CIN201Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Tatlin'S Tower, Soviet Montage Theory, Vladimir Tatlin
Professor Charles Keil Nov. 1, 2016
CIN201 LECTURE 8
CONSTRUCTIVISM
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. Introduction Accounting for Significance Historically
2. Constructivism and Its Relation to Montage
3. Eisenstein and Pudovkin as Montage Theorists
4. Political Changes and the End of Soviet Montage
ACCOUNTING FOR SIGNIFICANCE HISTORICALLY
• How might one determine significance? In terms of
1) Typicality
2) Distinctiveness
3) influence
• How to explain the distinctiveness of Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s? One could
employ the explanatory frameworks of …
1) the ECONOMIC: how did a non-capitalist country build its industry?
2) the SOCIAL/POLITICAL: how did film serve the government’s interests?
3) the TECHNOLOGICAL: how was cinema’s technological base instrumental in
the government’s plans and integral to the centrality of montage?
4) the AESTHETIC: how do trends in Soviet filmmaking relate to other tendencies
in Soviet art of this time?
5) the BIOGRAPHICAL: which key figures helped advance the form and reputation
of Soviet cinema?
- Why was montage so important as a means of expression for the Soviets? One can
invoke the social/political and the aesthetic to craft a response…
CONSTRUCTIVISM AND ITS RELATION TO MONTAGE
• The importance of montage in cinema owes much to the influence of
CONSTRUCTIVISM on a variety of art forms
• The fundamental principles of montage—the assemblage of heterogeneous parts: the
juxtaposition of fragments; the need for the spectator to make conceptual connections—
are not unique to cinema
• Constructivism was an outgrowth of FUTURISM, which became the official Soviet style
in 1918.
• Russian Futurism broke into two camps, one (non-ideological) headed by Kazimir
MALEVICH, the other, dedicated to social use, headed by Vladimir TATLIN; out of the
second camp emerged Constructivism
• The assembly process of montage had to rework raw material; the artwork should affect a
similar transformation of the beholder’s consciousness
• Constructivist artists saw themselves as workers or engineers, not gifted aesthetes
• Central to Constructivism was a dedication to a machine ethos, advancing the cause of
Soviet industrialization
• The machine basis of Constructivism translates into an emphasis on assemblage and the
transformation of raw materials
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