AESTHETICS OF FILM EDITING IN THE ART PRACTICE OF PAVEL ZALTSMAN
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2024-1-30-43
An analysis of the use of montage techniques as a literary method in the works of Pavel Zaltsman is presented in this article for the first time. The influence of the concept of analytical art and the practice of film editing of the 1930s on the formation of Zaltsman’s aesthetic views is revealed. At the time, the idea of montage became a kind of a cultural “fashion” of the time, and the basic principle of montage was applied not only to cinema, but also to poetry, prose, and painting. The research focus in the case of Zaltsman is retrospective. The authorial attitude of the writer Zalsman is compared with what Sergei Eisenstein did in the movie. The idea of post-utopian modernism – the portrayal of history and/or modernity in personal and social experience as a series of painful ruptures – is presented as the main narrative in Zaltsman’s unfinished novels: Puppies and Central Asia in the Middle Ages (or The Middle Ages in Central Asia). The article justifies that Zaltsman’s texts, which have become famous in our time, were generated by time itself and implement the artistic principles of the early avant-garde. The forms of interaction of the verbal, the intermedial, the cinematic, and the visual lead (in the case of Zaltsman’s texts, as described in the article) to the creation of a discourse that transforms reality in the reader’s mind. Zaltsman recodes the word in the specific and thoughtful way of structuring the text, which turned out to be possible thanks to the use of film editing techniques. The main feature of montage aesthetics in Zaltsman’s texts is dividing the text not into chapters, acts or scenes, but into fragments and episodes that reveal the writer’s montage optics. As a result, montage in the text, just like in the movies, creates subjectivity – the opportunity to perceive the reality through the eyes of the character. In the aesthetics of the novels, the montage of both planes (images) and episodes (actions) can be traced, which shapes the polyphonic novel as a film discourse. Despite the incompleteness of Zaltsman’s novels, the ideology and aesthetics of the literary texts are interesting from the standpoint of our time as they give a detached and objective view of what is happening that the author outlined using film editing techniques, and are expressed in the most original form of presenting a historical narrative that resonates with our time.
Keywords: avant-garde, discursive practice, intermediality, cinema, literary text, narrative, montage, poetics
References:
Abikeeva, G., & Sabitov, A. (2020). Cinema of Soviet Kazakhstan: how Soviet ideologemes worked, Acta Slavica Iaponica, 41, 47–72. (In Russian).
Barmankulova, B. K. (1989). Vstupitel’naya stat’ya [Introductory article]. In Khudozhnik i mir. Katolog vystavki proizvedeniy P.Ya.Zal’tsmana (1912–1985) [The artist and the world. Catalog of the exhibition of works by P. Ya. Zaltsman (1912–1985)]. Alma-Ata.
Burenina-Petrova, O. (2013). Literature as a target? Russian classics on the screen of Russian cinema of the 20th – early 21st centuries. In Contributions suisses au XV-e congress Mondial des slavistes a Minsk, aout 2013 (pp. 21–37). Peter Lang. (In Russian).
Eyzenshteyn, S. M. (1956). Izbrannye stat’I [Featured Articles] (pp. 252–285). Iskusstvo.
Filonov, P. (2020). Analiticheskoe iskusstvo. Sdelannye kartiny [Analytical art. Paintings made] (pp. 39–43). Akademicheskiy proekt; Gaudeamus.
Gizdatov, G., Burenina-Petrova, O., & Sopieva, B. (2023). Culture as a Text and a Project in the post-soviet Discourse (by the Example of Kazakhstan). ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics, 1(35), 30-47. doi: 10.23951/2312-7899-2023-1-30-47 (In Russian).
Hasan, S. M. (2022). The Technique of Cinematic Montage: A Study in Borhan Al–Shawi’s Novels. Diyala Journal of Human Research, 1(91), 429–440.
Higgins, J. (2023). Montage in play. Image & Text, 37, 1–21.
Kerner, C. (2015). Crippled fusis, saving language – European modernity in Russian literature. https://www.colta.ru/articles/literature/9303-chitaya-zaltsmana (In Russian).
