Influence and Impact on Contemporary Films or Other Media

“Battleship Potemkin” directed by Sergei Eisenstein (1925) is one of the earliest montage film where the film was edited in such a ways as to produce the greatest emotional response, so that the audience would feel sympathy for the rebellious sailors (Quoted from Wikipedia). From the view of overtonal montage, the entire film allows the audience to see clearly with whom they should sympathize. We usually will sympathy with the victims during war or disaster. In this film, the audience expressed their sympathy, pain and sad feeling which established the subdominant mood that take place for even more complicated meaning. Intellectual montage is shown in Odessa Staircase episode in which Tsarist soldiers massacre the Odessans. The scene in the film is the massacre of civilians on the Odessa Steps. The shots showing Tsar’s soldiers in their white summer tunics marching down an endless stairs (Primorsky Stairs) in a rhythmic, machine-like fashion, firing into the crowd combining with other shots such as Cossacks charges the crowd at the bottom of the stairs as well as the shots where a mother pushing an infant in a baby carriage falls to the ground. All the shots when combined together, it eventually creates a scene telling the audience that there is chaos happened in that particular location. It creates sad emotion and pain feeling to the audience as they predict “death is coming”.

We can see that there is revolution of soviet montage after the production of early films. After the Soviet revolution (1955), the Primorsky Stairs had been renamed Potemkin Stairs in the way they want to honor the 50th anniversary of the film “Battleship Potemkin”. However, the Potemkin Stairs were given back their original name, the Primorsky Stairs after Ukrainian independence. In fact, most of Odessites know and refer to the stairs by their Soviet name. Besides that, Soviet montage has been widely used in contemporary films. After the revolution, many filmmakers use montages to create different styles and feelings on the films.


“Requiem For A Dream” directed by Darren Aronofsky (2000) is a film that shows the drug-induced utopias of four individuals where their addictions eventually become stronger. The entire film is showing ‘addiction’ from the characters feelings and emotions as well as soviet montage. Drug is the main source for them to achieve their dream. For example, Sara Goldfarb consumed weight-loss pills in order to fit into her old dress to be on television. However, she ignored Harry’s warnings about the pills that contained amphetamine addiction because she insists that the great opportunity to be on television has given her a reason to live. In terms of the images, the pictures are good and pretty. When you watch it once, you feel to watch it again. In this film, the images and impact are hard to predict. It consists of most disturbing motion pictures about drug addict. The film portrayed the individual emotional core and how characters self-destruct.
From the view of mise-en-shot, various shots are been used in the film such as parallel editing, split screen, top view, extreme close up, fish eye view, time lapsed photography and the use of filters. Tonal montage is used in this film where emotional meaning of the shots is used to establish the dominant mood. For example, Sara is desperate to be on television therefore she went for diet which eventually move to quick cut showing addiction, trippy feeling of addiction. Her depress and desperate feeling was totally dominate the entire film. Besides that, intellectual montage also shown in the film where conflicting shots are made to provide the meaning behind. Audience will get to know what the scenes all about are once they watch the continuous scenes and combined them together. One of the example in this film is there are few shots of drugs, needle, smoke popping in and out very fast showing that Harry is having drug hallucination. Other than that, when Sara is consuming drug pills for her diet plan, there are separate shots comprising cup, grapefruits, eggs and refrigerator where when all the shots are combined together, the audience can clearly seen the process of Sara’s diet.


“Spiderman” directed by Sam Raimi in 2002 is the firsts film of the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics (Quoted from Wikipedia). In this film, intellectual montage had been widely used. The first example is there are a few seconds’ shots showing the picture of bone membrane, DNA, spider shadow indicates that the main character, Peter Parker was bitten by the spider and he is suffering from pain. Another example is the scene where Mary Jane Watson first boyfriend comes towards Peter Parker to give a punch on him. A few seconds slow motion shots consisting of shot of students walking stunt, aeroplane slowly flying on air, flies fly around, water splashed out from straw and finally boyfriend hand punch indicates that the atmosphere at earlier on was peaceful but later on it become a tragedy where fighting happened between Peter Parker and her boyfriend. Audience will easily predict the situation based on the shots that combined together and they know that “fighting is going to happen”.
Moreover, “Spiderman” is not only appeared in film but it has also appeared in comics, novels, colouring books as well as cartoons. In another word, this film has slowly expanded to other media especially print media.


Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), which directed by Michael Bay, has an example of intellectual montage falls on a scene.
The long-shot of “Meteor Fires” falling towards the earth. The mid-shot of the satellite has been surrounded by Decepticons. Decepticons are hacking and copying the information from the satellite. Zoom into the network through Sam’s Mother’s hand phone. The satellite scene shows that Decepticons is searching and hunting Sam’s parents everywhere.
The long-shot of Decepticons are climbing and standing at the top of the New York Bridge and Other Decepticons are climbing to the top of New York building. Few cars (the Autobots) are arriving to a building. The “Meteor Fires” continues falling towards the earth and straight cut to the Paris street where is busy and a lot of people walking along the street like normal. In the Paris city scene, Sam’s parents are having a nice lunch.
A series of shots of warship at US Flotte, Nordatlan. The warship is under attacked by the “Meteor Fires” falling from sky. At the scene of the Paris city streets are attacked by the “Meteor Fires” falling from sky and then the “Meteor Fires” destroy the streets in Paris city. Jump scene to the warship has been destroyed by the Fallen, in this shots it means that the Fallen is back to revenge to the earth and then jump back to the people in Paris city are running everywhere. Sam’s parents have been caught by Decepticons.
In the scenes happening in New York City, Paris City and the Us Flotte, this means that Decepticons are everywhere in the earth to hunt for Sam’s parents. The Fallen summons his Decepticons to the earth to help his revenge. This montage has brought out the conflict between Decepticons and the human.
This montage affected the film on how the war began between Autobots and Decepticons.


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003) directed by Peter Jackson. There is a tonal montage falls on a scene to describe a character’s emotion and mood.
In the castle scene, the king, Denethor is having delicious meals and asking Pippin to sing a song for him. Then extreme close-up of Denethor is eating and the food sauce is squeezing out from his mouth, this shows that how selfish of Denethor is. Jump into close-up of the war horses legs running and close-up of the armies and horses of Minas Tirith running towards to the Orcs’ camp. The Orcs appear in their camp and prepare for war. Back to extreme close-up to Denethor is eating peacefully. In contrast, close-up of Faramir on horse is going to fight for the war. Back to the castle, Pippin singing, he hopes from the song lyrics to wake Denethor’s mind up. Then, the war begins. Close-up of Denethor’s hand is separating the dump stick with the chicken and the mid-shot of horse running. This contrast has shown that the armies and horses may like the chicken, died with uncompleted dead body. Jump back to the close-up of the Orcs prepare to release the arrow to shoot, and the horses running. Back to Pippin singing, and jump to the Orcs start to shoot, then extreme close-up of Denethor’s mouth with the excess chicken’s blood, Pippin cries. In this series of shots has shown that the armies sent to the war may die with bloods and how Pippin feels worried, hopeless, and sad about Denethor selfishness.
In this tonal montage, Denethor only cares about himself, worries about Aragorn and Gandalf try to depose him. He never cares about his people in his country and his son, Faramir. He enjoys his meal but he does not care and worry about the armies who sent out to save his country, they may have danger and they may die in the bloody war.
This montage describes the characters feelings and minds. Moreover it also describes how worried of Pippin to Faramir and the armies sent out to the war. The tonal montage also describes the complicated mood, feelings, and conditions in the scene.