ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the visual organisation of narrative elements within various films, photographic and literary works and considers the impact of montage on the reading of a text. Sergei M. Eisenstein states that the juxtaposition of shots in sequence 'resembles not so much a simple sum of one shot plus another shot – as it does a creation in every such juxtaposition the result is qualitatively distinguishable from each component'. For Eisenstein, the opposite of the emotionally charged montage sequence is 'affidavit-exposition' where a single unedited shot simply presents what was there, without any attempt to manipulate the viewer's experience and their subsequent response. Eisenstein compares 'vertical montage' to music in written form; only the montage includes visuals. Musical notation is written so that multiple notes played by various instruments stay in sync. David Hockney created the 'joiner' montage of still images to breathe life into the medium of photography.
