in short, montage is to shoot a film into many shots according to the content to be expressed in the film and the psychological order of the audience, and then connect them according to the original idea. In a word: montage is a means to connect the cut lens groups. Therefore, montage is a means to link the shots taken by the camera according to the logic of life, the order of reasoning, the author's viewpoint tendency and its aesthetic principles. First of all, it is the means of using a camera, and then it is the means of using scissors. The montage of movies is mainly realized through the re-creation of directors, photographers and editors. The screenwriter of the film designs a blueprint for the future film, and the director of the film uses montage to recreate it on the basis of this blueprint, and finally the photographer uses the expressive force of the film to embody it.
In film production, the director makes many shots according to the theme of the script or film, and then organizes and edits these different shots organically and artistically according to the original creative idea, so as to make them have the connection of coherence, contrast, association, suspense and different rhythms, so as to selectively form a film that reflects certain social life and thoughts and feelings and is understood and loved by the broad audience. These forms and forms are different from each other.
to sum up, it can be seen that the basic element of a film is a shot, and the main way and means to connect the shots is montage, and it can be said that montage is a unique expression of film art. Since the smallest unit of a film is the lens, what is the basic element of this film-the lens? What does it have to do with montage? As we know, a lens is a piece of film that is shot from different angles, with different focal lengths, at different times and after different processing. In fact, montage has been used since the filming of the lens. As far as the lens is concerned, shooting from different angles naturally has different artistic effects. Such as frontal shooting, cypress leaning, overhead shooting, side shooting, backlight, filtering, etc., the effects are obviously different. As far as the lens with the same focal length is concerned, the effect is different. For example, distant view, panoramic view, middle view, close view, close-up and large close-up have different effects. Furthermore, the lens after different processing will also produce different artistic effects. In addition, due to the use of spaces, abbreviations, upgrades and other techniques, it also brings a variety of different specific artistic effects. Besides, because of the different shooting time, there are long shots and short shots, and the length of the shots will also have different effects.
In the arrangement, combination and connection between shots, the subjective intention of the photographer is more clearly reflected. Because each lens part does not exist in isolation, it is bound to have a relationship with the upper and lower lenses connected with it, and different relationships will produce different artistic effects such as coherence, jumping, strengthening, weakening, parallelism and contrast. On the other hand, the combination of shots not only plays a role in vividly describing the contents of shots, but also produces new meanings that individual shots themselves may not be able to express. Griffith's first attempt to use montage in film history is to combine the lens of a man who should be on a desert island with the facial close-up of a wife who is waiting at home. After such "combination", the audience feels "waiting" and "leaving sorrow" and produces a new and special imagination. Another example is that the artistic effect of arranging a group of short shots together and connecting them by quick cutting is very different from that of arranging the same group of shots together and connecting them by "light" or "chemical" methods.
For another example, if the following three shots, A, B and C, are connected in different order, different contents and meanings will appear.
A, a person is laughing; B, a pistol pointed at; C, the same person's face shows the appearance of fear.
what impression do these three close-ups have on the audience?
if you connect in the order of a-b-c, you will make the audience feel that the person is a coward. Now, the shot remains the same, and if we just change the order of the above shots, we will come to the opposite conclusion.
C, a person's face shows fear, b, a pistol is pointed at; A, the same person is laughing.
If you connect them in the order of C-B-A, the person's face will look frightened because a pistol is pointed at him. However, when he thought about it, he thought it was nothing, so he smiled-in front of death. Therefore, he gave the audience the impression that he was a brave man.
In this way, changing the order of shots in a scene, without changing each shot itself, completely changes the meaning of a scene, draws the opposite conclusion and achieves completely different effects.
this coherent arrangement of organizations is to use the unique montage means of film art, which is also the structural problem of the film we are talking about. From the above examples, we can see the importance of this arrangement and combination structure, which is an important means to organize materials together to express the ideas of the film. Meanwhile. Due to the different arrangement and combination, different artistic effects such as positive, negative, deep, shallow, strong and weak are produced.
movie master Eisenstein of the Soviet Union thinks that lens A plus lens B is not a simple synthesis of lens A and lens B, but will become a brand-new content and concept of lens C. He clearly pointed out: "The juxtaposition of two montage shots is not the sum of two numbers, but more like the product of two numbers-this fact was correct before, and it still seems correct today. The reason why it is more like the product of two numbers than the sum of two numbers is that the result of arrangement is always different from each individual component in quality (in "dimension" if you are willing to use mathematical terms). Let's go back to the above example. Woman-this is a picture, the mourning of a woman-this is also a picture; These two pictures can be expressed in kind. The' widow' produced by the juxtaposition of these two pictures is no longer something that can be expressed in kind, but a new representation, a new concept and a new image. "
It can be seen that the use of montage can bring new meaning to the connection of shots, which greatly enriches the expressive force of film art and thus enhances the appeal of film art.. Regarding this topic, we can also get great inspiration from a phenomenon in physics: as we all know, carbon and diamond are the same in terms of their molecular composition. But one is surprisingly crisp, and the other is extremely hard. Why? The results of scientists' research prove that it is caused by the different molecular arrangement (character structure). That is to say, the same materials, due to different arrangements, may produce such diametrically opposite results, which is really thought-provoking.
