Kuleshov Effect

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The effect has also been studied by psychologists, and is well-known among modern filmmakers. Alfred Hitchcock refers to the effect in his conversations with François Truffaut, using actor James Stewart as the example.[3]

Hitchcock, in the famous "Definition of Happiness" interview, also explains in detail many types of editing. The final form, which he calls "pure editing", is explained visually using the Kuleshov effect. In the first version of the example, Hitchcock is squinting, and the audience sees footage of a woman with a baby. The screen then returns to Hitchcock's face, now smiling. In effect, he is a kind old man. In the second example, the woman and baby are replaced with a woman in a bikini, to which Hitchcock exclaims, "Now look, he has become the dirty old man."

The experiment itself was created by assembling fragments of pre-existing film from the Tsarist film industry, with no new material. Mosjoukine had been the leading romantic "star" of Tsarist cinema, and familiar to the audience.



Soviet montage cinema was suppressed under Joseph Stalin during the 1930s as a dangerous example of Formalism in the arts, and as being incompatible with the official Soviet artistic doctrine of Socialist Realism.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Pudovkin, "Naturshchik vmesto aktera", in Sobranie sochinenii, volume I, Moscow: 1974, p.184.
  2. ^ Russel, "The Kuleshov Effect and the Death of the Auteurism", in "Forum"
  3. ^ Truffaut, Francois, "Hitchcock Truffaut", New York: 1983, Chapter 11 p.216.

Further reading[edit]

  • Wallbott, H. G. (1988). In and out of context: Influences of facial expression and context information on emotion attributions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 27, 357-369.

External links[edit]

  1. The possible original Kuleshov Effect, segment of the Spanish documentary series "Amar el cine"