Montage (Technique)

Montage simply translated from French is cutting. A montage is a film technique which involves various short shots are put together creating a sequence, this condenses space, time and information projected to the viewer. Montages usually have a track or vocal narration during the time the montage is playing.

Origins of montages can be found in Soviet cinema dating back to the 1920s, however they were quite different from what they are now. Montages back then involved the director cutting between different angles rather than different scenes.

The video above is an early example of what montages were like. It is from the silent film Battleship Potemkin and was directed by Sergei Eisenstein. The scene features a massacre that occurs, it highlights various people doing various things for example running, falling, dying etc. However it is worth noting that it doesn't show passage of time as the montages do in modern cinema.

The montage was introduced to cinema mostly by Segei Eisenstein, it is an editing technique that survives today in modern day cinema. The technique is employed in many films to show a passage of time rather than to create a symbolic meaning. This may be because editors can use it to show a character to do many actions in a short space of time without boring the viewer.

Below is a clip from Rocky (1976) in which is hows effective editing is, the montage implies that the character has been training for an important boxing match. Clearly the viewer wouldn't be interested in watching the character to run for over 20 minutes then stop to punch a bag for a further 15 minutes, this would be extremely boring for the viewer. Therefore the entire training the character has done is shown in the form of a montage. This is played alongside music to show that the character is succeeding with his training and it allows the viewer to see the fact that the character is becoming pumped up for the boxing match.

Another well known montage is from the film Scarface (1983), in this montage it shows the rise of the main character. The montage starts with money being counted and continues in this way. The montage itself is an example of time being passed during this time as it shows the main character opening various businesses and therefore bringing more money to the bank. The soundtrack for this scene fits in showing that the character is pushing his abilities to make more profit.