Crosby's partner, Marjorie Reynolds, to star in a motion picture based on the idea of the inn. The 60 second montage covers the time from Independence Day to Thanksgiving. It opens with a split screen showing three shots of Hollywood buildings and a zoom title, Hollywood. Then comes a zoom into a camera lens where Astaire and Reynolds are seen dancing to a medley of tunes already introduced in the film. The rest of the sequence continues to show them dancing, with multiple images of motion picture cameras, cameramen, a director, musical instruments, single musical notes, sheet music and dancers' legs circle around them. Several times six images of themselves also circle the dancers. Only the opening shot uses a clearly defined split screen and only the second shot is a single shot.
Both of these styles of montage have fallen out of favor in the last 50 years. Today's montages avoid the use of multiple images in one shot, either through splits screens as in the first example or layering multiple images as in the second. Most recent examples use a simpler sequence of individual short, rapidly paced shots combined with a specially created background song to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed.
cinema but has since spread to modern martial arts films from East Asia
. Originally depicting a character engaging in physical or sports training, the form has been extended to other activities or themes.
) typically provides the only sound. At the end of the montage several weeks have elapsed in the course of just a few minutes and the hero is now prepared for the big competition. One of the best-known examples is the training sequence in the 1976 movie Rocky
, which culminates in Rocky's run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
.
The simplicity of the technique and its over-use in American film vocabulary
has led to its status as a film cliché
. A notable parody
of the sports training montage appears in the South Park
episode, "Asspen
", noted above. When Stan Marsh
must become an expert skier quickly, he begins training in a montage where the inspirational song explicitly spells out the techniques and requirements of a successful sports training montage sequence as they occur on screen. The same song is used in Team America: World Police
in a similar sequence.
In "Once More, with Feeling
", an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers
does an extended workout while Rupert Giles
sings one song; this distortion of time is one of numerous musical conventions made literal by a spell affecting Sunnydale
. Prior to this sequence, Buffy Summers voices her concern that "this whole session is going to turn into some training montage from an '80s movie" to which Rupert Giles replies "Well, if we hear any inspirational power chord
s we'll just lie down until they go away".
A classic use of the sports training montage in Hong Kong cinema is The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
(Shao Lin san shi liu fang). In The 36th Chamber the student displays an arrogance and unwillingness to learn. The student develops through a process of suffering, towards self-mastery in learning, finally achieving triumph in realising that he controls his ability to learn. This training sequence is much closer to Zen Buddhist ideas regarding teaching practice, or Sufi learning concepts, than the individualistic American model used above.
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. It is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory
Soviet montage theory
Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing...
.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, montage sequences often combined numerous short shots with special optical effects (fades, dissolves, split screens, double and triple exposures) dance and music. They were usually assembled by someone other than the director or the editor of the movie.
Development
Film historian and critic Arthur Knight connects the development of the Hollywood montage to aspects of EisensteinSergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's editing:
Two common montage sequence devices of the period are a newspaper one and a railroad one. In the newspaper one, there are multiple shots of newspapers being printed (multiple layered shots of papers moving between rollers, papers coming off the end of the press, a pressman looking at a paper) and headlines zooming on to the screen telling whatever needs to be told. There are two montages like this in It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night is a 1934 American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter . The plot was based on the story Night Bus by Samuel...
. In a typical railroad montage, the shots include engines racing toward the camera, giant engine wheels moving across the screen, and long trains racing past the camera as destination signs zoom into the screen....
Noted directors
Film critic Ezra Goodman discusses the contributions of Slavko VorkapićSlavko Vorkapic
Slavko Vorkapić , was a Serbian-American film director and editor, former Dean of USC Film School, painter, and a prominent figure of modern cinematography and film art.-Early life:Slavko Vorkapić was born on March 17, 1894, in...
