Use of Montage in the Movie, Night of the Hunter :: Movie Film Essays

example of Montage in the Movie, Night of the HunterEbert said it best when he describes the characters of Night of the Hunter as Norman Rockwell archetypes. Taking place in an unassuming river town presumably during the Great Depression, the plot unravels around $10,000, stolen during a poorly planned bank depredatory. No thought need be heeded on the heist, however, seeing as it was not important enough to extravagance film on. The money serves only to set up the dominoes that forget be knocked down rather linearly in this predictable storyline. plainly to criticize this movie as predictable would be missing the full premises the movies true purpose is seeking to adorn a kind of righteousness vs. evil through key practice of montage.The central character to the storyline, Reverend Harry Powell, is what today would be considered the archetypical psychopath. His mask of a righteous, God-fearing saver of souls makes his true self that often creepier. In a truly twisted scene , Rev. Powell perverts the embraced idea of a sub riding in on a white horse by exploitation such a steed to stalk John and Pearl, the two children of the robber who have been entrusted with the money, accurately portraying the helplessness of innocence when a coarse evil looms. Such Biblical conflict can be seen end-to-end the movie, culminating with Rachel, a true follower of her Lord, warding off the evil Rev. Powell.In adhesion to montage, it would be easy to write off its use as the most effective instrument for illustrating an idea with the technology at hand in those days. Upon closer inspection, however, montage allows a concept to be portrayed often more effectively than might otherwise be possible using standard filming techniques. The childrens journey down the river is a great example of this. The collision of scenes of them slowly drifting in a boat, sometimes sleeping, sometimes talking, both day and night, with the reverend on his horse in some way keeping up explodes in the rather nebulous concept of a nightmare in which no matter how fast or remote one runs, the pursuer always keeps up (Eisenstein, The Dramaturgy of Film Form).