A montage means a group of images put together, often audiences can feel different ways about characters just because of the montage of shots. Lev Kuleshov has an interesting theory about the way we look at images. He says that often a facial expression on a character doesn't help us interpret the emotions in the character. In the Soviet Montage theory Kulehsov discovered that the audience perceive certain emotions from a character by their own personal experiences rather than from facial expressions which they interpret from the character. Kuleshov shows that facial expressions aren't needed. Through the use of their own past experiences audiences are also able to use their own imaginations to predict how a character feels in a particular situation.
As a class we tested out this theory by looking at a picture of a man with a fairly plain looking facial expression. We was asked to give our answer of what we thought he was feeling in different circumstances. For example, looking at a women in a bikini, a plate of food and a dead body. Every time we all gave different answers thus adding evidence onto the Soviet Montage theory.
Below is a video of Alfred Hitchcock talking about the theory.
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