, who worked at MGM and was the best-known montage specialist of the 1930s:
From 1933 to 1942, Donald Siegel, later a noted feature film director, was the head of the montage department at Warner Brothers. He did montage sequences for hundreds of features, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
Confessions of a Nazi Spy is a 1939 American spy thriller film and the first blatantly anti-Nazi film produced by a major Hollywood studio prior to World War II. The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated...
; Knute Rockne, All American
Knute Rockne, All American
Knute Rockne, All American is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of Knute Rockne, Notre Dame football coach. It stars Pat O'Brien, Ronald Reagan, Gale Page, Donald Crisp, Albert Bassermann, Owen Davis, Jr., Nick Lukats, Kane Richmond, William Marshall and William Byrne. It also...
; Blues in the Night
Blues in the Night
"Blues in the Night" is a popular song which has become a pop standard and is generally considered to be part of the Great American Songbook. The music was written by Harold Arlen, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, for a 1941 film begun with the working title Hot Nocturne, but finally released as Blues...
; Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owns Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp and Jeanne Cagney.The movie was written by...
; Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
; Action in the North Atlantic
Action in the North Atlantic
Action in the North Atlantic is a 1943 war film directed by Lloyd Bacon, featuring Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey as sailors in the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II.-Plot:...
; Gentleman Jim
Gentleman Jim (1942 film)
Gentleman Jim is a 1942 film starring Errol Flynn as heavyweight boxing champion James J. Corbett. The supporting cast includes Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, William Frawley, and Ward Bond. The movie was based upon Corbett's autobiography, The Roar of the Crowd, and directed by Raoul...
; and They Drive By Night
They Drive by Night
They Drive by Night is a black-and-white film noir starring George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Humphrey Bogart, and directed by Raoul Walsh. The picture involves a pair of embattled truck drivers and was released in the UK under the title The Road to Frisco. The film was based on A. I...
.
Siegel told Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
how his montages differed from the usual ones.
In contrast, Siegel would read the motion picture's script to find out the story and action, then take the script's one line description of the montage and write his own five page script. The directors and the studio bosses left him alone because no one could figure out what he was doing. Left alone with his own crew, he constantly experimented to find out what he could do. He also tried to make the montage match the director's style, dull for a dull director, exciting for an exciting director.
Siegel selected the montages he did for Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owns Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp and Jeanne Cagney.The movie was written by...
(1942), The Adventures of Mark Twain
The Adventures of Mark Twain
The Adventures of Mark Twain is a 1944 biographical film starring Fredric March as Samuel Clemens and Alexis Smith as his wife, Olivia...
(1944), and Confessions of a Nazi Spy, as especially good ones. "I thought the montages were absolutely extraordinary in 'The Adventures of Mark Twain'—not a particularly good picture, by the way."
Analysis of two typical examples
The two montage sequences in Holiday InnHoliday Inn (film)
Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with music by Irving Berlin. The film has twelve songs written expressly for the film, the most notable being "White Christmas"...
(1942) show the two basic montage styles. The focus of the movie is an inn that presents elaborate nightclub shows only on the holidays. The film was in production when the United States entered World War II.
The first montage occurs during the Independence Day
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
show, as Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
sings "Song of Freedom". The 50 second montage combines several single screen sequences of workers in an aircraft factory and various military units in motion (troops marching, planes flying, tanks driving) with multiple split screens, with up to six images in one shot. The penultimate shot shows a center screen head shot of General Douglas MacArthur in a large star with military images in the four corners.
The second montage occurs near the end of the film, showing the passage of time. Unlike the clarity of the "Song of Freedom" montage, this one layers multiple images in an indistinct and dream-like fashion. In the film, the character played by Fred Astaire has taken Crosby's partner, Marjorie Reynolds, to star in a motion picture based on the idea of the inn. The 60 second montage covers the time from Independence Day to Thanksgiving. It opens with a split screen showing three shots of Hollywood buildings and a zoom title, Hollywood. Then comes a zoom into a camera lens where Astaire and Reynolds are seen dancing to a medley of tunes already introduced in the film. The rest of the sequence continues to show them dancing, with multiple images of motion picture cameras, cameramen, a director, musical instruments, single musical notes, sheet music and dancers' legs circle around them. Several times six images of themselves also circle the dancers. Only the opening shot uses a clearly defined split screen and only the second shot is a single shot.