Bela Balazs, a Hungarian film theorist, also pointed out: "Once the last shot is connected, the unusually rich meanings originally hidden in each shot are emitted like electric sparks." It can be seen that this kind of "electric spark"-like meaning is "latent" by a single lens that people are unaware of. Only after "combination" can people have a new and special imagination. When we talk about montage, we first refer to the combination relationship between lenses, including the combination relationship between time and space, sound and picture, picture and color. And the significance and function produced by these connection relationships.
In a word, "montage is the connection method of the film. The whole film has a structure, and every chapter, paragraph and paragraph should also have a structure. In the film, this connection method is called montage. In fact, that is, the shots are grouped into a segment, then the short segments are grouped into a large segment, and then the large segments are organized into a movie. There is no mystery or trick in this process, which conforms to the logic of rationality and sensibility, the logic of life and vision, and looks' smooth',' reasonable', rhythmic and comfortable. This is a brilliant montage, and vice versa. There is no such simple and easy-to-understand explanation and elaboration of montage.
Montage can be divided into performance montage and narrative montage, among which there are psychological montage, lyric montage, parallel montage, cross montage, repeated montage and so on.
The birth and development of montage
[ Edit this paragraph ]
When Lumiere brothers made the earliest film in history at the end of 19th century, he didn't need to consider the problem of montage. Because he always puts the camera in a fixed position, that is, the distance from the panoramic view (or the distance between the audience in the middle row and the stage in the theater), he shoots people's actions from beginning to end. Later, it was found that the film could be cut open and then bonded with medicine, so some people tried to put the camera in different positions and shoot from different distances and angles. They found that all kinds of lenses can produce amazing different effects with different connection methods. This is the beginning of montage technique, and it is also the beginning of the film getting rid of the shackles of narrative and expression means of stage play and having its own independent means. In the general history of film, the creation of split-shot shooting is attributed to Edwin in the United States. Porter thinks that great train robbery, which he showed in 193, is the beginning of a "movie" in the modern sense, because he relates what happened in different backgrounds, including platform, cab, telegraph room, train car, valley and other interior scenes to tell a story, which includes several action lines. However, it is universally acknowledged that Griffith skillfully mastered the skills of combining different lenses, which finally freed the film from the expressive method of drama. Montage has developed considerably in the silent film period.
since 1927, movies have had sound, and at this time, movies have had a great shock from creation to theory. With sound in the picture, it is no longer a simple visual explanation, and the film can reflect life more realistically. Many hypothetical things that were legal in the original silent film, as well as the author's method of expressing his opinions directly, are no longer applicable. That's why there were many famous film artists such as Chaplin and Rene. Claire, for a period of time, was skeptical about audio films, and the theorist Eindham always denied them.
On the other hand, some people think that montage is the product of silent movies, and it has no place in the soil of talking movies. Facts show that although sound limits the application of some montage methods, the film has changed from a simple visual art to an audio-visual art, and the characters on the screen have become a complete image that can be seen and heard, which greatly expands the application of montage. The picture is added with sound. From then on, montage is not only the relationship between pictures, but also the relationship between sound and sound, sound and picture. The so-called sound includes human voice, natural sound and music. The voice also includes lines, commentaries, inner monologues and the noise of the crowd. Therefore, the combination of picture and sound involves the combination of picture and human voice, natural sound and music, and the combination of sound and sound involves the combination of these sounds. Because of this complexity, there are infinitely rich possibilities for the sound composition and sound painting composition of movies, which opens up an infinitely broad new world for audio-visual art (see movie sound). The film developed from black-and-white film to color film, and color became one of the means of film expression, which brought a new topic of color montage to the film and once again enriched the world of film montage.
The function of montage
[ Edit this paragraph ]
By means of montage, the narrative of the film has gained great freedom in the use of time and space. A skill (or a direct jump) can jump from Paris to new york in space, or span decades in time. Moreover, the juxtaposition and intersection of movements in two different spaces can cause nervous suspense, or show the relationship between people living in two places, such as lovers' lovesickness in two places. Montage at different times can repeatedly describe the relationship between the past psychological experience and the current inner activities of the characters. This freedom of time-space transformation makes movies to a great extent free for novelists to express their lives. The use of montage enables film artists to greatly compress or extend the actual time in life, resulting in the so-called "movie time" without giving people the feeling of violating the actual time in life.
Montage, the ability to manipulate time and space, enables the film artist to extract the parts that he thinks can best illustrate the essence of life, the characters' personalities and relationships, and even the artist's own feelings according to his analysis of life, combine them together, decompose and combine them, keep the most important and enlightening parts, and abandon omitting a lot of trivial things.