We are acquainted with on of the basic assertions of Eisenstein already for a long time : a shot, put next to other shots through editing, is a generator of meaning, of appreciation, of conclusion. Theories of editing in the years 1920 put all of their attention to the reciprocal relationship to the juxtaposed scenes, which Eisenstein called "the point of junction in editing" (montynjstyk) and Vertov an "interval".
It was while working on my film We that I became certain that my interest was pulled towards somewhere else, that the essence and the principal emphasis of editing lied not so much in the assembling of the scenes, but rather in the possibility to separate them, not in their juxtaposition but in their separation. It was clear to me that my greatest interest was not to reassemble two elements of editing but rather to separate them by inserting the third, the fifth or the tenth element between them.
When confronted with two important shots, the carriers of meaning, I don't try to bring them together, nor to confront them, but rather to create a distance between them. It is not through juxtaposition of two shots but through their interaction with numerous links that I get to express an idea in the most optimal way. The process of expressing a meaning, then, acquires a much stronger and much more profound range then by direct pasting.
In such a way the expression becomes more intense and the capacity of a film to give information acquires huge proportions.
That is a type of editing that I call "contrapuntal editing".
Artavazd Pelechian An excerpt of My Cinema, republished in Traffic N°2, 1992
Translated from Russian by Barbara Balmer-Stutz
As Estações, de Artavazd Pelechian e Nosferatu, de G. W. Murnau, amanhã no Auditório de Serralves às 16h00.
