Arsenal

1929 work from Aleksandr Dovzhenko. Part of the societ montage movement.
This film portrays the dialectic of statis and movement. Early on we have static figures, often uncentered, for relatively long takes. They are backlit (the other use of lighting is sidelighting on the face), almost sillouhettes. As though puppets, they are inactive, oppressed. Such figures return throughout the piece. They fall in this postion, as though straightjacketed.
Dovzhenko moves however to great scenes of action. Not only do we have workers streaming, but we also have the camera being almost thrown around, flying across, with canted angles and deliberately provocative shapes used to create the sense of movement. Mention also has to go to the point when the horses start talking, a moment of almost wild enthusiasm.
The takes are longer than perhaps in Eisenstein, especially in the earlier scenes of stasis. When the montage speeds up it is often for punctuation, to enhance the importance of the action. We have frequent views of the same object/ machinery/ symbol, dynamising its movement. Their is also (more than in Eisenstein) strong use of the axial cut, usually as an affirmative technique to valorise, to almost literally impress on the viewer the impact.
Dozvhenko uses his shots generally as cells, with lone individuals, or an undifferentiated mass, in each. Cuts often emphasise a connection, occasionally a juxtapostion. Exceptions to this are interesting; the almost expressionist office, and the lower angle scenes of lines coming over the horizon, the huge expanses of sky emphasizing the earth.
The stillness of our central character creates a powerful figure. The plot gets rather lost, but the constant dynmacy of the images still makes this an echillarating watch.