The Cinematic Montage in the Novel I’jaam by Sinan Anton in Light of Sergei Eisenstein’s Views

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Student of Arabic Language and Literature, Persian Gulf University

2 Associate Professor, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Persian Gulf University, Bushehr, Iran

3 Associate Professor, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Persian Gulf University

Abstract

Montage is one of the techniques which modern novelists borrowed from cinema. This technique depicts the scenes of novel in a specific order to affect the mentality of the reader and to show the association of thoughts by cutting from one scene to another. Creating concepts using association, fundamental changes in temporal and spatial continuity, displaying the events in specific dimensions of place and time, activating the reader’s mind and involving them in the creation of events, and manifesting concepts by highlighting a new form of reality are achieved only through the technique of montage. The article studies Sinan Anton’s novel I’jaam, which employs stream of consciousness, based on theories of the well-known Russian directorSergei Eisenstein. We focus on stream of consciousness because it reveals the true essence of characters. To make stream of consciousness possible, cinematic innovations such as montage can be used. In this article, we first introduce Sinan Anton and his ideas on conflicting scenes and then discuss different kinds of montage which, according to Eisenstein, are linear montage, rhythmic montage, musical montage, and mental montage, as reflected in the Iraqi writer’s novel. Eisenstein asserts that each sequence should be made up of conflicting scenes and that each cut should highlight a conflict between two scenes. We argue that in I’jaam Sinan Anton uses cinematic montage to show his ability of introducing modern thoughts and ideas and to help the reader understand the novel well. Anton also uses these four types of montage to express the characters’ internal conflict through techniques such as cutting, moving, and close-up in order to give the characters a chance to resolve their conflicts. Moreover, through these techniques he adds to the dramatic tension, creates variety in images and brings the confusion and the psychical conflict of the characters to light.

Keywords

References

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Arabic Literature
Volume 12, Issue 3
Autumn 2020
Pages 49-71

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