Slavko Vorkapich Montage Sequences at the George Eastman Museum
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Montage is a quick succession of shots designed to artfully manipulate time while advancing a film’s plot. It first appeared in European films made in the 1920s by innovators like Sergei Eisenstein and Abel Gance. These directors would place montage sequences at key moments within their films to add layers of meaning to their narratives. During this time, Vorkapich, a skilled visual artist and recent immigrant to the United States, was living in Hollywood and had managed to find work in the fast-growing film industry. In 1927, Vorkapich began working with the French director, Robert Florey, and together they created the highly regarded American avant-garde short The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928). Vorkapich was largely responsible for the remarkable visual design of the film, which led to opportunities with major film studios, who would hire Vorkapich to create his signature experimental montage sequences to add to the excitement of over twenty releases made between 1928 and1944.
Vorkapich’s sequences harnessed the power of film juxtaposition by combining striking imagery with rapid cutting to create “symphonies of visual movement.” Vorkapich enjoyed creative freedom to build his sequences, but sometimes his work was so extreme that the studios felt the need to tone things down for the final edit. The sequences on this program survive in their original state because they were saved by Vorkapich himself and represent his pure vision before further studio cuts were made. A few of the sequences are from otherwise lost films and represent the only extant surviving footage. The final film on the program, Abstract Experiment in Kodachrome, was made at a later time and is reported to be a project created with students while he was a teacher at the University of Southern California.
This compilation was curated by Bruce Posner and produced by David Shepard for the Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894–1941 DVD boxset.
Please note: Some sequences portray imagery of war violence.
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