Lev Kuleshov and the history of dramatic film editing.

I thought we’d take a little educational detour here today on Burbanked and talk about the history of dramatic film editing. Long, long ago, many decades before Michael Bay ever hyper-edited a 6-minute shot into 48 component pieces, there lived a Russian filmmaker named Lev Kuleshov who had a revolutionary idea about film editing: that an artist could create an emotional reaction in an audience simply through the manipulative effects of edited narrative film.

Kuleshov, of course, was exactly correct: when audiences were shown a picture of a woman in a coffin juxtaposed with a picture of a man looking thoughtful, they believed that the man looked sad. When the shot of the man was shown following that of a bowl of soup, the audience believed that he looked hungry – even though the shot of the man had not changed at all!

Skeptical? Let’s create our own experimental version of the Kuleshov Montage Effect. Take a look at the completely unrelated picture on the left below, and then click “play” on the YouTube film clip.

Completely Unrelated Picture	Dramatic Chipmunk Film Clip
Fascinating! See how the Dramatic Chipmunk appeared to be surprised, or shocked by the image of the alarm clock. What could the alarm clock portend? What sorts of doom or peril might the chipmunk experience because of this?

The mind simply reels at the dramatic tension. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Join me after the jump to see what kinds of cinematic secrets that Scorsese, Spielberg, Mann, Fincher and Shawn Levy absolutely don’t want you to know!

What if the film clip is juxtaposed against something forlorn and sad?

Completely Unrelated Picture	Dramatic Chipmunk Film Clip
Clearly the chipmunk is despondent here and is acutely feeling a sense of removal, of abandonment. And, to be sure, we feel it with him.

Let’s try the experiment as Kuleshov did: with a bowl of soup.

Completely Unrelated Picture	Dramatic Chipmunk Film Clip
Delicious! Just look how hungry the Dramatic Chipmunk seems! It’s as if that piping hot soup is just outside his reach.

And what if the Dramatic Chipmunk clip is examined next to a picture of familial peace and harmony?

Completely Unrelated Picture	Dramatic Chipmunk Film Clip
Can you feel it? A sense of memory, of joy and happiness – but mixed with something. A longing, a palpable regret of wounds long closed and words left unspoken. A darkness has fallen and morning is still many hours away. Breathtaking!

I hope, like me, you’ve learned something today, something important. The Dramatic Chipmunk has taught us quite a bit about film art and the mastery of creative montage editing. Thank you, Dramatic Chipmunk. Thank you so very very much.

This departure from reason and good sense today has been brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Piper at Lazy Eye Theatre, who tasked five blogs with instructions to find a new use for the Dramatic Chipmunk clip seen above. Now I’ve got to foist this upon five unsuspecting others.

• Chuck at Pockets of Sanity
• Vic at Screen Rant – Here’s your Blog-Birthday present!
• MC at Culture kills…wait, I mean cutlery.
• Craig at Craig’s MovieBlog
• Evan at If I Blog It They Will Come