Matthew B
Dziga Vertov was part of the ‘kinok' movement of film-makers. He wished to abolish fictional cinema, and move away from films that looked like stage plays. In their place, he wanted documentary-style movies that were more free-ranging and cinematic in style.
Nowadays we would consider this to be far too narrow a scope for making a movie. Indeed audiences at the time did not like the work either. Sergei Eisenstein called Man with a Movie Camera ‘pointless camera hooliganism'. A few years later the unfortunate Vertov was reduced to the role of anonymously editing film reels.
Time has been kinder to Vertov's work, and many film critics include Man with a Movie Camera in their lists of the best movies ever made. The ‘kinok' movement may not have many followers today, but Vertov's greatest achievement in the field is a remarkable testament to the innovation and fluidity that the movement could achieve at its best.
What Vertov produced is partly a city symphony, a popular medium of the time (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City being the best-known one up to this point). However it is also a work of art that is as much about the craft of film-making as it is about the life of a city. Vertov uses the film as a chance to show what the camera and cinematic techniques could achieve, and we can view the film as a celebration of its powers.
In line with his cinematic philosophy, Vertov includes almost no intertitles, no ‘characters' except the eponymous man with a movie camera, and no narrative. "This film in an experiment in cinematic communication of real events," an opening intertitle informs us, the last one we will see.
While Vertov's work was produced in Communist Russia at a time when most of its cinema, even some of its best works, were marred by the need to promote the prevailing ideology, Man with a Movie Camera has no overt political intentions. Vertov chooses to focus on city settings, but the film shows none of the slavish admiration for images of iron and steel that can be found in other Russian films of the time. The factories and chimneys are there, but only as a part of everyday life. They do not overwhelm the film.
While the film portrays a day in the life of a Russian city, it is also a day in the life of the cameraman, Mikhail Kaufman. In a self-reflexive gesture, Kaufman frequently appears on screen, captured by a second cameraman (perhaps Vertov?).
Some of the shots of Kaufman are playful, such as the opening shot, which shows a miniaturised version of the cameraman resting his tripod and camera on top of an even larger camera. At other times he is superimposed onto scenes, as if he is a giant looming over the city and seeing everything with his camera, or as if he is a transparent ghost unseen by the passing citizens.
Despite the seeming realism of Vertov's film, he is not overly obsessed with producing life as it actually was. A few of the scenes are staged for the camera. Such methods are common to all documentary makers of course, but Vertov takes this further. He directs in an experimental and avant-garde way, and mixes realism with surrealism.
Along the way, Vertov throws in a large number of cinematic techniques that have been widely-used since, but which were less common during the infancy of cinema. Scenes are shot in slow-motion, speeded up, held in freeze frame, or reversed. Out-of-focus images are gradually brought into focus.
The camera may spin round, use tracking shots or engage in extreme close-ups. It may tilt on one side in a Dutch angle. Vertov employs rapid cuts, match cuts and jump cuts (many years before Jean-Luc Godard made the technique famous). Split screens and multiple exposure are used, so that two images may be placed on the screen at the same time, perhaps in a split screen set at an angle, or perhaps superimposed on one another.
Man with a Movie Camera is a film about filming, a chance to glory in the many techniques that are specific to cinema, and which separate it from other art-forms. Soon the talking pictures would emerge and change cinema again, but Vertov's film existed at a time when it was possible to concentrate purely on what the camera could do, and his film was important in providing the groundwork for later moviemakers.
I wrote a longer appreciation of Man with a Movie Camera on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2021/12/16/man-with-a-movie-camera-1929/
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
08/30/23
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David F
Perhaps the greatest experimental film of all time. Crazy angles, slices of life, and camera tricks galore.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
05/12/23
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emil e
Man with a movie camera is vertov's timeless masterpiece. The incredible music and editing amazed me. Watching it is a unique experience, there's nothing like this film.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/02/23
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Audience Member
This early documentary and experimental film is a fascinating portal back to an era so removed now and yet so familiar. I love social history and this film is filled with small moments of intimacy and beautiful images coupled with a playfulness from early filmmakers pushing what was possible with a then still relatively new medium.
One reviewer here wrote "Ahead of it's time 100 years ago…. 1 star". Thanks man, that made me laugh….
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
Full Review
Heironymus B
Fascinating movie history viewing!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/06/22
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Audience Member
Man with a Movie Camera is a Soviet experimental film that documents the modern-day life of Soviet citizens in the late 1920s. It has no characters, except for the eponymous man behind the camera. It is mostly famous for its innovative camera and editing techniques that Vetov employed including fast and slow motion, jump cuts, stop-motion animation, split screens, and tracking shots, to name a few. Of course, the film is silent with the use of music to convey the general mood of the scene and many composers have since created their own scores for the film. My favorite is Michael Nyman's composition written in 2002 which is incredibly beautiful and haunting. If you want to see something that you probably have never seen before, check this one out!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/23/23
Full Review
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