The "Zoom-Out" Phenomenon And The Subjective Attitude Of The Creator

An authentic vision crystallizes if the artist's sensibility aligns with the emotional structure of his creation.

Eisenstein's montage combines the objective existence of the "Zoom-Out" phenomenon with the subjective attitude of its creator, and the composer Prokofiev perceives the intimate emotional structure and tunes his own sensibility with it. It is precisely for the success of this attunement that Prokofiev changes his music if the image demands it, just as Eisenstein does not hesitate to make changes in the editing to allow the music to speak for itself.

The only misunderstanding will arise when all your music is finished. Eisenstein asks Prokofiev to compose an overture. The composer refuses: since the film begins with a tragic episode, the overture should be triumphal-heroic and he does not see how the transition between these two different musics could be made. He is willing, he declares, to write as much music as he likes, but artistic considerations prevent him from writing it. Eisenstein still insists. Then Prokofiev accepts, but only on the condition that the director changes the sad episode at the beginning of the film. But, since Eisenstein believes that the montage plan cannot be changed, the film remains without the overture and the credits are quietly projected. And many commentators see here a special effect pursued by Eisenstein.

How can your subjective attitude give life to a work that reflects the concordance of images and emotions, so as to place you in the middle of its era?

From the multitude of possibilities available to us in order to create an authentic creation, we should not stop, therefore, at decorative elements, nor at biographical data, but only at the concordance between images and emotions. And this only to the extent that we consider that any creation, in one way or another, places the artist in the middle of the events of his era. For reasons that I must come back to often, I want to go into the particularly tempting problem of the subjective attitude of the artist who must create beauty, sensations and feelings, experiences from inorganic matter, so as to give life to a work that inspires and to excite.

Emotions and images, with countless and deep implications, through which one could follow, in their entirety, the components of a work of art, are a kind of mirror through which the creator presents certain episodes from the life of the world that inspired him to become legendary. By saying this, I am mainly referring to the valuable, purely spiritual, inexhaustible character of the work of art. This inexhaustible character consists in the fact that under the appearance of the specificity of any art genre, something of the nature of other art genres is revealed to us, with reference to music, for example, which makes the "Zoom-Out" phenomenon mean a wider perspective on the context, capturing the relationships between details and the whole, as well as the dynamics of the ensemble.

Can your artistic decision-making process provide a harmonious blend between the objective existence of the "Zoom-Out" phenomenon and the intimately emotional structure of the created image?

Another effect that acts on a subjective level is the so-called anchoring effect, which often prevents an objective analysis of the structure of the information we receive. Instead of judging situations clearly and tuning into our sensitivity to avoid errors, we anchor ourselves in a specific reference point, affecting our considerations and attitude in the decision-making process.

The artist's montage in his creation represents the union between the objective existence of the phenomenon and the subjective attitude that shapes it. In the creative process, the intimate emotional structure of images may require significant changes to convey the desired message. Like an overture in a triumphal concert, the changes bring an artistic perspective to the tragic episode that shows us the subtle beauty of subjective considerations.

How can you combine artistic considerations with practical values so that the organic unity of your creation reflects human sensibilities and provides an aesthetic experience?

Eisenstein's montage combines the objective existence of the phenomenon with the subjective attitude of its creator, similar to how organic architecture integrates the subjective aspects of design with objective functionality. The composer Prokofiev perceives the intimately emotional structure and attunes his own sensibility to it, just as the organic architect modifies his designs to respond to human sensibilities.

Precisely for the success of this attunement it happens that Prokofiev changes his music if the picture demands it, just as Eisenstein does not hesitate to make changes in the editing to let the music speak for itself. Artistic considerations play a key role in matching architectural designs to their surroundings, just as Prokofiev and Eisenstein adapted music and editing to achieve the desired heroic triumphal effect.

The only misunderstanding arose when all the music was finished. Eisenstein asks Prokofiev to compose an overture. The composer refuses: since the film begins with a tragic episode, the overture should be triumphal-heroic, and he does not see how the transition between these two different musics could be made. Prokofiev always refused to compromise artistic values for practical purposes, preferring to create structures without overture, letting the genre project itself quietly.

Leadership can encourage the merging of the objective existence of the "Zoom-Out" phenomenon with the subjective attitude of the creator, perceiving the intimate emotional structure of the work and attuning its own sensitivity to it.

The "Zoom-Out" phenomenon and the subjective attitude of the creator refers to how the artist broadens his perspective to understand the larger context of his creation, combining the objectivity of analysis with the intuition and emotion of his own experience. An authentic creative approach requires the artist to be in tune with his own emotions and the structure of the work. In fact, true artistic expression occurs when the creator's vision merges with the emotional structure of the work.

* Note: Ion Barna - Eisenstein, Tineretului Publishing House, 1966.