Christopher Nolan and Soviet Montage BSA 106 (Screen Arts) Week 14

Christopher Nolan, Twice Removed from Vsevolod Pudovkin:

A contemporary demonstration of the influence of Soviet Montage

By Bootje Myburgh

This essay will discuss the relationship between the cinematic movement Soviet Montage and contemporary filmmakers, specifically focusing on the director Christopher Nolan. Soviet Montage is a Russian approach to cinema that focuses on the art of editing, something completely unique to the medium of film. The word “montage” is French for “assembly”.. Christopher Nolan has displayed many Soviet Montage ideas in the movies he’s directed and many of these have become a staple of his style, even if he himself may not be aware of it. Memento, The Prestige and Inception all demonstrate different techniques established in the Soviet Montage movement. Each of these films will be discussed in this essay and will serve as a way to demonstrate how the director has used different editing methods effectively throughout his career.

Contemporary directors still put a lot of the techniques established by these movements into practise, however one can argue that they do so unknowingly of the origins. Instead these filmmakers take inspiration from the artists that came before them. Christopher Nolan is a good example of this idea where a lot of Soviet Montage techniques and concepts are present in his films but where it is nigh impossible to find him ever listing it as an inspiration. Instead Nolan sees Stanley Kubrick as a great influence on his work, stating that “With Kubrick, there is such a great trust of the one correct image to calmly explain something to audience. There can be some slowness to the editing.” (Jensen, 2013, p.2). Kubrick was a director directly inspired by Soviet Montage after discovering the movement early in his career (Rhodes, 2007, p. 23). Nolan derives particular value from the power of images and editing in Kubrick’s work, this shows he adopted ideas central to Soviet Montage without ever having to take inspiration directly from the original source. Kubrick also voiced his opinion on which Soviet Montage movement directors he preferred, placing Vsevolod Pudovkin higher than Sergei Eisenstein (Rhodes, 2007, p. 23), (who he thought of as “all form and no content”). His films reflect much more heavily Pudovkin’s principles of cutting over that of Eisenstein’s. Eisenstein took an abstract approach to his work in montage, preferring to create sequences that would evoke an emotional response in the audience opposed to telling a more conventional narrative. Pudovkin, on the other hand, built montages in a way that a comprehensive story was created (Hershatter, 2010, para. 1,2). Eisenstein concepts like Metric and Rhythmic editing is less apparent in Nolan’s work than, say, Pudovkin’s five editing techniques (Contrast, Parallelism, Symbolism, Simultaneity, Leitmotif - all of which are easily identified in films under Nolan’s direction).

The most prominent Soviet Montage technique seen in Nolan’s work and one of Pudovkin’s five editing techniques is simultaneity cutting, in which two scenes taking place in two different locations are spliced together via editing and a connection between the two is created (Richards, 2013). This is a recurring technique seen in Nolan’s library of films. His 2010 film ‘Inception’ demonstrates this the most. Multiple sequences throughout the film tie together events taking place in a variety of different locations. Combining them through editing helps establish a universal clock and a connection between the multiple layers. In one of the final scenes of the film the characters all wake up from separate dreams one after the other. During this sequence the film cuts between four different dreams and the events in each coincide with similar events in the others because of the timing in the editing (Thomas, Nolan, 2010). Simultaneity editing is directly descended from Soviet Montage (Westbrook, 2011 para. 4), Nolan’s use of it is a good example of how contemporary filmmakers still adopt these techniques and use them effectively.

The most well known and revered technique from Soviet Montage is symbolism, where a cut is made between two shots or scenes that are seemingly unrelated. The cut forces the audience to consider why the two are connected, surfacing a deeper meaning. While Eisenstein and Pudovkin approached montage very differently, they both suggested the idea of the symbolic edit (or as Eisenstein called it: “intellectual editing”). In Eisenstein’s essays he wrote down examples of what intellectual editing equations might look like, where two shots are combined and represent something new, for example: door + ear = eavesdropping. (Lindop, 2007, para. 2) A good example of this in Nolan’s work is in his 2006 film ‘The Prestige’. In the final scene Nolan jumps back and forth between two scenes running in tandem with each other. Two of the shots combined result in what Pudovkin described as a symbolic cut. An excerpt from the script written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan (The Prestige, 2006, p. 122):

BORDEN

(whisper)

Abacadabra.

The trap DROPS from under Borden and he FALLS into the room below. His rope SNAPS to a halt-

INT. CELLAR, ABANDONED THEATRE -- NIGHT

Angier PEERS down the row of glass boxes with the lantern.

ANGIER

(tense)

CUTTER?

