Lev Kuleshov - The First Film teacher

In 1910s Soviet Russia was going through the Civil War and in 1917 Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Tsars. This was very important in film history as Lenin was the first leader who understood the power of film as a powerful tool for Social & Political Influence. Thus the government took over the film industry making it a government body, but the problem was there was no film stock in the country.

And thus a different approach was started as studying films. And in 1919 the first film school was founded 'VGK' and Lev Kuleshov was the first film teacher. The Cinematic Philosophy of Kuleshov is what led to the Montage theory by Eisenstein.

Kuleshov is known for Kuleshov effect. By this effect, he wanted to prove that images constructed in a certain way can give a certain meaning. For example, Dog and a smiling child can mean the child is happy by seeing the dog, whereas Dog and Crying Child means the child is afraid. Kuleshov edited a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist matinee idol Ivan Mosjoukine was alternated with various other shots (a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin, a woman on a divan). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mosjoukine's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the bowl of soup, the girl in the coffin, or the woman on the divan, showing an expression of hunger, grief, or desire, respectively. The footage of Mosjoukine was actually the same shot each time.

In an Interview, Kuleshov said that this is technique is known by every filmmaker that when two different images (shot) are combined, their individual meaning does not exist but as a whole, it gives a different meaning. Alfred Hitchcock is known for using Kuleshov shot to make the audience feel what the character is feeling.

Here is an excerpt from an Interview of Keleshov

Here is a basic example of the Kuleshov Effect and you can try this at home.