TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

In his book Timoshenko thus puts montage at the heart of cinematic creation. In his view, only the film director can edit the film, and the “American-style” division of editing work must be forbidden. That said, the procedures he describes derive in no way from the filmmaker’s “inspiration” or from the “pure intuition” of the “creative genius.” Quite the contrary: they arise out of the mastery of a number of tools and technical elements one must assimilate, test, reproduce, associate and develop, the goal being to organise film production according to the rules of the Scientific Organisation of Work in place in the Soviet Union at the time. The film director, Timoshenko concludes, must thus be replaced by the “film engineer.”