Textual Analysis - How to (Creeber Article)

This is a great section about how to read a text in Media Studies. It's quite dense as a text but it does cover everything...really for years 12 and 13 and not for the first term of yr12!

READ the whole article HERE

MONTAGE

MONTAGE is a style of filming where a series of images or small scenes of film are shown one after the other without using continuity techniques or having to direct the viewer to make sense by using dialogue or matches on action... You will make sense of the film yourself as you watch it by trying to make a storyline for it yourself (this is what KULESHOV said - that viewers connect images they see consecutively into a narrative- they try to link the images). Montage primarily compresses time or allows character development.

Here's what Wikipedia says:

 "Montage is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a
 sequence to condense space, time, and information. It is usually used to suggest the
 passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory.
 From the 1930s to the 1950s, montage sequences often combined numerous short shots
 with special optical effects (fades, dissolves, split screens, double and triple exposures) and
 music. They were usually assembled by someone other than the director or the editor of the
 movie"

Here are some examples:

This sequence shows the passing of time AND uses cross-dissolves. (From 'Ocean's Thirteen' Dir. Steven Soderbergh)

This sequence is a classic example of Hollywood montage. The couple are not yet together (Butle and Heigel) and are at odds. This is a classic ROMCOM plot. We see the girl discuss her meeting with her potential new boyfriend. The montage sequence follows, showing her subsequent first date and then a few weeks/months are shown as the relationship develops. This is done in under 2 minutes so shows compression of time - a central reason to use montage. As per convention, it also uses a music track over with no (or little) dialogue. The narrative is moved forward without using much screen time. To allow you to consider just how much time is compressed, consider how you coul film a whole movie about this girl meeting and dating this guy - here it is a side issue to the main narrative and needs only be told rather than explored. (From 'The Ugly Truth' Dir Robert Luketic)

 Similarly, this extract from the TV show 'Bones' utilises the same technique although the time that is compressedd here is much shorter. The girl won't marry Booth (the male character) and we see him consider this and go to the bar (where all the main characters often collect at the end of each episode). Here the emphasis is on the emotional journey of the character and as such does develop the plot - character development is crucial; working alongside narrative trajectoty (the basic telling of the story) it allows the audience to empathise with the character and this draws them into the episode (or film). Audiences need to care about the characters in order to continue to watch an episode (or film).

This TV episode from 'Merlin' uses montage to show an event compressed (the funeral of a colleague) and shows the service and the funeral pyre intercut as if edited in continuity parallel. We see the two sub events happening together through parallel editing but the sequence is montage as the soundbridge of King Arthur's eulogy coupled with an emotive sound track are the conventions of montage. Again the audience are being allowed/invited to empathise with the characters and join in with their grief as it were.

The next extract uses montage to show a journey and to compress time - it's been done in a very 'knowing' and humourous way of course (from 'Snatch' Dir. Guy Ritchie)