Editing Propaganda film (section)

==== The Kuleshov Effect ====
After the [[October Revolution|1917 October Revolution]] the newly formed [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] government and its leader [[Vladimir Lenin]] placed an emphasis on the need for film as a propaganda tool. Lenin viewed propaganda merely as a way to educate the masses as opposed to a way to evoke emotion and rally the masses towards a political cause.<ref>{{Cite book|last=HOFFMANN|first=DAVID L.|title=Cultivating the Masses: Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914–1939|date=2011|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-4629-0|edition=1|jstor=10.7591/j.ctt7zfp9}}</ref> Film became the preferred medium of propaganda in the newly formed [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian Soviet Republic]] due to a large portion of the peasant population being illiterate.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Education, literacy, and the Russian Revolution {{!}} International Socialist Review|url=https://isreview.org/issue/82/education-literacy-and-russian-revolution|last=Behrent|first=Megan|website=isreview.org|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}}</ref>
The [[Kuleshov effect|Kuleshov Effect]] was first used in 1919 in the film ''The Exposure of the Relics of [[Sergius of Radonezh]]'' by juxtaposing images of the exhumed coffin and body of Sergius of Radonezh, a prominent Russian saint, and the reaction from the watching audience. The images of the crowd are made up of mostly female faces, whose expressions can be interpreted ambiguously. The idea behind juxtaposing these images was to subvert the audience's assumption that the crowd would show emotions of being sad or upset. Instead the crowd could be interpreted to be expressing emotions of boredom, fear, dismay, and a myriad amount of other emotions.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Built on a Lie|url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199764419.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199764419-e-021|last=MacKay|first=John|editor2-first=Russ|editor2-last=Castronovo|editor1-first=Jonathan|editor1-last=Auerbach|date=2013-12-13|website=The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies|language=en|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199764419.001.0001|isbn=9780199764419|access-date=2020-05-07}}</ref> There is nothing to prove to the audience that the images of the audience and the exhumed body were captured in the same moment or place (it is now believed the images of the crowd were filmed outdoors while the images showing the skeletal remains were captured indoors). This is what blurs the line of truth making the Kuleshov Effect an effective tool of propaganda.<ref name=":1" />