Requiem for a Dream: Soviet Montage Analysis
The following analysis was submitted for a Junior year Introduction to Cinema course.
Soviet Montage: Metric, Rhythmic, Tonal & Overtonal, Intellectual
Sergei Eisenstein theorized and implemented five types of montage under the Soviet Montage Theory. His theorized methods of montage are still practiced by modern American filmmakers, especially those involved in art cinema. Montage refers to both the cutting of shots in a sequence and the arrangement of shots to create meaning. Montage is to be distinguished from coverage which merely refers to what is in the room. Requiem for a Dream’s integration of montage editing is a symptom of the film’s broader editing influence drawn from Soviet Montage. As American figures like D.W. Griffith were developing more seamless means of continuity editing, Russian filmmakers pushed back against continuity editing in their attempt to reify film’s position as a valued art form. They did not intend to hide the visibility of cuts. Russian theorists such as Eisenstein and Kuleshov’s sought to situate film as a free-standing art form, so they looked to editing to distinguish film from other practices such as theatre. They recognized that the arrangement of shots implicitly creates meaning and that they could capitalize on editing’s meaning-making capacity to promote political ideologies. In this section, I will reflect on whether the five types of Soviet-inspired montage are present in Requiem for a Dream, briefly noting their roots in Soviet Montage films such as Battleship Potemkin.
Metric montage is when a scene is cut at a specific time rate. “Metric” linguistically categorizes metric montage as a measured means of editing. Throughout the film, Jay Rabinowitz uses metric montage to splice together shots of cocaine and heroin. In the metric sequence resembled by the GIF to the right, Rabinowitz uses about 0.375 seconds of each shot wherein each shot is accompanied by a drug-related sound effect. This particular montage is shown the first time Harry and Tyrone shoot up and includes shots of “a mouth tearing open the plastic bag containing the drugs, heroin dissolving in liquid, a lighter heating up the drug solution, the solution boiling up, the piston of the syringe drawing up the drug, the iris of an eye widening and the heroin circulating in the bloodstream” (Laine, 53), A similar montage sequence is shown throughout the film to underscore the passage of time and typically occurs before the character uses drugs. This montage’s inclusion of a close-up shot of eyes and drugs in the bloodstream provides a visualization of the physical effects that the drugs have on the characters. Given this montage’s tempo, mood, and symbolic representation of ingestion, it might also be regarded as examples of rhythmic montage, tonal/overtonal montage, and intellectual montage. In Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein uses metric montage early on to establish the sailors’ routine. He cuts the shots of the sailor’s rotten meat, the wood and steel they clean, and other mindless routine activities in a certain tempo to underscore the monotony of their lives on board.
Rhythmic montage is often associated with Hollywood cinema because of its capacity to sustain continuity editing across shots. Hollywood editors use continuity editing or rhythmic montage to maintain a certain pace. The metric montage sequence in the previous slide also exists as a form of rhythmic montage which underscores the overlap that each type of montage has with the other types. The aforementioned montage both speeds up the scene and creates an unsettling, quick contrast to the slower pace of the characters in the room. Given the prevalence of rhythmic montage in American cinema, there are countless instances of it in Requiem for a Dream. Any successive shots ordered in a means that sustains continuity may be loosely regarded as an example of rhythmic montage. For example, the scene of Marion laying face down in the bath is comprised of two sequential shots yet still exemplifies rhythmic montage. Here, the scene cuts from a birds-eye shot of Marion sitting in a filled bathtub to a close-up shot of her face from under the water. She screams and bubbles flood to the surface. The two shots, when placed in succession, implicitly inform the audience that Marion’s face is below the surface in the first shot, effectively providing continuity across two distinct shots. This idea harkens back to the Kuleshov Effect that generally describes how viewers can derive meaning from two sequential shots. The ordering and content of two successive shots dictates what kind of logical meaning the viewer derives. Rhythmic montage may include the shortening or lengthening of shot duration so as to create a specific effect. In Battleship Potemkin, one can see this use of rhythmic montage during the Odessa Steps Sequence when Eisenstein cuts between the falling baby carriage, old woman, the man with glasses, and the Cossacks. Here, the cuts become quicker and the shot lengths become shorter until the Cossack murders the baby. Both instances use rhythmic montage as a means of maintaining continuity, but the latter capitalizes on it to evoke a suspenseful, urgent tone while the former uses it mainly to establish fluidity and continuity between distinct shots.
