ON MONTAGE (Text from Eisenstein)

ON MONTAGE

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The point is that the copulation (perhaps we had better say, the combination) of two hieroglyphs of the simplest series is to be regarded not as their sum, but as their product, ie. as a value of another dimension, another degree; each, separately, corresponds to an object, to a fact, but their combination corresponds to a concept. From separate hieroglyphs has been fused―the ideogram. By the combination of two "depictables" is achieved the representation of something that is graphically undepictable.
    For example: the picture for water and the picture of an eye signifies "to weep"; the picture of an ear near the drawing of a door = "to listen":
    a dog + a mouth = "to bark";
    a mouth + a child = "to scream";
    a mouth + a bird = "to sing";
    a knife + a heart = "sorrow," and so on.
    But this is―montage!
    Yes, it is exactly what we do in the cinema, combining shots that are depictive, single in meaning, neutral in content―into intellectual contexts and series.

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    ―from Sergei Eisenstein, "The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram," in Film Form, pp. 29-30.