SM2105 Assignment2 ZHAO Mengchen SID: 52164563

1. CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
The Cinema of Attraction Report and
Montage Eisenstein
SM2105 Assignment2 March 10th 2014
ZHAO Mengchen
SID: 52164563
Response Paper on The Cinema of Attraction by Tom Gunning

2. In this passage, the author expounded logically about some heterogeneous
characteristics between the early films before 1906 and later films, and extracted the
concept of “the cinema of attractions” based on that discussion. Early cinema, as a
kind of “cinema of attractions”, directly attracts the attention of audience, arouses
curiosity of visual sense and provides great pleasure through exciting visual
enjoyment. The Avant-Garde’s interests in early films are also lying in its novelty and
innovation. Tom Gunning pointed out that the cinema of attraction did not disappear
with the development of the narrative films, on the contrary, they continued to play a
huge role in popular films and pioneer film production.
First of all, Gunning used Lumiere and Melies to indicate the conception of “the
cinema of attractions” which dominates cinema until about 1906 or 1907, this idea
prefers to seeing the film less as a way of telling stories, but rather as a way of
representing series of landscape to the audience. Of course, Gunning pointed out what
exactly is the cinema of attraction, this kind of films, as one specific element of
narration film, has the ability to show and demonstrate something. And the most
important sign is the relationship between the cinema of attractions and its audience,
and the way represents this relationship is actors and actresses directly look at camera
constantly, in this way, this action could help the films establish contact with
spectators. Later, Tom Gunning used a series of examples of erotic films in which the
actresses flirting with camera and the audience to illustrate exhibitionism, which plays
an important role in early film production, and in fact, in the earliest years of
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3. exhibition, the cinema itself was an attraction.
Based on telling about the historical and social background of the world at the
beginning of the 20th century, the entertainment industry develop enormously and the
mass, or you can say, the middle class started to accept this kind of culture, the culture
accents direct stimulation rather than pure diegesis, and the more “popular”
entertainment attracted the Avant-garde very soon. In addition, the author noted that
the word attractions’s springhead is from Eisenstein and his new model for the theater.
According to Eisenstein, theater should consist of a montage of such attractions,
creating a relation to the spectator entirely different from his absorption in “illusory
imitativeness”, and created an attraction which forces the audience accept sensual or
psychological impact, this concept highlights the relation between spectators and the
film itself, not “diegetic absorption”. The meaning of Montage and Attraction from
Sergei Eisenstein is very attractive to me, and I am going to discuss this theory with
examples in the second part of my response essay.
At the end of Tom Gunning’s article, he identified the development of the cinema
of attraction, he said that the appearance of feature films started the true
narrativization, the look at the camera becomes taboo and the devices of cinema
focused more on characters, their inner world and fiction expression. However, the
system of attraction remains an essential part of popular filmmaking no matter how
the variety format changed. In conclusion, let me use one sentence from Gunning’s
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4. passage to end the summary of entire essay of The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film,
Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde: every change in film history implies a change in its
address to the spectator, and each period constructs its spectator in a new way.
Above, I have declared that the Montage theory from Eisenstein is very attractive to
me. Eisenstein always uses montage in his works, for instance in his film Bronenosets
Potyomkin in 1925, when the rebellion happened on the warship, the shots of sailors
who are walking down the stairs and people who are beating each other inside the
ship were intercut by the director, or, people who are having a speech at the port and
the group of sailors’ scene were also intercut and showed up alternately. These things
happened in different places at the same time, and we could call it parallel expression.
And I would like to analyze one scene instead of the entire film in this work. To
Eisenstein, montage can control a wide range of human functions from simple
voluntary movements such as swaying to complex ideological beliefs and convictions.
In this movie, the massacre scene on the Odessa steps is very classical, and I want
to take the episode of Odessa steps where the pathos of the film reaches its climax as
my analyzing example. How are the events arranged and presented in this scene?
Leaving aside the frenzied state of the characters and masses in the scene, the
movement itself is used to express mounting emotional intensity actually. Firstly,
there are close-ups of human figures rushing chaotically, then, long shots of the same
scene occurred. The chaotic movement is next superseded by shots showing the feet
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5. of soldiers as they march down the steps rhythmically when the tempo increases and
rhythm accelerates. Later on, as the downward movement reaches its culmination, the
movement is suddenly reversed, instead of the headlong rush of the crowd down the
ladders we see the solitary figure of a mother carrying her dead son who was shot by
the soldiers, going up the steps slowly and solemnly through the mass. The shot of the
rushing crowd is suddenly followed by one showing a perambulator hurtling down the
steps, this is more than just different tempos. This is a leap in the method of
representation, from the abstract to the physical.
Close-ups, accordingly, give place to long shots. The chaotic rush of a mass is
succeeded by the rhythmic march of the soldiers. One aspect of movement like people
running, falling down or tumbling down the steps gives way to another – the rolling
perambulator. At each step there is a leap from one dimension to another, from one
quality to another, until, finally, the change affects not one individual episode (the
perambulator) but the whole of the method: the risen lions mark the point where the
narrative turns into a presentation through images. Pathos arouses deep emotions and
enthusiasm, the sad, nervous and tragic atmosphere was uttered with the rolling down
stroller, and this group of montage lens in six minutes uses nearly more than 150 shot
lens of only 3 second averagely. In this six-minute, long shots, medium shots and
close-ups appeared alternately, the fast shot-lens are the typical characteristic
Eisenstein’s montage film.
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6. Eisenstein believes that this form of montage has the capability to build a new form
of cinematography, and a creative narration form as well. Also, this method brought
out the term “attractions” as Eisenstein thought theater should consist of a montage of
such attractions, creating a relation to the spectator entirely different from his
absorption in illusory imitativeness.1 Eisenstein's comparison of government with
religion becomes even more apparent when looked at through the terms of his
montage form. In a word, Eisenstein’s film and theory conveyed a messaged that
when the political revolution and realism are mixed together, it would bring the films
freshness and excitement you can never imagine.
Reference:
The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde, by Tom
Gunning
Montage Eisenstein, by Jacques Aumont, 1979
Sergei Eisenstein: Notes of a Film Director, by X. Danko, 1959
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The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde
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