Eisenstein

Montage is "combining shots that are depictive, single in meaning, neutral in content - into intellectual contexts and series" (129). It's new to me to consider montage as something beyond a difficult process made fun by taking days worth of events and rushing through them to the sound of 80s music. Clearly, it's much more vital and substantial than the basic concept I already held. What I was thinking of is a montage, not montage in general. If Andrew's right, and Eisenstein created/named the concept, it definitely comes through in this reading. I found that while some things were beyond my reach, I have a fairly legitimate understanding of what Eisenstein describes. The illustrations and explanations themselves were thorough and comprehensive enough for me to understand the concept of singular images and aspects being put together in varying ways to create a larger sensical scene or picture. The part that helped me grasp this reading the most was the comparison between the Western concept of drawing to the Japanese. You can try to squeeze all the information you want into one frame, but the picture could be better when separated and reassembled, giving you a more comprehensive understanding of what is put in front of you. The use of montage for dramatic effect is what puts a viewer directly in a scene. The director can emphasize what he needs to in the fashion he so desires in order the evoke the emotions he so chooses.