ABSTRACT
I want to investigate an aspect of Eisenstein’s theory that has been little discussed-not least because Eisenstein himself scarcely developed it in his writings-yet which relates to what he called in the 1937 essay ‘Montage’, the ‘fundamental problem of cinema’.2 This is the illusion of movement created by cinema, the ‘movement effect’ or, as it is now often termed, the ‘phenomenon of apparent movement’ (phi-effect).3 Although this ‘effect’ is often invoked to explain the phenomenon of the impression of reality, Eisenstein referred to it in his definition of montage at the point where he was elaborating his theory of ‘intellectual cinema’.
