BEWARE OF THE MONTAGE

   Sorry for missing Monday's post. I thought I'd combine my usual Monday post with today's since they go together so well.

   I've seen a number of films recently that use montage. some to great effect, others not so much. Montage shows up in writing as well, only not as frequently. For my purposes, I'll define a montage as any sequence incorporating several short scenes or images to express either a passage of time (incorporating growing up, training, building, etc.) or a state of mind (delirium, anger, ecstasy, etc.).

   Before using a montage, ask yourself why you're using it. Is this the best way to tell this part of the story? Let's look at the first Iron Man film. When Tony Stark is building the Iron Man suit in his workshop (in America after his escape in the proto-suit), there's a great montage of him trying different things, testing, failing, testing again, etc. There's some moments of dialogue to break up the montage a bit and added to the pacing as well as brought in some character and humor. It's quite common for these superhero movies to incorporate a suit-building-montage segment. Go watch just about any origin super hero movie and it'll have a suit montage (except for the X-Men movies). Spider-Man, Bat Man, Iron Man...the list goes on but those are the big ones that most people would have seen. Another famous montage is the one from Home Alone when Kevin is fortifying his house against the would-be thieves, ending with him calking the air rifle. Each of these show a definite progression in the story, are not confusing, and move the story along without getting bogged down. As interesting as it would be to watch the entire prep for the house, or the entire build of the super suit, or whatever, it takes too much time. The Hunger Games also uses montage to show the tributes training, as well as when Katniss is hallucinating from the Tracker Jacker's stings.

   Now then, after these examples of montage done right, you may be thinking they're always great. Not so. Like any tool for storytelling, there's a time and place for everything. I watched a film adaptation of the novel "Flowers for Algernon" not too long ago, and there were several times they used montage. Most of the time I had no idea if the montage was literal or symbolic. They left me confused, sometimes bored, sometimes frustrated. Not what you want in a film. Most of the time, the film could have done without the montage entirely. Other times it just needed to be cleaned up or explained a bit more. Since I've read the book I understood what was going on, but my wife who was unfamiliar with the story had to ask me for clarification.

   In books, as I said before, montage is less common. Even still, it happens and the same rule apply. Make sure it's important and not just filler. Don't jump into it without setting it up so you don't confuse your reader. If there's a more interesting way of telling that part of the story, use the other way. Sometimes you have to cut the montage entirely because it doesn't work in the overall story, even if the montage is a good one.

    So what's your favorite montage? What's your least favorite montage?