Kuleshov effect

A montage effect in which viewers infer emotion or meaning from a neutral face because of the shots placed before or after it.

Montage: A filmmaking technique that creates meaning by arranging and juxtaposing shots. The Kuleshov effect is a specific meaning-making effect produced through montage.
Lev Kuleshov: A Soviet filmmaker and theorist associated with early experiments in film editing. His name became attached to the montage effect described by this concept.
Neutral facial expression: A facial configuration that communicates no clearly identifiable emotion. The unchanged face is the anchor against which the adjacent shots alter interpretation.
Kuleshov effect replication studies: Experimental studies testing whether shot context changes viewers' judgments of a neutral face. Replications test the effect's psychological claim rather than relying on its traditional anecdote.
Shot reverse shot: An editing pattern that alternates shots of two subjects, often in conversation. Alternating a face with another shot can make the face appear to react to it.
Soviet montage theory: A film theory emphasizing how editing creates meaning through the collision or combination of shots. The effect exemplifies the Soviet claim that juxtaposition can generate meaning.
Iwan Mosschuchin: A Russian actor whose face appears in the commonly recounted Kuleshov experiment. His supposedly identical expression illustrates the contrast between a fixed face and changing context.
Film theory: The study of film's forms, meanings, histories, and effects. The effect is both a filmmaking principle and a claim interpreted within film theory.
Eyeline match: An editing technique that links a character's gaze to the object or person shown in the next shot. A matched gaze can make an otherwise neutral face seem directed toward the adjacent image.
Vsevolod Pudovkin: A Soviet film director and theorist who wrote about editing and film construction. Pudovkin helped circulate the account of Kuleshov's editing experiment.

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