战舰波将金号

During the Montage movement, Soviet films were relatively similar in terms of genres. As Lenin declared, “Of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important,” (Bordwell, 107) The Bolshevik regime realized that the cinema was the most powerful tool for propaganda and education, given the 80% rates of illiteracy and the mix of vernaculars straddled across the country. Hence, we could see a great similarity in films directed by most of the Montage directors during that time. Depictions of uprisings, strikes, and rebellion against the authoritarian regime were extremely popular among directors who emphasized the Bolshevik ideology in films. BothBattleship Potemkin(Eisenstein, 1925) andMother(Pudovkin, 1926) include various strikes and demonstration sequences to highlight the tension between the authorities and civilians, commemorating the failed Revolution of 1905. In order to be as comprehensible to the viewers as possible, intertitles in bothMotherandBattleship Potemkinwere simple and concise. Phrases like “It was spring”, “Even a dog wouldn’t eat this”, and “Brothers!” helped to maintain the continuity in the narratives, but also powerful enough to evoke the spectator’s emotion about the Bolsheviks’ solidarity in the revolution.

As Bordwell points out inFilm History, “…it [montage] also served more abstract purposes, linking two actions for the sake of a thematic point.” (117) The use of montage to construct narrative and court spectators’ attention was prevalent among Soviets directors, and Pudovkin and Eisenstein are prime examples. Despite their consensus on the search for dynamism through montage, Pudovkin and Eisenstein, however, diverged drastically regarding the role which montage played in film narration. Greatly influenced by Kuleshov, Pudovkin inherited the idea of continuity editing from Hollywood, in which filmmaker created an immersive experience for the viewer to match reality in a natural way. Pointed out by Pudovkin in hisSelected Essays, “The director despotically manipulate the viewer’s attention. The viewer sees only what the director shows him”(35). He stressed the use of montage to achieve the “the maximum simplicity”(36) and “clarity in resolving each individual problem”(36) when constructing a sequence. In the first sequence ofMother, when the mother (Vera Baranovskaya) is being abused by the alcoholic husband (Aleksandr Chistyakov), Pudovkin employed techniques like match-on-action and eye-line matches to cut between numerous shots to highlight each protagonist’s personality, but also intelligibly establish the family dynamics with little explanation. The back-and-forth cuts of father and the son (Nikolay Batalov) and respective close-ups of the hammer and the father’s clenched hands, captures the family’s extreme tension and the son’s resolution to protect his mother. Reminiscent of the last-minute rescue sequence inThe Birth of a Nation(D. W. Griffith, 1915), the crosscutting between the prison riot and the protest march in the last sequence of Mother, helps to build up the final culmination, and captivate the audience’s attention in a state of intense excitement.

Rather than paying excessive attention to maintain a comprehensible narrative like Pudovkin, Eisenstein was more radical and more experimental in terms of what montage could achieve. In his theory of film, Eisenstein often brought up the term “conflict” in which “antithetical elements clash and produce a synthesis that goes beyond both.” (Bordwell, 113) Eisenstein did not see montage as an implement to maintain a clear temporal and spatial relationship, guiding the spectator through the entire narrative. Rather he envisioned each individual shot or sequence as if it was a puzzle with meanings of their own. When combined, however, these individual shots created an utterly different picture, sparking new meaning that was not present in either of the original shots. The infamous Odessa stairs sequence inBattleship Potemkinis the moment when Eisenstein fully actualizes his “intellectual montage” theory. Shots of soldiers marching down steps symbolize an oppressive force juxtaposed with unarmed civilians fleeing, barring the straightforward indication of the helplessness of the Russian people, offers new meanings of the Russian Empire’s forces’ brutality. The last sequence of the Odessa massacre constitutes shots of the stroller sliding downstairs across dead bodies, the slaughter of civilians, and close-ups of a woman’s face, covered with blood. Albeit the considerable lack of spatial and temporal relation, the sequence’s short and sharp intercuts epitomize the agony of innocuous civilians, insinuating the viciousness of the Russian army. Besides, Eisenstein deliberately intercut three consecutive shots of stone lion statues when illustrating the bombardment of the Odess theater.Although shots of the lion may not mean much on their own, when combined, it seems like the lion is rising from its sleep. They signify the Odessa people waking up and fighting against the totalitarian regime and seemingly paralleled with the first half of the film, where asleep crews ignite the revolution on battleship Potemkin.

