A + B = C?

Born in Latvia in 1898, Sergei Eisenstein´s legacy lives to this day. In every movie ever made his influence remains. Studied architecture and engineering. Began to work on a theatre company doing set design. Then Joined the Red Army in 1918. Unlike others privileged with a movie theatre or a film school. There was no cinematic language back then he had to create it. He had to mix theatre and photography skills to reach the transmission of a message to an unskilled society (the audience). Making them a part of the movie experience. Cinematographic techniques such as the choice of shot, and camera movement, can greatly influence the structure and meaning of a film.

The massacre on the steps of Odessa
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925)

The most celebrated scene in the film is the massacre of civilians on the Odessa Steps. This scene IS one of the most influential in the history of cinema, because it introduced concepts of film editing and montage to cinema. Shots “could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors “. In this scene, the Tsar's soldiers in their white summer tunics march down a seemingly endless flight of steps in a rhythmic, machine-like fashion. A separate detachment of mounted Cossacks charges the crowd at the bottom of the stairs. A mother pushing an infant in a baby carriage falls to the ground dying and the carriage rolls down the steps amidst the fleeing crowd. 

Eisenstein's idea that adjacent shots should relate to each other in such a way that A and B combine to produce another meaning, C, which is not actually recorded on the film. CALLED “the "collision of shots “


As in theatre, It knows no genre, its commonly an unseen prop. But not disguised. Used by many, dresses perfectly for every occasion. It is a vertical bridge that unites the plot line. As Father Merrin waits to see Regan (The Exorcist) I can almost hear Luca Brasi´s footsteps(The Godfather) waiting for Scarlett O'Hara (Gone with the wind) with my hands in the air (ROCKY) announce the Von Trapp family goodbye! (The Sound of music) All of this movies use the same dramatic device.
A staircase.

“The revolution gave me the most precious thing in life, it made an artist out of me…” -Sergei Eisenstein