Kukui, I. (2017). “Priroda, obernuvshayasya adom…” (o proze Pavla Zal’tsmana) [“Nature turned into hell…” (about the prose of Pavel Zaltsman)]. In P. Zal’tsman, Shchenki. Proza 1930–50-kh godov [Puppies. Prose of the 1930s–1950s] (pp. 407–415). 2nd edition. Vodolei. (In Russian).
Kukulin, I. V. (2015). Mashiny zashumevshego vremeni: kak sovetskiy montazh stal metodom neofitsial’noy kul’tury [Machines of noisy time: how Soviet montage became a method of unofficial culture]. NLO.
Pavel Zaltsman. (2003). Pod znakom Filonova. Iz razgovorov s docher’yu Lottoy Zal’tsman [Under the sign of Filonov. From conversations with daughter Lotte Salzman]. https://pavelzaltsman.org/biography/pod-znakom-filonova/
Platt, K. (2016). Sergey Eyzenshteyn: Montazh vrazrez [Sergei Eisenstein: Cutting Montage]. In S. A. Ushakin (Ed.), Formal’nyy metod: Antologiya russkogo modernizma [Formal method: Anthology of Russian modernism] (vol. I, pp. 261–282). Kabinetnyy uchenyy.
Saki, A. A., Pourabed, M. J., Balavi, R., & Khezri, A. (2020). The Cinematic Montage in the Novel I’jaam by Sinan Anton in Light of Sergei Eisenstein’s Views. Arabic Literature, 12(3). 49–71.
Silant’ev, I. V. (2009). On the representation of knowledge in the language of literary criticism: stating the problem. Kritika i semiotika, 13, 164–169. (In Russian).
Stefanov, M. (2021). The Crisis of the Time-Image: Montage in Postmodern Times. In C. Reeh-Peters, S. W. Schmidt, & P. Weibel (Eds.), The Real of Reality: The Realist Turn in Contemporary Film Theory (pp. 153–168). Brill.
Turovskaya, M. (2015). Zuby drakona [Dragon teeth]. Izdatel’stvo AST : CORPUS.
Zal’tsman, Elena (Lotta). (2007). Vospominaniya ob ottse [Memories of a father]. In: L. Yuniverg, & A. Zusmanovich (Eds.), Zal’tsman Pavel. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo [Pavel Zaltsman. Life and art] (pp. 18–69). Filobiblon.
Zal’tsman, Elena (Lotta). (2012). Mesto Pavla Zal’tsmana v khudozhestvennoi kul’ture ХХ veka [The Place of Pavel Zaltsman in the Artistic Culture of the 20th Century]. In S. Mamytova, & B. Barmankulova (Eds.), Pavel Zal’tsman [Pavel Zal’cman] (pp. 62–73). RUAN.
Zal’tsman, P. (2017). Shchenki. Proza 1930–50-kh godov [Puppies. Prose of the 1930s–1950s]. 2 nd edition. Vodolei.
Zal’tsman, P. Ya. (2018). Srednyaya Aziya v Srednie veka (ili Srednie veka v Srednei Azii) [Central Asia in the Middle Ages (or the Middle Ages in Central Asia)]. Ad Marginem Press.
Zusmanovich, A, & Kukui, I. (2017). Ot sostavitelei [From the compilers]. In P. Zal’tsman, Oskolki razbitogo vdrebezgi: Dnevniki i vospominaniya 1925–1955 [Shards of a Shattered Piece: Diaries and Memoirs of 1925 –1955] (pp. 5–8). Moscow, Vodolei.
Zusmanovich, M. (2007). Kontseptsii analiticheskogo iskusstva i nasledie simvolizma v tvorchestve Pavla Zal’tsmana [Concepts of analytical art and the legacy of symbolism in the work of Pavel Zaltsman]. In: L. Yuniverg, & A. Zusmanovich (Eds.), Zal’tsman Pavel. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo [Pavel Zaltsman. Life and art] (pp. 84–101). Filobiblon.
( 1011.11 kB ) 
( 999.34 kB )
Issue: 1, 2024
Series of issue: Issue 1
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 30 — 43
Downloads: 656