HISTORICAL INTERESTS

 Early Promoters of the 'Persistence of Vision'

 Sergei Eisenstein & Dziga Vertov

 

Sergei Eisenstein, the father of visual construction and form, directed, conceptualized, and constructed the film industry as we know it today. His concept of a shot in coalition with another promoted editing and has been implemented in all films since his writings on MONTAGE. Sergei strongly opposed continuity editing and relished in juxtaposing shots through non-continuity editing. We see these various montages in films today incorporating one shot with another, thus provoking a reaction from us, the viewer. It is better understood through one of Eisenstein's writings, THE CINEMATOGHRAPIC PRINCIPLE AND IDEOGRAM, which describes his vision as simplistic as 'the combination of strokes creates a whole.' He uses the Japanese hieroglyphs as an example. The combination of brush strokes creates the image and the meaning, crystallizing the form as a whole. Eisenstein uses this concept in film. Three short shots significant in their own correct and individual meaning are held together, constructed through editing, and woven together, producing a new meaning – a single theme. The combination of various shots can produce and provoke an emotion in the viewer and his or her interpretation of the joined shots. Sergei, a visionary in the Montage style, propelled a movement with his first film, STRIKE, solidifying the power of editing like Dzige Vertov.

 

Dziga Vertov's FROM THE MANIFESTO OF THE BEGINNING OF 1922 is a conceptual awareness and testament of the 'Persistence of Vision,' the perception that the eyes retain the impression of what is before them longer than the time the eyes have been exposed to the actual image. With this concept in mind, Vertov began to arrange pictures in editing to convey a mood through information. The spatial relationship between shots gives the filmmaker control and guides the viewer, "I am Kino-eye. I am a builder… I've managed to arrange them in a pleasing order." The earliest conceptual induction of its kind in any writing.

 

However, Vertov was more of a documentary-style filmmaker. In A MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, he uses the camera to film the daily routines of the city's citizens. It becomes a study of the real-life conditions of the time and citizens of the town, a non–stage or rehearsed – but the truth. Vertov appears in several frames as the cinematographer, further promoting the issue of a documentary filmmaker. His wife is the editor and is seen as the editor in the film's shots. She is seen splicing together various pieces of film, which appear before us as part of the film – complete from editing. Here, the concept of a shot in coalition with another becomes an actual event—Sergei Eisenstein's idea in action. The film is an exploration of the filmmaker and editor. Vertov uses various film/cinematic techniques: Double Exposures, Fast Motion, Slow Motion, Freeze Frames, Jump Cuts, Split Screens, Dutch Angles, Extreme Close-ups, and Tracking Shots. My favorite is the slow-motion effects at the sporting events, where he uses more frames per second shots. This effect slows the action down. Yet, we are engaged with the film and its origin and visually connecting the number of images, frame by frame, into one genre.

 

Both Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov were instrumental in the current state of filmmaking. Following their persistence in the viewer being able to retain one image as another appears, Persistence of Vision allowed them to perform techniques in editing that are used today, therefore formulating a conclusive mood or emotion through editing.