The End Of St Petersburg

Vsevolod Pudovkin - 1927
This is so perfectly, classically what one thinks Soviet montage cinema is. Clear, fast cuts, striking angles, harsh lights, still powerful figures. The gesture is very significant, pointing, outstretched arms. Also the statue, later arrayed in flowers.
Pudovkin's montage can be very fast, incredibly so, but one always feels he is in control of it- even the frenzy is controlled. Along with the hands, actions in the montage is a lot of food, nature. The sky is low. There is a real 'Earth' -esque sense of poetry here, a few lingers on those fields, and generally on the beauty of the photography. The face is also studied with a sense of beauty in the detail.
The stillness of the grand poses, the perfection of the offcentered compostions, the men photgraphed, with Kuleshov, against the factory owners from their high angles (actually, all are high angles) in their huge empty rooms, is deeply stirring, poetic, powerful, cinema. The actual attempt at personal story isn't the point here; this is a height on cinema just the way it is.