Narrative Vs. Montage
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Each film has a distinct purpose associated with it. Whether this purpose is as simple as teaching children a valuable lesson or as complex as criticizing a societys barriers, there are explicit goals which must be discerningly conveyed. There are specific elements to filmmaking which are designed to contribute to the goals set forth when making a film. Such elements include what would be considered “aesthetics of astonishment,” or striking images, editing conflict and other techniques associated with montage filmmaking. Each of these techniques imprint a thought or logic on a film Ð- a kind of “watermark” Ð- that pushes the film itself towards the accomplishment of the original goals. Regardless of the need for the completion of these “higher goals”, a directors ability to keep a viewers undivided attention is crucial to the success of a film. Each viewer must remain fascinated from start to finish by the plot and characters, or he will lose interest in the film. So, when a film relies on a strong narrative base to keep its audience captivated, there is little room for variation from the elements which depict the story best. Striking montage images or techniques, if not carefully placed, can have a tendency to take the viewers eye from the progression of the narrative and turn their thought to something else.
Quite often, montage aspects of a film are deliberately placed to invoke specific thoughts or feelings. Such techniques can be employed to even go so far as to provide an alternate connotation to an event than what the average viewer would normally formulate. Parallelism is a method designed to do just that. This technique allows directors to have his audience associate a single action or event with a secondary action or event. The Strike parallels the slaughter of a cow and the execution of factory workers to generate a deeper emotion than one would normally associate with murder. The audience does not view the execution as merely mass murder, but instead they compare the soldiers to a butcher and connect the murder itself to something heartless and revolting Ð- a slaughter. The Strike seems to tastefully use this method to strengthen the purpose of the film itself: a criticism of murder and execution. There is, however a fine line between what is tasteful and what is not. If this technique is used either too often or for too long in a single segment, the viewer no longer associates the two with each other. Rather, the viewer then sees two separate events taking place, and may even wonder why the secondary event is even a part of the scene. If this occurs, the montage element no longer strengthens the films essence, and the narrative element deteriorates. Eisenstein notes that “This method may decay pathologically if the essential viewpoint Ð- the emotional dynamisation of the material Ð- gets lost. Then it ossifies into lifeless literary symbolism and stylistic mannerism” (FTC 37). Many other directors agree, and parallelism is a technique seldom used in films today.
One alternative to parallelism is conflict. Despite the opposing contexts of the words themselves, conflict has just as much potential to be a major contributor to the accomplishment of the goals associated with any given film. Conflict in lighting, for example can depict a clash of thought or emotion within a scene. Since the amount of light in a specific frame unconsciously sets a tempo on a physiological level (FTC 28), a clash between a dark frame and a bright frame will startle a viewer subconsciously. Darker frames tend to convey a more mellow and somber mood, whereas a bright frame seems to have more “hustle and bustle” going on in it. In Casablanca, during the flashback of Paris, viewers see a calm, peaceful interaction between the two main characters. The frame is dimly lit to create a very relaxed atmosphere. Then without any warning whatsoever, the scene quickly dissolves into war footage of the Nazis invasion of France. The footage is quite brightly lit, sending a very upbeat and