- Define and explain Russian Film Classics in your own words
- Use key terms such as роман (román) — novel accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Russian Film Classics: from Eisenstein's montage to Tarkovsky's long takes, learn to read film as text.
From Eisenstein's montage to Tarkovsky's long takes, learn to read film as text.
Key ideas
Reading film as text
Sergei Eisenstein's montage — монтаж (montázh) — cuts images together to create ideas neither shot contains alone; see the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin. Andrei Tarkovsky does the opposite: long, slow takes that make time itself visible. Both directors ask the same question as the novelists: how does art show truth?
The Onegin stanza
Eugene Onegin is written in a unique 14-line stanza rhyming ABABCCDD EFFEGG, which Pushkin uses for everything from landscape to irony to direct addresses to the reader. The stanza's conversational ease lets Pushkin slip between narrator and character — a technique to name in essays as authorial intrusion.
Key term — роман (román) — novel: The long prose form. The great Russian романы — Война и мир (Voyná i mir — War and Peace), Преступление и наказание (Prestupléniye i nakazániye — Crime and Punishment) — are as much philosophy as story.
Contrast Eisenstein and Tarkovsky in one sentence each.
Eisenstein builds meaning through rapid montage (montázh) collisions of images; Tarkovsky reveals truth through long, contemplative takes.
Answer: Eisenstein builds meaning through rapid montage (montázh) collisions of images; Tarkovsky reveals truth through long, contemplative takes.
- Treating film as illustration of the book Eisenstein's montage (montázh) makes its own arguments — analyse the editing itself rather than using the film as a picture-book of the novel.
- Summarising Chekhov's plots instead of analysing Examiners want the подтекст (podtékst — subtext): what is not said. Writing only what happens in 'The Lady with the Dog' earns description marks, not analysis marks.
Practice
Подтекст (podtékst) — subtext: the real meaning carried by pauses, trivial remarks and omissions.
Война и мир (Voyná i mir — War and Peace) by Tolstoy (Толстой (Tolstóy)); Преступление и наказание (Prestupléniye i nakazániye — Crime and Punishment) by Dostoevsky (Достоевский (Dostoyévskiy)).
ABABCCDD EFFEGG.
Лишний человек (líshniy chelovék) — 'the superfluous man': a clever, bored aristocrat unable to act meaningfully.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "роман (román) — novel"?
State Chekhov's gun in your own words.
- Russian Film Classics: from Eisenstein's montage to Tarkovsky's long takes, learn to read film as text.
- Reading film as text: Sergei Eisenstein's montage — монтаж (montázh) — cuts images together to create ideas neither shot contains alone; see the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin.
- стихотворение (stikhotvoréniye) — poem: Pushkin's natural habitat.
- Watch out for: treating film as illustration of the book