Film Theories: Formalism and Soviet montage

Formalism and Soviet montage

Formalism film and Soviet montage are the remarkable theories of filmmaking, Formalism film might be an unusual type of film at the beginning of formalism movies, due to the formalism movies put a lot of attention on form more than a content of the film. Formalism film only emphasizes on how to communicate an idea and emotion through the form such as sound, colure and set design rather than focusing on the content of the film itself, formalism filmmaker in the early age of formalism is emphasize on how their film look on screen. The great example of the early age of formalism film is the work of Robert wiene in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)  In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Robert Wiene has disguised the reality of how the world looks, we can see from an unusual setting of house and building and a strange walk of the main character that looks very unusual for filmmaking at that time. Formalism film in an early age is a film of disguise that not rely on the reality of how the wold look but more rely on an idea of the director.

Soviet Montage quite difference from formalism in form of practical work, Soviet montage filmmaker like Lev Kuleshov focusing on the element that uses in producing a film. Kuleshov focusing on shot and scene and the arrangement of scene to create a many meaning out of few shot and scene that already existing, rather than disguise the reality by using a power art like what the formalism filmmaker has done, as film student I found Soviet montage is more useful for me due to my working style is not a person who siting down for a hour to create a imaginary looking world, but I am more into creating a world from everything around me. Soviet montage has inspired me on how to create a remarkable film from a thing that already existing by experiment on it like what Lev Kuleshov has done at the early age of Soviet montage.