The Kuleshov effect: what it is and how it is used in movies

The Kuleshov effect is a psychological phenomenon that is especially exploited in the world of cinema.

For a large part of the population the seventh art is an element of leisure and entertainment, or a method of artistic expression of emotions, thoughts and beliefs of the authors, which in turn are embodied by the cast of actors.

However, cinema is not something anecdotal or merely aesthetic: it involves a great deal of knowledge that has been developed over the years, much of which stems from or has contributed greatly to generating discoveries and research in many other fields.

The study of the human mind is one of them. In this sense, it is possible to highlight research related to the perception of visual stimuli, and even to the interpretation or elaboration that our mind makes of a set of images that are not necessarily linked to each other. A relevant example is the Kuleshov effectwhich we are going to talk about in this article.

The Kuleshov effect

The Kuleshov effect is a psychological phenomenon discovered in the cinematographic field of great relevance of great relevance and which is linked to the interpretation and understanding by the viewer of the scenes he/she sees based on the context that surrounds them.

Specifically, the effect in question states that the consecutive presentation of fragments of footage or shots implies that the viewer carries out an interpretation as a whole.In this way, each image will not be evaluated separately, but will be integrated, resulting in a different evaluation than each one would have independently.

Kuleshov proposed that the perceived meaning of a given scene is elaborated as a function of the sequence of which it is partrather than the image itself. In other words, in the Kuleshov effect it is established that the content of the scene or picture itself is not relevant, but that what causes it to have a meaning is its union with other pictures or scenes, in such a way that a current is generated in the form of a narrative.

The Kuleshov and Pudovkin experiments

The creation of the concept of the Kuleshov effect starts from the realization of an experiment carried out by the an experiment carried out by the filmmaker Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshovtogether with his disciples Vsevolod Illiarianovich Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein (the information of which would end up transcending on the part of Pudovkin and Kuleshov himself).

This experiment consisted of the combination of different recordings (shot separately) and a scene (always the same) of a close-up of the actor Ivan Mozzhujin with a completely neutral expression. A total of three combinations were made: in one of them a combination of the actor's neutral face with the appearance of a plate of soup was shown to the viewers, in another one the face was followed by the image of a naked woman on a sofa, and in the third one the image of a girl playing was shown after the face.

These exhibitions gave rise to different interpretations of the actor's face by the spectators.The experiment showed that the face that was exposed to them was in all cases the same: those who saw the face associated with the plate of soup linked the actor's expression with hunger, those who saw the composition that included the image of a naked woman perceived lasciviousness and lust in the actor's face, and those who saw the girl playing perceived that the author expressed joy and a slight smile.

In that sense then, the experiment reflected that through different compositions different interpretations of the scenes could be extracted, depending on the type of stimuli that preceded or followed the scene.

However, there is some controversy as to whether this experiment was really performed, since there is no documentary evidence of the recordings, Lev Kuleshov having indicated that they were destroyed during the Second World War. Likewise, there is an open debate between Kuleshov's and Pudovkin's statements: while as we have indicated above, Kuleshov himself indicated that the scenes prior to the actor's face had been a bowl of soup, a half-naked woman on a sofa and a girl playing, Pudovkin's description replaces the naked woman with a shot of a woman in a coffin (in this case indicating that the viewer considered that the actor was expressing sadness and self-absorption).

However, regardless of the veracity of this first original experiment, other authors and directors (including Hitchcock) have attempted to replicate similar experiments and have noted the existence of an influence of the actor's influence on the film. have observed the existence of an influence of the editing performed with respect to the emotional interpretation of the scene. of the scene. In other words, the Kuleshov effect exists and has an influence on our perception of reality.

Relationship with the construction of meanings

The Kuleshov effect has a psychological explanation: our psyche seeks to generate a coherent structure with respect to what it experiences.Thus, when faced with images that are presented together, it tries to generate a link between them that allows us to make sense of their perception.

This stems from the fact that we are not mere passive entities that receive information from the environment, but active agents that interact and generate their own meanings with respect to the world around them. Likewise, our expectations and previous experiences will shape the type of interpretation and the starting point from which to assess the situation in question and construct the most relevant meanings.

For all these reasons, today we use our knowledge of the Kuleshov effect to convey meaning in film, and understand that the editing process is another narrative tool, not just a technical specialization devoid of creativity. Editing, combining and cutting shots and scenes helps to tell the story that the filmmakers intend to tell..

Not only in film

Although this effect began to be analyzed in the field of cinema (in which it is of great importance, given that it contributed to the fact that films could shoot scenes separately or even independently to later carry out an editing to enhance the sensations of viewers), the truth is that it can be extended to many others.

For example, has also been reflected in literatureThe reading of a given content causes us to interpret the following ones differently than we would if the preceding fragments were different. And not only in the arts: humans also carry out similar interpretations in their daily lives, especially in the recognition of faces and facial expressions.

Some experiments have shown that the interweaving or combination of affective contextual stimuli before or after exposure to the image of a neutral face causes our behavioral and cerebral interpretation and reaction to the face in question to differ to some extent: there is a tendency to assess both the affective valence and the level of activation and specifically the type of emotion expressed by the person in question based on the context and the set of stimuli surrounding the moment of exposure in question.

It should be noted that on a day-to-day basis we do not only use context to identify the emotions of others, but we often use contextual information to seek congruence with our beliefs. we often use contextual information to seek congruence with our beliefs about what the other is feeling, or we use it to try to make meaning out of what the other is feeling. We often use contextual information to seek congruence with our beliefs about what the other person is feeling, or we use it to try to give meaning to ambiguous expressions or situations. Moreover, it is not only external images that help us to carry out our interpretation: the speech, gestures or tone and rhythm of the subject in question can be very important to us and can in fact be considered contextual information.