Eisenstein Montage Lists

INTRODUCTION
Eisenstein had begun during the late 1920s into montage and cinematography in the other arts. Sergei Eisenstein is widely regarded as much by people who have not seen his films as by those who have, as one of the most important figures in the history of cinema. Historically, his reputation developed around four factors. First there were the films themselves, which were not only masterpieces but almost attracted controversy and indeed censorship, in their home country as well as abroad. Secondly, in conjunction with the films, there were the theoretical writings, in particular those of the 1920s, which both rationalised his own practice and provided a possible model for cinema more widely. Thirdly, there
The montage lists are technique prepared prior to shooting and entailed a careful concentration of pieces chosen for their capacity to express a developing line of thought, or emotion. The shaping of an image evolved through associational logic, whereby one sense image chased after another; but the development of inner rhythm of the work became an increasingly complex system of unity in diversity. Eisenstein’s montage lists provided a methodological model for Kracauer’s History: The Last Things Before the Last. The montage lists composed by the Soviet filmmaker for the creation of interior monologue of protagonist Clyde Griffiths in An American Tragedy, the product of Eisenstein’s 1930s American visit led Kracauer to the insight that the multiplicity of factors and computations within any historical situation meant that any historical explanation must, by its very nature, be provisional. Eisenstein’s distinction between the depiction reality and creation of a global image is in way similar to that made by the Marxist
The dances of oppositions set in play contrapuntal montage are in themselves implicated in a dialogic relation that triggers a series of configurations that constitute a free play of association. This dialogic relation, centred around the notion of the self-developing idea, is one step in a project which aimed at, above all else, the enthrallment of the spectator. But, and herein lies the root of Eisenstein’s reputation as it has survived for the 12st century, this self-development of an idea leads in the communist rhetoric of his writings, to the realization of an ideological purpose. In overtonal montage, the emotional resonance of the work is graphed in the tenor or rhythmic reverberations of landscape sequences. These mimic the calligraphic symbolism of Japanese and Chinese poetry in the creation of visual music. An essential feature in this visual fegue, is that of a repetition or chiming which creates a visual poetry and enunciates the rhythm that gradually builds up an emotionally infuse filmic line, which is also the specific image being sought by the