The divergence of editing styles also leads to some nuances in respect to Pudovkin and Eisenstein’s film narrative. Pudovkin considered close-ups not simply as a tool for continuity editing, but also a powerful measure to symbolize the protagonist’s distinct characteristics. Without close-ups, according to Pudovkin, “(viewers) would have received only a general impression of the scene and not had the opportunity to examine any of the characters in isolation.”(58) InMother, the mother and the son do represent the collective but they are also strong characters on their own. Close-ups often are inserted to match by the characters’ behaviors, directing the spectator’s attention to details which seemingly embody the character’s idiosyncrasy. Eisenstein experimentation with the film narrative even appeared to be more radical when shooting theBattleship Potemkin. Shots of major characters were eliminated, instead the film focused on telling a story of a mutiny on a Russian battleship and the protest march of Odessa civilians, at the same time, dramatizing the miserable conditions of the sailors and the cruelty of the Russian authoritarian regime.

At the beginning of the 1930s, audiences, who were tired of the esoteric style of montage, began to demand for something more accessible and more evocative. Along with the permeation of series ofSocialist Realismfilms which focus on realistic stories that supported Communist values, the Soviet Montage movement eventually came to an end. Like many revolutionary cinema movements, however, techniques by the Soviet Montage filmmakers continue to influence movies, such asRear Window(Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) andThe Godfather(Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), to this day.

Reference:

1. Film History, An Introduction, David Bordwell, Fouth Edition, p103 -123

2. Vsevolod Pudovkin Selected Essas, The Construction of the Script, p35 - 62

在貴瓣經常看到有些人說：我很支持工人抗爭，但是（！），我不接受大敘事（集體行動）。這種警惕很重要，因為他們發現自己和工人不一樣，這會指向兩點：1.我不屬於他們的集體，但是理應支持和幫助，也避免被某些人騎劫；2.他們就像非人一般，就是腐肉上的蛆蟲，這些不體面者隨時會侵襲我的生活，所以我警惕（以此保衛我們的生活）。

症候是什麼？我不知道喎

愛森斯坦的蒙太奇早以回應何解抗爭者是症候（不是某些人的自以為是，而是他們在社會上就以症候出現），並且這種症候如何呈現——鏡頭在腐肉上的蛆蟲和飽受折磨的水兵來回切換，這是相似的——他們住在船艙，吃爛肉，還受軍官的頤指氣使。更重要的是，水兵支撐戰艦（社會）運作，軍艦官員的耀武揚威正是以這些勞碌者為基礎，所以，我們這裡的症候既是指水兵們不體面，更是指出這些不體面者是根基——這一未被符號化的實在正是真理本身，這一硬核始終像骨頭一樣構成了社會，但是它不顯現——一旦顯現就是殺戮本身——即象徵秩序的破裂以及再符號化（水兵沒收官員權力，以及沙俄的軍隊鎮壓和起義兵的反鎮壓），但是這仍然是存在症候的。 所以，這裡不是去除症候——分析者的症候不一定要解除，本身也沒有能完全解除的症候。甚至我們應該說，水兵以及其他受壓迫者就是症候本身——享受症候恰好是享受他們自己，也就是推翻沙皇專制。這恰恰不應講什麼“道德主體”，（看上面的圖片）因為道德主體就是沙皇（大他者的化身），這說到底是維護秩序的，而任何起義都會指向大他者不存在，換言之，士兵是主體性（主體所依，詳情見//www.douban.com/note/760294516/），也是未來主體的呼喚——這個主體不是無所不能，而是無能為力的，因此走向一個接著一個的連結網絡（如能指鏈一般）。 如果到了起義，即 A overthrow B 的時候還要講什麼道德秩序，那就會變成普京“指導”的《救國同盟》的鬧劇：一群旨在革命的十二月黨人被拍成了強迫症般（死諫以示忠心）的保皇黨人，那談什麼革命啊？蘇聯一直被示為極權的代表，但是仍然能拍出如此巨作，現在哪個國家敢拍這種內容？《救國同盟》這種爛片不應該自慚形穢嗎？ 這種意識形態把戲有待揭穿：革命導致極權，所以我們面對資本主義製造的體制（另一種極權），那就不要革命，要過家家式的搞愛與和平，要維護私產（症候般的無產者是有產者的私產），這都是現在的主人能指，最終變成無窮無盡的倒錯機制——只有象徵界，沒有實在界，在能指遊戲（如所謂的多元主義）裏面來回切換，可以去除症候地享樂(正常人）。 這種痴心妄想就是最為正常的狀態，正如正常國家以例外維持，既然如此，那麼例外狀態就一定會到來——要麼克瑞翁（國家），要麼安提戈涅（革命，症候的非人大反攻），這兩者都製造恐怖，但是後者的風險無非是自由的代價——風險社會給我們的啟示，應該是因為自由，才有風險，不能為了避險而放棄自由。