In the turbulent years after the revolution in 1917, Soviet film industry had a hard time to obtain sufficient money and production was at a low level. Lenin’s nationalization of cinema in 1919 brought forth a discovery of many Russian and foreign films. The workshop of young director Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970) at the State Film School received a lot of ‘raw stock’ from these films from the government, which lead them to experiment with this old material to create new material. These experiments became known as the ‘Kuleshov experiments’, leading to what we now call ‘the Kuleshov effect’. (Thompson and Bordwell: Soviet Cinema in the 1920’s, p. 119).
The Kuleshov effect is an editing principle in which an interpretive effect is created by a sequence of shots that by themselves are not explanatory. The imagined connection between the shots establishes the meaning of both shots. The most famous example is the editing of old footage of the actor Ivan Mozhukhin (shown here), in which the same close-up of his face is shown, followed by three different scenes.The interpretation of the emotions of Ivan’s character is made by the sequencing shots: Ivan is felt to be either hungry, mournful or lusting. Yet the face itself remains the same: the spectator of the film merely projects their own emotions onto the character, in this way creating the relation between the images through context.
Another of the editing techniques he developed, was called ‘creative geography’. Following this principle shots would be sequenced suggesting that they were spatially proximate, in this way ‘building’ where the scenes took place even if the shots were not from the same time or place.
Montage was thus proved to be more important to construct meaning than the actual shots, which became the basic principle of the Montage School. Editing was seen as the main advantage that film had over other art forms. The suggestive power of juxtaposition was a new source for creativity.[2]
The New Economic Policy of 1921, providing a limited temporary reintroduction of private ownership, allowed private firms and the government to increase their productivity again. There were some policies about the ends of film industry in an equal distribution of entertainment and education (or propaganda), but these divisions were not very clear. An example of a film serving both ends is Kuleshov’s production ‘The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks’ (Russian: Необычайные приключения мистера Веста в стране Большевиков) from 1924, which is a comical refutation of the barbarian image that the U.S. typically had of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. ‘Mr. West’, a naive representative of the YMCA comes to the USSR with prejudices against the Bolsheviks, which is taken advantage of by thieves that stage his abduction as they are dressed as the supposed savage barbarians, and cheat him out of his money by also staging his rescue. They first take him on a tour through Moscow reinstating the prejudices about the Bolsheviks.
During this tour Kuleshov uses the technique of creative geography.The thief points from the carriage to several deserted sites, suggesting that they are driving past them. Later he points to ‘his palace’, which is also shown in a separate shot, suggesting that they are going into this building. Kuleshov also makes use of people hiding behind walls, alternated with shots of people riding by, suggesting that the first person is hiding from these people. Saved by the real Bolshevik police, Mr. West is shown ‘thousands of true Bolsheviks’, who do not look savage at all. All the prejudices turn out to have been wrong. The most interesting use of the creative geography is visible at the end of the film, where we see the ‘thousands of Bolsheviks’ marching and a content Lenin (with Kuleshov effect supposed to be overseeing the marching men), alternated with shots of Mr. West holding binoculars – when clearly they are scenes from different times and places.
Kuleshov mainly used the montage to manipulate the experience of the spectator in the spatial domain. He suggested that situations were nearer than they were and that characters were viewing certain things that actually are not within the reach of their physical presence. Eisenstein learnt film making from him, but soon differed from Kuleshov in his ideas of what montage should be used for (resulting in what would be called intellectual montage) and used it more semantically. Kuleshov also influenced Vsevolodovich Pudovkin, his assistent director later turned director, and Soviet documentary maker Dziga Vertov, among others. His ideas of editing have laid the foundation of film editing in the Soviet Union.
[1] Thompson, Kristin and David Bordwell. Soviet Cinema in the 1920’s in “Film History: An Introduction”. McGraw-Hill: New York (2003). Pp. 119-124.
[2] (s.n.) (s.a.) The Kuleshov Experiment in “Elements of Cinema.” Web. 12 Oct. 2014. http://www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/kuleshov-effect.html
[3] Beem, Habbo. “The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks.” Online film. YouTube. YouTube, 17 Oct. 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVeg8shVTiQ
Slavische Studies 