Constantine - Montage

Constantine (2005)

Directed by Francis Lawrence 

Story by Kevin Brodbin

Montage - A single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or superimposing many pictures or designs.

To pic a montage I tried to wrack my brain for all the montages I could remember, unfortunately, the infamous Rocky montage kept doing laps in my mind. After befuddling myself with the Italian Stallion, I decided to simply start watching films until a montage surprised me, and write about it, regardless if I liked or disliked it. Thankfully one of my and my partner's favourite films was put on, Constantine, and it just so happened to have a great little montage, that I never fully appreciated, at least that's what I think it was. If it wasn't, I'll definitely be writing a second montage post, and possibly a third, just so I can analyse different types and re-analyse this one again to confirm my analysis. 

 Rocky (1976)

Written by Sylvester Stallone

Directed by John G. Avildsen

A rough overview of the film, in case you haven't seen it (spoilers ahead).

The devil's son is trying to take over our plane of existence by using the spear of destiny, aka, the spear that stabbed Jesus on the cross. Our main protagonists played my Keanu Reevs, is John Constantine, a paranormal investigator of sorts, who fights evil. Through the story, he finds out what the devil's son is trying to do with the aid of the secondary protagonists, Isabel, played by Rachel Weisz.

The only montage in the film happens quite late on, near the end. John is trying to find the last piece of the puzzle, where exactly is the devil's son, and uses an old electric chair to help him do this, he electrocutes himself to enter a different dimension, he does this to see where the devil's son has been, has gone, and where he is now. Many scenes we have seen of a possessed south American man interspersed throughout the story are suddenly squashed together, with new ones, into a linear story, shown to us one after another.
I think this would be a rhythmic montage as it pieces together where the man originally became possessed, then his journey to his final location. It's an interesting choice to show the beginning of this possessed mans journey, as this montage would still of worked with John simply being shown exactly where he is supposed to go.
 But they chose to show the seemingly random scenes where John is looking at the possessed man by the rubble of a house and outside a parking area. The first time we see these scenes earlier in the film, it's just to show us this man's obviously eccentric behaviour and that he is clearly not in control of himself, but, with John's electric sight, we see that some of the possessed mans odd behaviour were actually the devil's son inside him, noticing something or someone watching him at different times in different locations, tying things together to complete this unusual story of a poor man who was possessed by an evil demon, and perhaps emphasizing the multidimensional and otherworldly feel of the film. 

The montage brings us up to speed and uses fantastic special effects that have an almost shattering effect when changing from scene to scene in the montage.  

Honestly I'd recommend this film if you haven't seen it yet, also I was wondering if it's only me that feels serious matrix vibes from this film?