STRUCTURALISM

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STRUCTURALISM

• Russian Montage
• ENGL 2388

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STRUCTURALISM (definition)

• A method of analyzing phenomena, as in
  anthropology, linguistics, psychology, or
  literature, chiefly characterized by contrasting
  the elemental structures of the phenomena in a
  system of binary opposition.
• A school that advocates and employs such method
  (Soviet school of montage)

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• Structuralists are interested in the
  interrelationship between UNITS and RULES, which
  are the ways that units can be put together
• Units (Elements)
• Rules
• System

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Tinkertoys (example)

• Units
• all the parts in the box (the various colored
  rods of different lengths, the different kinds of
  connectors, wheels, and attachments)

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• Rules
• The rule in a tinkertoy construction is that
  rods go into holes

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What Does Structuralist Analysis Do?

• Structuralist analysis looks at the units of a
  system, and the rules that make that system work,
  without regard for any specific content

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For Structuralists System Has the Following Three
Properties

• 1. Wholeness

• The system functions as a whole, not just as a
  collection of independent parts

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• 2. Transformation

• The system is not static, but capable of change

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• 3. Self-Regulation

• You can add elements to the system, but you can't
  change the basic structure of the system no
  matter what you add to it.

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Film as a Conceptual System

• Wholeness
• Transformation
• Self-Regulation

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Soviet Montage

• Kuleshov and Pudovkin
• Eisenstein

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The Kuleshov Workshop

• Conditions that determined the direction of
  Soviet montage
• Shortage of raw film stock
• Griffiths Intolerance (1919)

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The Kuleshov Workshop (experiments)

• Mozhukhin Experiment
• Artificial Landscape or Creative Geography

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Mozhukhin Experiment

• face soup hunger
• face woman in a coffin sorrow
• face a little girl playing joy
• Juxtaposition of two shots does more than add
  up their meaningsit creates a new, third,
  meaning that cant be found in individual shots.
  Such juxtaposition of shots creates new,
  cinematic, reality and is called montage.

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Creative Geography

• A man walks from right to left
• A woman walks from left to right
• They meet and shake hands, the man points
• We see a white building
• The two walk up a flight of stairs
• This experiment revealed that the
  impression of geographical unity in a film was
  unrelated to geographical unity in space (199).

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Functions of Editing

• Narrative
• Intellectual
• Emotional

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Functions of Editing Narrative

• The narrative cut allows the director-editor
  to analyze an action into its most interesting
  psychological elements and then to resynthesize
  these elements of the event into a powerful
  sequential action.
• Linkage

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Functions of Editing Intellectual

• Metaphorical (associational) cut
• Contrast cut
• Parallel cut

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Functions of Editing Emotional

• Rhythmical cut (shorter pieces of film will
  increase the tempo and tension of the action)
• Tonal cut (lighter vs. darker pictures)
• Form cut (cutting on a similarity or difference
  in the form of the object in the frame)
• Directional cut (director uses the direction of
  movement across the frame either to keep the
  action flowing or create a collision)

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Sergei Eisenstein

• Battleship Potemkin

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Eisensteins Principle of Montage

• Conflict is the fundamental principle for the
  existence of every art work and every art-form.
• The shot is not an element of montage the shot
  is a montage cell.
• Montage and its cell the shot is characterized
  by collision.

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Conflict within a Shot

• The shot appears as the cell of montage.
  Therefore it also must be considered from the
  viewpoint of conflict.
• Conflict within the shot is potential montage, in
  the development of its intensity.

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Cinematographic Conflicts within Frames and
between Shots

• Conflict of graphic directions
• Conflict of scales
• Conflict of volumes
• Conflict of depths
• Close shots and long shots
• Conflict of lightness and darkness
• Conflict between an event and its duration

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Graphic Conflict (within the frame)
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Conflict of Planes (within a frame)
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Examples of Collision/Conflict between Shots
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Film as a Conceptual System

• Wholeness
• Transformation
• Self-Regulation

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• Sources
• Dr. Mary Klages notes on structuralism
• The assigned readings from Gerald Mast Bruce F.
  Kawin, A Short History of the Movies
• Y. Lotman. ?????? ? ???????
• Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form.

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• Thank you ?