Kuleshov effect Quick reference
A Dictionary of Film Studies (2 ed.)
... effect The proposition that the meaning of any given film will derive from the juxtaposition of individual shots as a result of the editing process. While based at the State Film School in Moscow in the 1920s, Russian filmmaker and theorist Lev Kuleshov experimented with re-editing pre-existing films and film footage. He discovered that through careful editing a variety of responses to the same material could be elicited from the viewer. His best-known experiment consists of a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of actor Ivan...
Kuleshov effect Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
... effect 1. (film) Any montage sequence in which the relationship of two adjacent shots appears to be particularly meaningful. In what has come to be referred to as the Kuleshov (or Kuleshov–Pudovkin ) experiment (allegedly c. 1919), the Russian film-makers Kuleshov and Pudovkin claim to have assembled a sequence of disconnected shots from library footage, intercutting the same shot of the apparently expressionless face of a famous Russian actor with close-ups of a bowl of steaming soup, a dead woman lying in a coffin, and a little girl...
Kuleshov effect
pictorial metaphor
associative editing
juxtaposition
dialectical montage
associative editing ((film or video)) Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
... of two contrasting images which can be interpreted as having an analogous thematic meaning : for example, a shot of a passionate kiss followed by a shot of fireworks exploding signifies explosive passion. Eisenstein’s term is dialectical montage ( see Kuleshov effect ). Compare continuity editing . ...
dialectical montage n. Quick reference
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.)
...montage n. A term introduced by the Russian film-maker and editing theorist Lev Kuleshov ( 1899–1970 ) for a type of context effect that enables an actor in a film or motion picture in certain circumstances to convey emotion without expressing it. In 1922 Kuleshov carried out an experiment in which the famous Russian actor Ivan Mozhukhin ( 1889–1939 ) posed with a neutral facial expression for several seconds, and a close-up shot of his face was intercut with shots of a bowl of soup, a woman in a coffin, and a child playing with a toy....
pictorial metaphor Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
...image of a roll of toilet paper on which the US Bill of Rights is printed. Visual metaphors are widely used in advertising , especially for sophisticated target audiences . See also juxtaposition ; meaning transfer ; metaphoric meaning ; visual rhetoric ; compare Kuleshov effect . ...
visual grammar Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
...design ; pictorial semiotics ; syntagm ; visual language ; visual rhetoric ; visual semiotics . 1. Meaningful relationships between images in a sequence (as in a film or a comic strip). See also associative meaning ; film grammar ; juxtaposition ; Kuleshov effect ; meaning transfer ; visual communication . 2. Structural relations between formal elements within a single image in any medium (as in the relationship between different parts of a webpage). See also aesthetics ; balance ; composition ; diagonality ; elevation...
juxtaposition Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
...of any image, frame , or shot immediately before or after another one, especially where this is interpreted as a significant conjunction. As meaning-makers, humankind seems unable to see two juxtaposed images without inferring some connection between them ( see Kuleshov effect ). See also associative editing ; eyeline match . ...
Soviet avant garde Quick reference
A Dictionary of Film Studies (2 ed.)
..., Lev Kuleshov had set up the ‘Kuleshov collective’ at the State Film School (VGIK) in Moscow, and begun his influential work on film editing . Faced with a shortage of film stock , Kuleshov’s group practised their craft by assembling films from pre-existing material, developing an awareness of how film footage could, through careful assemblage, have its meaning altered or redirected. This work is the foundation of Kuleshov’s claim that the essence of cinema lies in the way film fragments are edited together to make a whole and the Kuleshov effect is a...
formalism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
...as rhyme, rhythm, metre, imagery , syntax , and narrative techniques—favouring writing which ‘laid bare’ its devices ( see foregrounding ). Formalism evolved into structuralism in the late 1920s and 1930s. 3. A term applied to the films of Eisenstein, Kuleshov ( see Kuleshov effect ), and Vertov in Russia in the 1920s. Their use of montage foregrounds the formal features of the medium, and they tended to background narrative. In 1934 the government put an end to this movement by requiring all art to be based on socialist realism. 4. (literary...
Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich (1898–1948) Reference library
Yuri Tsivian
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2 ed.)
...he embarked on his first feature, Eisenstein speculated on the nature of artists’ biographies, subdividing them into “evolutionary” and “revolutionary” types: the former was based on the unfolding and expanding of the same set of artistic principles (Eisenstein’s example: Lev Kuleshov), whereas the latter had a trajectory of permanent self-denial (Meyerhold). While Eisenstein the filmmaker clearly adhered to the second type (in his entire work, no two films are alike), as a theorist he appears more consistent. Beneath a stream of topics and references one...
Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich (1898) Reference library
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
...he embarked on his first feature, Eisenstein speculated on the nature of artists’ biographies, subdividing them into “evolutionary” and “revolutionary” types: the former was based on the unfolding and expanding of the same set of artistic principles (Eisenstein's example: Lev Kuleshov ), whereas the latter had a trajectory of permanent self-denial (Meyerhold). While Eisenstein the filmmaker clearly adhered to the second type (in his entire work, no two films are alike), as a theorist he appears more consistent. Beneath the stream of changing subjects and...
film semiotics Reference library
Encyclopedia of Semiotics
...in a film. He also showed that montage (i.e., juxtaposition of images or sequences) produces a psychological effect on the spectator and creates certain significations that are not merely the sum of the elements involved. These processes were studied from the point of view of film stylistics rather than filmic language. In this respect, Eisenstein's position differs from that of other Russians such as Dziga Vertov ( 1896–1954 ), Lev Kuleshov ( 1899–1970 ), and Vsevolod Pudovkin ( 1893–1953 ), who were mainly interested in film syntax. Christian Metz ...
editing Quick reference
A Dictionary of Film Studies (2 ed.)
...in the present day. Informed by very different filmmaking principles, the experiments of Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s offered a dramatically different approach to editing, which has remained an important reference point of avant-garde and experimental filmmakers ( see kuleshov effect ; soviet avant garde ). In early cinema, editing involved a literal cutting of the negative with scissors or a splicer and assembly of strips of film with cement or clear plastic tape. During the studio era, the process was subject to some refinement. Firstly, the unedited,...
Film Reference library
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
...S. M. Selected Writings; 1922–34 . Edited and translated by Richard Taylor . Bloomington, Ind., 1988. Eisenstein, S. M. Towards a Theory of Montage . Edited by Richard Taylor and Michael Glenny , translated by Michael Glenny , Bloomington, Ind., 1992. Kuleshov, Lev . Kuleshov on Film . Edited and translated by Ronald Levaco . Berkeley, 1974. Lowry, Edward . The Filmology Movement and Film Study in France . Ann Arbor, 1985. Metz, Christian . Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema (1968). Translated by Michael Taylor . New York and...
Film Reference library
Noël Carroll, Paul Messaris, Carl Plantinga, Edward Dimendberg, David Bordwell, and Stephen Prince
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2 ed.)
...S. M. Towards a Theory of Montage . Edited by Richard Taylor and Michael Glenny , translated by Michael Glenny . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Gaut, Berys . A Philosophy of Cinematic Art . Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Kuleshov, Lev . Kuleshov on Film . Edited and translated by Ronald Levaco . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Langdale, Allan , ed. Hugo Münsterberg on Film: The Photoplay: A Psychological Study and Other Writings . New York: Routledge, 2002. Lowry, Edward . The Filmology Movement...