Both of these styles of montage have fallen out of favor in the last 50 years. Today's montages avoid the use of multiple images in one shot, either through splits screens as in the first example or layering multiple images as in the second. Most recent examples use a simpler sequence of individual short, rapidly paced shots combined with a specially created background song to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed.
Sports training use
The sports training montage is a standard explanatory montage. It originated in AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cinema but has since spread to modern martial arts films from East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
. Originally depicting a character engaging in physical or sports training, the form has been extended to other activities or themes.
Conventions and clichés
The standard elements of a sports training montage include a build-up where the potential sports hero confronts their failure to train adequately. The solution is a serious, individual training regimen. The individual is shown engaging in physical training through a series of short, cut sequences. An inspirational song (often fast-paced rock musicRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
) typically provides the only sound. At the end of the montage several weeks have elapsed in the course of just a few minutes and the hero is now prepared for the big competition. One of the best-known examples is the training sequence in the 1976 movie Rocky
Rocky
Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
, which culminates in Rocky's run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
.
The simplicity of the technique and its over-use in American film vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
has led to its status as a film cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
. A notable parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of the sports training montage appears in the South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
episode, "Asspen
Asspen
"Asspen" is the second episode of the sixth season of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on March 13, 2002. It parodies several sports movies of the 1980s.-Plot:...
", noted above. When Stan Marsh
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
must become an expert skier quickly, he begins training in a montage where the inspirational song explicitly spells out the techniques and requirements of a successful sports training montage sequence as they occur on screen. The same song is used in Team America: World Police
Team America: World Police
Team America: World Police, often referred to as simply Team America, is a 2004 action comedy film written by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Pam Brady and directed by Parker, all of whom are also known for the popular animated television series South Park...
in a similar sequence.
In "Once More, with Feeling
Once More, with Feeling (Buffy episode)
"Once More, with Feeling" is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the fantasy television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the only one in the series performed as a musical...
", an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...
does an extended workout while Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Anthony Stewart Head. He serves as Buffy Summers' mentor and surrogate father figure...
sings one song; this distortion of time is one of numerous musical conventions made literal by a spell affecting Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...
. Prior to this sequence, Buffy Summers voices her concern that "this whole session is going to turn into some training montage from an '80s movie" to which Rupert Giles replies "Well, if we hear any inspirational power chord
Power chord
In music, a power chord is a chord consisting of only the root note of the chord and the fifth interval, usually played on electric guitar, and typically through an amplification process that imparts distortion...
s we'll just lie down until they go away".
Use in Japanese and Hong Kong cinema
In films from Japan and Hong Kong, particular emphasis is placed on the suffering of the trainee, often with the breakthrough in training being a change in perspective rather than physical capability. More importance is often placed on the master passing down knowledge to their student, rather than the self-discovery of American film.A classic use of the sports training montage in Hong Kong cinema is The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin , also known as The Master Killer and Shaolin Master Killer, is a 1978 Shaw Brothers kung fu film directed by Liu Chia-liang and starring Gordon Liu....
(Shao Lin san shi liu fang). In The 36th Chamber the student displays an arrogance and unwillingness to learn. The student develops through a process of suffering, towards self-mastery in learning, finally achieving triumph in realising that he controls his ability to learn. This training sequence is much closer to Zen Buddhist ideas regarding teaching practice, or Sufi learning concepts, than the individualistic American model used above.
External links
- Movie Montages at Cracked.com
- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MontagesMontages at TV TropesTV TropesTV Tropes is a wiki which collects and expands on various conventions and devices found within creative works. Since its establishment in 2004, the site has gone from covering only television and film tropes to also covering those in a number of other media such as literature, comics, video-games,...
]