Sunday, October 17, 2010
montage / hard to kill
a day or so before reading the montage article, i watched the steven seagal film, "hard to kill." i couldn't really decide what to focus if i were to post about it; however, the montage article gave me an idea. there are a few good examples of montage within a fifteen minute span in the movie. the main character slips into a seven-year coma, and to illustrate the time passing, the film displays various newspaper headlines and short clips mixed in with "distant" sounding audio clips. shortly after, the character begins to awaken from his coma. during this time, a montage of events leading up to the shooting plays. i like this use of montage, as i am not sure how else they would accomplish a passing of seven years time. i do think montage has been limited by its hollywood styling. when reading the arcticle and discussing in class, all i could think of was Team America's parody montage scene. i decided to download a video of the scene and re-post it here (right click, "save target as"). this link is perfectly safe, but the web address (videovat.com) that is overlayed on the video is not.
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It's true that montage can be a useful tool for showing the passage of time, though as I've mentioned to some other folks in class, it's not always the best choice. It's certainly not the only choice. I think it gets overused in Hollywood films, though it certainly gets the point across. It's always important to ask yourself with any film project, "is this element absolutely necessary?" I think you'd find that if you took out a montage from many films, you wouldn't even miss it. It's often just a glorified music video wedged in the middle of an otherwise good story. On the other hand, some filmmakers are truly skilled at montage, and like you point on with the Team America example, actually use montage as a comedic device.
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