Angier FREEZES. He can hear a small THUD, THUD, THUD getting closer, approaching from the darkness...

Angier FLINCHES as a RUBBER BALL bounces into the light

Angier DROPS his cane to CATCH the ball.

This serves also as a demonstration of how the director thinks and how editing is so ingrained in the way he approaches filmmaking that even in the writing stage of development, the sequencing of scenes being taken into consideration. There can be no mistaking that Soviet Montage techniques are present as a result of the director and not simply a byproduct of the editor.

Man with noose around his neck falls + the bouncing of a rubber ball. The cut between these two shots symbolises a loss of life. Seeing the man die is never needed for the audience to understand what has happened. While only a quick edit in a feature length film, and not particularly important to the overall plot (Thomas, E et al. 2006), this shows that Nolan has a keen understanding of the conventions of Soviet Montage.

The last of five techniques that Pudovkin lists is “Leitmotif”, a term usually reserved for music but which the Russian filmmaker believed was also applicable to editing. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term ‘leitmotif’ as: “an associated melodic phrase or figure that accompanies the reappearance of an idea, person, or situation”. In musical storytelling there are recurring sounds or melodies that accompany particular narrative elements. Pudovkin’s definition differs in that the melodic phrase or figure is instead a specific filmmaking technique, still accompanied with the appearance of a specific idea, person or situation (Richards, 2013). Probably the most popular example of a film technique serving as a visual leitmotif is the underwater, POV perspective shot used in ‘Jaws’ (1975). In that movie the leitmotif shot was used as a way to make the presence of the shark and sense of danger known to the audience. Christopher Nolan uses leitmotif in his 2000 film ‘Memento’. The movie has two separate storylines unfolding concurrently, one of these is shown in chronological order whereas the other is told in reverse. Nolan uses black and white as a leitmotif to represent the idea of chronological storytelling and colour to tell the audience when events are happening in reverse order. In the story the main character has short term memory loss and Nolan wanted to create the feeling in the audience of not knowing what happened minutes before, to create this effect he told the story, at least partially, out of order. He explains “I alternated between these colour sequences that are intensely subjective, everything in the colour sequences is from Lennon’s point of view, we’re always in his head, at least to begin with. We alternate with these black and white sequences that, at least to begin with, are objective” (Gilbert, 2014). Pudovkin translated leitmotif into film and Nolan’s use of it displays that contemporary directors still use the techniques established by these classic practitioners to tell their stories.

While Soviet Montage is not a form of film many contemporary directors look to for inspiration, it has nonetheless made it’s way through the generations to unknowingly affect people working in the industry today. The Russian movement's influence is undeniable. Christopher Nolan demonstrates how the techniques established more than a hundred years ago can be and still is effectively used today, even if he himself credits his inspiration more towards Stanley Kubrick than the original practitioners. His films have demonstrated an understanding and skilled use of the Soviet Montage techniques: simultaneity editing, symbolic cutting and visual leitmotifs.

References

Jensen, J. (2013) 'Room 237': Exploring Stanley Kubrick's 'Shining' influence. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved from: http://ew.com/article/2013/04/06/room-237-stanley-kubrick-shining-influence/2/

Hershatter, J. (2010) Montage: Eisenstein vs. Pudovkin. Retrieved from: https://jhershaemory.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/montage-eisenstein-vs-pudovkin/

Richards, E. (2013) Pudovkin’s 5 Editing Techniques. Retrieved from: https://vimeo.com/76513972

Westbrook, A. (2011) The five principles of editing, Adam Westbrook// ideas on digital storytelling and publishing. Retrieved from: https://adamwestbrook.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/the-five-principles-of-editing/

Lindop, J. (2007) Eisenstein: ‘Intellectual Montage’, Poststructuralism and Ideology. Off Screen. Retrieved from: http://offscreen.com/view/eisenstein_intellectual_montage_poststructuralism_and_ideology

Rhodes, G. (2007) Stanley Kubrick: Essays on His Films and Legacy. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland and Co.

Nolan, C. and Nolan, J. (2006) The Prestige. Retrieved from http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Prestige.pdf

Gilbert, L. (2014) 18-Minute Analysis By Christopher Nolan On Story & Construction Of Memento, The Lord Louis Show. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYScJZWhaHA&t=579s

Nolan, C and Thomas, E. (2010) Inception [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom, United States: Legendary Pictures, Syncopy.

Nolan, C, Ryder, A and Thomas, E. (2006) The Prestige [Motion Picture] United Kingdom, United States: Newmarket Films, Syncopy.

Todd, J and Todd, S. (2000) Memento [Motion Picture] United States: Summit Entertainment, Team Todd.