Tonal montage describes an editor’s cutting with tone in mind, using images to maintain a certain audio or visual mood across two shots. Overtonal montage is a mixture of tonal and rhythmic. One example of tonal montage in the film is in the end when the viewers see a birds-eye shot of each character in a different bed, indicating their final resting place in the film. It first cuts to Harry who wakes up in the hospital after his amputation. Then, it cuts to Marion who is laying on her couch clutching her drugs, recovering from her sexual trauma. Next, it cuts to Tyrone who lays on the jail cot. Finally, it cuts to Sara who lays on her bed in the psychiatric hospital, still dreaming about being on television. In maintaining the same birds-eye angle of each character in a differing bed as violin music intensifies, the editors effectively demonstrate each character’s doomed resolution. It provides this sense of resolution as well as maintaining a cynical, disappointing, and unsettling tone across shots. If this sequence were to be overtonal montage, there might be more rhythm and metricism to the sequence. It would provide more continuity than just distinctly showing each character. Perhaps if this were made into a more overtonal sequence, the characters would each call one another from bed and it would then cut to the character they were calling. However, this might be an instance of overtonal montage if you take the overtone to be something like cynical defeat. An example of tonal montage in Battleship Potemkin is the ending sequence when the film cuts from images of sailors, to smoke, to the boat moving through the water, to guns, to the opposing sailors, etc. The images and music, combined with the cuts between them, evokes emotion as the sailors determine that the opposing ships are “brothers”. Read as an instance of overtonal montage, the overtone might be pinpointed as victory whereas the overtone of the Odessa Steps Sequence is terror.
Intellectual montage was Eisenstein’s primary interest. This type of montage refers to the combination of dissimilar images in a manner that grants meaning to the viewer. In a sense, the intellectual montage creates a visual metaphor between to elements. While some of the other types of montage convey an emotional linkage between shots, intellectual montage seeks to establish a certain logical linkage between shots. Like the example used for metric montage, the quick succession of drug-related images repeated throughout Requiem for a Dream is a prime example of intellectual montage. The montage is typically shown right before the characters use drugs and, when the sequence is over, they have already done the drugs. Instead of showing the viewer a shot of the characters doing the drugs, this fast-paced montage with ambient, drug-related sounds substitutes the characters’ action. The close-up shots related to the physical imbibing of drugs is a metaphorical substitute for the on-screen demonstration of ingestion. This may be referred to as an instance of elliptical editing since it speeds up a process by cutting out certain parts of the action. In Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein uses intellectual montage at the end of the Odessa Steps Sequence when the stone lion wakes up and roars. Here, the roaring lion conveys the anger of the Russian people following the brutal massacre. More generally, the lion may represent the increasing anger the Russians feel towards the oppressive Cossack regime.
Downplaying Individual Power
Perhaps drawing from Soviet Montage, Requiem for a Dream, does not grant one individual too much power. Instead, each character is rendered equally powerless as a result of their addiction.
The Bolshevik government set up a film division under Lenin’s wife to harness film as a means of unifying and controlling a population of over 150 million people. Many of these people were uneducated and/or illiterate and the government recognized film’s audio/visual form as a mechanism to control and influence them. Theorists in these Soviet film schools often became filmmakers. Their films broke from key dimensions of Hollywood tradition and existed as both art and political propaganda. Filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein, in particular, departed from Hollywood’s traditional focus on a singular protagonist in their films. His films “fit with the desires of Soviet film authorities to depart from traditional narrative and the idealization of individual heroes” (Briley 527). Instead of focusing on individual characters, Eisenstein’s films often “emphasized types such as the organizer, worker, spy, foreman, and manager” (527). By focusing on individuals from different working classes and neglecting to prioritize one figure, Eisenstein sought to unite the working-class proletariat as a collective entity to rise up against the factory-owning bourgeoisie. This aligned with Marxist thinking in that an uprising would supposedly help mend the conflict and oppression between the haves and the have nots.
Harry Goldfarb might be considered the protagonist in Requiem for a Dream, but one could argue that Marion, Tyrone, and Sara’s storylines are equally important to the film. The stories are expressed in a parallel manner, but each story is linked by relationships. Sara is a poor widow who was left with no social interaction, so she turned to her television. She becomes so enraptured in the television and its toxic messaging that she becomes obsessed with a seemingly artificial opportunity to be on television herself. This obsession with consumption and image is exacerbated when her doctor prescribes her amphetamines to help with weight loss. Ultimately, she ends up with a lobotomy and a seemingly permanent stay in a psychiatric facility. Harry is a university graduate who toys with drugs in an initially social manner but decides to start selling with his friend Tyrone. His entanglement in the violent, drug-dealing world only intensifies his heroin addiction and he ultimately must have his arm amputated to cure the infection at the injection point. Marion, his girlfriend, is an artist who similarly deteriorates into a drug addiction of her own. While Harry deals, Marion turns to the violent prostitution world to secure funds to fuel her addiction. Tyrone is Harry’s (and Marion’s) friend who has a loving relationship with his family but who also falls prey to drug addiction. He is ultimately sent to a prison where he is subjected to racial violence and the side effects of his withdrawal. While I do not think a choice in parallel storytelling was intended to paint a picture of a collective social group so as to motivate their political uprising, I do think it aligns with Soviet Montage in the sense that it strips the power away from a singular individual. would argue that Harry is only considered the protagonist because he is the connecting point in terms of the inter-character relationships. He is the figure the film seems to come back to the most because he is the point of connection between the four ongoing narratives. I think they are all rendered powerless by virtue of their addiction. Soviet Montage sought to strip individual characters of power for the purposes of uniting the masses, but I think rendering these four characters powerless is a means of demonstrating the debilitating power of drug addiction. They all seek love, money, and power in some capacity. Yet, they all end up bed-ridden and suffering at the end of the film, indicating that none of them achieved what they sought because of their addictions. Essentially, even the supposed protagonist Harry does not hold individual power in the film given that both him and the other three primary characters are rendered powerless by the greater power of addiction.
