Montage, découpage, mise en scène : essays on film form / Laurent Le Forestier, Timothy Barnard, Frank Kessler.

Includes bibliographical references.

Montage, découpage, mise en scène: these three French terms are central to debates around film history and aesthetics in every language, yet the precise meaning of each and especially their relations with one another remain a source of confusion for many. In this unique volume, film scholars Laurent Le Forestier, Timothy Barnard and Frank Kessler examine in lively, readable prose the history of these concepts in film theory and criticism and their genesis and development in practice during cinema's foundational first half-century and beyond--from early cinema to the modern mise en scène criticism of the 1950s and 60s by way of silent-era explorations of the theory and practice of montage and the early sound period's counter example of découpage. Each 30,000-word essay serves as an essential guide for students and specialists alike, combining historical overview with fresh ideas about film aesthetics today, drawing on the writings of a broad range of modern-day and historical figures, both well-known (Bazin, Eisenstein) and perhaps unfamiliar to the reader before now. Frank Kessler explores the origins of mise en scène in 19th-century theatre and its place in the contemporary digital cinematic landscape by way of the auteur theories of French film criticism of the 1950s and 60s and mise en scène and sound in the cinema. Kessler's three-pronged historical, theoretical and practical approach fills a major gap in the literature on cinematic mise en scène. Timothy Barnard, in the only discussion of découpage in English, surveys a broad range of writings--including those of André Bazin, for whom découpage was central--which see a film's 'relations between shots' not as the work of editing, with which it is regularly confused, but rather of the camera's formal treatment and sequencing of the mise en scène. Laurent Le Forestier's premise is that montage must always be considered in light of the time and place in which it operates and studied in relation to other arts and social phenomena. As a form of thought, montage speaks to constantly fluctuating realities. His study of the concept's odyssey and transformations lays the foundation for what could become a utopian total history of montage.

Mise en scène by Frank Kessler -- Definitions -- Staging the Event for the Camera -- Against Staging, or 'Life Caught Unawares' -- Why Staging? or The Power of Editing -- The Art of Staging, or Orchestrating Dramatic Action -- Beyond Staging, or Mise en scène as the auteur's means of expression -- Creating a World -- Articulating Narrative Time and Space -- Presenting Narrative Action -- Mise en scène and Sound -- What Future for Mise en Scène? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Découpage by Timothy Barnard -- Assembly, Editing, Montage, Scene Dissection, Continuity -- Bilderführung, Einstellung -- Raskadrovka, Mise en cadres -- Razrez, Differentzirovanie -- Caméra-stylo découpage and beyond -- A Note on Sources and Translations -- Notes -- Montage by Laurent Le Forestier -- A Note on Terms: Assemblage, Assembly, Cutting, Editing, Montage -- The Need(s) for Editing -- Assembly De-objectified : The Adventures of the Shot (1) -- Assembly Re-objectified : The Adventures of the Shot (2) -- Disassembling Assembly, or How Editing is Imagined (1) -- Editing as a Form of Language, or How Editing is Imagined (2).

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