Eisenstein

I found this reading to be very informative and helpful to my understanding of the impact different editing techniques can have on the viewers understanding of what is going on in a film. While watching the Battle Ship Potemkin it was clear to the class that this was a much choppier film than the previous ones we have watched. I had not yet read Eisenstein’s article so I was unable to identify this as montage editing but after reading the article it all makes more sense. The choppiness of the shots is used to show the different emotions of the many people in the film and the overall impact the events were having on the community as a whole. In the article there are screen shots of the Odessa Steps scene in the Battleship Potemkin. I immediately refer back to this scene when contemplating Eisenstein’s theory because its perfectly captures the use of montage to make the viewer fee anxious and hectic; letting the viewers feel what the characters in the scene were feeling. Montage is not a smooth process and often is used to show such feelings as chaos; this article explained this concept very well.