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1920s

Soviet Montage

Meaning is built by colliding shots. Editing becomes a political and artistic weapon.

After the 1917 revolution, Soviet filmmakers asked what film could do that no other art could, and answered with editing. Lev Kuleshov showed that meaning comes from joining shots, not from the shots alone. Eisenstein built films from clashing images to move a crowd, Pudovkin used editing to follow one person's feelings, and Dovzhenko and Vertov brought poetry and the 'film-eye' to documentary. The state backed the cinema as a tool for the new society, which gave directors freedom to experiment until Stalin's demands for socialist realism ended the movement in the early 1930s.

Where
Soviet Union, mainly Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv
When
1924 to the early 1930s
Key figures
Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Dziga Vertov, Alexander Dovzhenko, Lev Kuleshov
Landmark films
Battleship Potemkin (1925), Mother (1926), Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Earth (1930)
Legacy
Made editing a theory of film, and influenced propaganda, documentary, music video and action cinema

What to look for

  • Fast, rhythmic cutting that clashes one image against another
  • Crowds and groups as heroes instead of single stars
  • Bold camera angles and an openly political purpose

Famous Directors

Sergei EisensteinUSSRDziga VertovUSSRVsevolod PudovkinUSSRAlexander DovzhenkoUSSRLev KuleshovUSSRFridrikh ErmlerUSSR

Top films · 37 films

  1. Man with a Movie Camera 1929 · Dziga Vertov · IMDb 8.3
  2. Battleship Potemkin 1925 · Sergei Eisenstein · IMDb 7.9
  3. Strike 1925 · Sergei Eisenstein · IMDb 7.6
  4. Ivan the Terrible, Part I 1944 · Sergei Eisenstein · IMDb 7.6
  5. Alexander Nevsky 1938 · Sergei Eisenstein · IMDb 7.4
  6. Mother (1926) 1926 · Vsevolod Pudovkin · IMDb 7.4
  7. The End of St. Petersburg 1927 · Vsevolod Pudovkin · IMDb 7.3
  8. Fragment of an Empire 1929 · Fridrikh Ermler · IMDb 7.3
  9. Earth 1930 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 7.2
  10. The General Line 1929 · Sergei Eisenstein · IMDb 7.1
  11. Chess Fever 1925 · Vsevolod Pudovkin · IMDb 7.1
  12. Arsenal 1929 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 7.1
  13. A Sixth Part of the World 1926 · Dziga Vertov · IMDb 7.1
  14. Storm Over Asia 1928 · Vsevolod Pudovkin · IMDb 6.9
  15. Kino-Eye 1924 · Dziga Vertov · IMDb 6.9
  16. The Eleventh Year 1928 · Dziga Vertov · IMDb 6.9
  17. Suvorov 1941 · Vsevolod Pudovkin · IMDb 6.8
  18. Enthusiasm 1931 · Dziga Vertov · IMDb 6.8
  19. Deserter 1933 · Vsevolod Pudovkin · IMDb 6.7
  20. The Great Consoler 1933 · Lev Kuleshov · IMDb 6.7
  21. Poem of the Sea 1958 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 6.6
  22. Ivan 1932 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 6.4
  23. The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks 1924 · Lev Kuleshov · IMDb 6.4
  24. Shchors 1939 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 6.2
  25. Aerograd 1935 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 6.0
  26. The Turning Point 1945 · Fridrikh Ermler · IMDb 5.9
  27. Peasants 1935 · Fridrikh Ermler · IMDb 5.9
  28. Life in Bloom 1948 · Alexander Dovzhenko · IMDb 5.8
  29. The Great Citizen 1938 · Fridrikh Ermler · IMDb 5.4
  30. The Death Ray 1925 · Lev Kuleshov
  31. She Defends Her Country 1943 · Fridrikh Ermler
  32. A Simple Case 1932 · Vsevolod Pudovkin
  33. Zvenyhora 1928 · Alexander Dovzhenko
  34. Counterplan 1932 · Fridrikh Ermler
  35. October 1928 · Sergei Eisenstein
  36. Dura Lex 1926 · Lev Kuleshov
  37. Ivan the Terrible, Part II 1958 · Sergei Eisenstein