During the 1920s, the pioneering Russian film directors Seirge Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshov demonstrated the effects and potential of using montage in film.
Eisenstein was fascinated how an audiences responses could be aroused by film and was convinced you could manipulate time and space in film and so create new meaning. By heavily editing sequences his aim was to create ideas and responses in the audience that go beyond that of images themselves, tertium quid' (third thing) is the name given to the greater whole that arrises from individual parts.
In the film Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstien demonstrates the power of montage in this scene "Odessa Steps".
During the 1920s Vertov and several other film makers created a group called kinocks (kinio-oki meaning camera eyes) they rejected the cinema with their staged plots and props, they believed the cinema of the future should be fact and recordings of real life and everyday experiences.
Vertov began assembling clips without regard for continuity, his focus was upon "film truth"and capturing the world as he saw it. Although Vertov criticized Eisensteins commitment to narrative film, he still used his theory of montage in his films and took the technique beyond that of Eisenstein seen in the film "The man with movie camera"
Lev Kuleshov 1899-1970
kuleshov was known to Russian film makers as the " father of soviet cinema" he was one of the first film theorists who began experimenting with editing techniques and montage.
Famous for The kuleshov effect an experiment where three identical faces were edited together with three different images, a bowl of soup, a women and a coffin, the audience connected the emotional expression of the actor to each of the images and believed that the expression was different for each one.
Kuleshov demonstrated the importance of using montage in cinema and significantly influenced film makers of the time and right up to the present day.
Alfred Hitchcock refers to the effect in this short clip.
Vsevolod Pudovkin a student of kuleshov once wrote "We make films, Kuleshov made cinema."
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