Propaganda and the Creation of a National Identity
While Requiem for a Dream, involves political messages surrounding the negative effects of drug use, it does not use government-controlled propaganda to inspire political decisions.
The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, forcefully came to power after the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks would later come to be recognized as the Communist party. The Bolshevik rule was associated with pro-worker’s rights, the quelling of dissent, and state-controlled industries. Thus, the government became interested in film as a means of asserting sociopolitical control over the population. Given the fact that Russia did not have access to film stock, Russian cinephiles became invested in the study of film at a physical and theoretical level. They opened the world’s first film school, VGIK, where Lev Kuleshov became one of the most prominent instructors. Kuleshov did not attempt to hide the cuts in a film like early filmmakers such as George Méliès, but rather attempted to embellish them so that they became an impressive feat in and of themselves. Perhaps most notably, the Soviet theorists and filmmakers saw film as a form of propaganda.
Over time, the government recognized that they needed to make the integration of Communist propaganda more subtle in films. Thus, filmmakers like Vertov began to make more realistic films that still forwarded the ideals of Communism. In Battleship Potemkin, the viewer derives the political message from the distinct ways that the common man and the Cossacks are characterized. While the sailors are painted as oppressed and innocent, (such as when we see the rotten meat they are forced to eat) the Cossacks are painted in the exact opposite manner. Through moments like he Odessa Steps Sequence, the Cossacks are portrayed as brutal, violent, and ruthless. This distinct means of characterization helps evoke pity for the common folk and inspires anger towards the officers. This distinct means of characterization also implicitly forwards the message that the proletariat must rise up against their oppressive opposition. Although Requiem for a Dream might be making a political statement about the dooming nature of drug addiction, their message is not a) mandated by the government or b) intended as a means of persuasive political propaganda.
Auteur Theory
Darren Aronofsky is not considered an ‘auteur’ in the same manner that Soviet directors like Eisenstein were considered auteurs.
Soviet Montage filmmakers did not possess the same liberties that American filmmakers possessed because the film industry was supervised and manipulated by the government. For example, many of Eisenstein’s films were actually commissioned by Lenin. American filmmakers are at liberty to the conglomerates and markets they operate under, but the film industry is not controlled by the American government. Furthermore, the auteur theory is loosely defined but generally refers to the fact that the director is the artist of a film. That is, the films they create are a product of them and them only. For the most part, Hollywood cinema does not embrace the auteur theory because it discredits the contributions of editors, creative teams, set designers, etc. A director does not simply produce a film on their own. However, the remnants of the auteur theory in American cinema may be seen in the notion that certain directors create films that contain a recognizable and influential style that stands apart from films by other directors. For example, directors like Hitchcock and Tarantino might be considered auteurs because they inject their particular worldview into their films in a manner that is both recognizable and distinguishable. Despite the political influence on Soviet filmmakers, figures like Eisenstein are considered auteurs because of their almost complete control of the production process. For example, Eisenstein typically co-wrote and co-edited his own films rather than just managing the manifestation of his vision by overseeing a team of skilled workers. Also, given the fact that the integration of Marxist ideals into his films saw vague and shallow characterizations, the actors in Soviet Montage film are not credited to the same degree as Eisenstein. Finally, Eisenstein was a Communist himself and inserted his political visions into his work which further reifies his association with the auteur theory. While I in no way would argue that Aronofsky did not have a profound influence on Requiem for a Dream or that he did not insert his personal vision into the film, he is not necessarily considered an ‘auteur’. For example, the film’s editor, Jay Rabinowitz, is arguably praised just as much as Aronofsky for the film’s success. The film also would not have been produced at the same level of grandeur without a team of cinematographers, set designers, actors and actresses, etc.
References
Briley, Ron. “Sergei Eisenstein: The Artist in Service of the Revolution.” The History Teacher, vol. 29, no. 4, 1996, pp. 525–36, https://doi.org/10.2307/494802. Accessed 20 Apr. 2022.
Laine, Tarja. “Rhythm: Requiem for a Dream.” Bodies in Pain: Emotion and the Cinema of Darren Aronofsky, 1st ed., Berghahn Books, 2015, pp. 45–73, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qd2gm.7. Accessed 20 Apr. 2022.
