Customer Reviews

Man With a Movie Camera

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3 star:		(1)
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A well designed film by Dziga Vertov's that looks like a documentary than show the man and the city. We are constantly looking at fictional city where it is compared to the man with a camera. This film shot in black and white in 1929 is often compared to "Berlin: symphony of a great city" however this film is much more.

The real interest in the movie is how it is cut, and the choices of what to film. Every time you turn around you will see something not of other documentaries. What is real and what is film reality?

The voice over is just as good if not better than the original film as it describes how the film was made.

An added plus is just looking at the ancient technology. And then again how they are ahead of us in electric transportation.

This film has been aptly compared to Berlin: Symphony of a City, but what has interested me most about it is its portrayal of cinema as a universally accessible art form. While there are propagandistic moments -- celebrating the efficiency and lifestyle of the Soviet working class -- it easily transcends whatever purpose the authorities (or Vertov himself) may have had in allowing Vertov to film it. You have to remember that this film was composed for an audience that may have seen films but were certainly not film literate -- not many of us are now -- which is to say they had not likely been aware of the process of making films, or reflected much on the nature of film. What is so exciting about this film is that it presents both a portrait of a city, and of the life of its inhabitants, as well as a documentary (and self-reflexive) study of the art of filmmaking. There is much to learn from this film about the different ways of thinking about film, and I often show it in my film classes for this purpose.

There is the idea of film as a recorder of objective fact, that is potentially present anywhere though always located somewhere, suggested by the images of the filmmaker as a kind of eye towering over the city, seeing both the whole and the parts. There is also the idea of film as highly subjective, suggested in images that show the personal reaction of the filmmaker, and in images that show the personal dangers faced by the "man with a movie camera" in his effort to capture difficult shots. We see, in these shots, that film is not simply a passive recorder of events that unfold independently of the filmmaker but is also involved in the creation of these events. We see the editor, editing the very footage that we had just seen the filmmaker recording. We see that the filmmaker can be a kind of poet, making use of visual metaphors to suggest ideas: a train relay that suggests the intercutting of various scenes by the editor, a window and an eye that suggest the camera. We also see the capacity of the filmmaker to manipulate and create a new reality, when we observe animation (of the camera itself, seemingly taking on a life of its own without the cameraman), but we also see how this animation is achieved. We are even shown the audience itself, and by implication are included in the very picture we are watching. Some of these metaphors and ideas may seem heavy handed today, but that is only in my description of them. When you actually watch them they fascinate. The editing also is superb in this film -- always appropriate to the scene it is sometimes slow, and sometimes more rapid and kinetic than anything MTV produces.

All in all, I consider this an essential piece of cinema, well worth purchasing on DVD while it is still available. I hope it remains in print forever, but have a hard time believing it will, which is why I just recently purchased a personal copy -- when it was already owned by my campus library. (The picture on the DVD is quite fine, better than the VHS copy I have seen; the music that was re-created from notes left behind by Vertov is superb and fits the film quite nicely.)

If you're a fan of Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke's the Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyatsi trio or the even more narrative-driven Baraka (Fricke), this hugely innovative, groundbreaking film is a MUST-SEE. You'll be amazed at the sort of filming and editing techniques these guys (and girl) employ during that period of time-- especially in comparison to what American cinema was like at the time.

This 1929 silent film, "Man With The Movie Camera" by director Dziga Vertov, is one of the earliest examples of non-fiction wordless narrative film making. On this 1996 DVD edition, a viewer has the choice of experiencing the work accompanied by an informative audio essay from Yuri Tsivian, or with an accomplished musical score composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra.

"Man With The Movie Camera" shows a film maker in the process of documenting Soviet city life from a kind of utopian philosophical perspective. It describes the course of a typical day in the life of a wide range of the city's inhabitants. It considers such a life as full of possibilities for personal growth and emotional fulfillment, while also showing instances of an occasional personal setback. The footage was assembled from shots taken within Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, over a number of years, during the mid 1920's.

Throughout the film, the director conveys an almost manic sense of intelligence and enthusiasm regarding the range of subjects being portrayed. The subjects include: home life, people commuting within the city, workers operating complex machinery, the machinery itself, emergency workers, people both shopping and selling goods, images of all kinds of architecture, and the activities of people during their leisure hours. An astonishing variety of perspectives, for capturing these ordinary subjects, are shown within this sixty-eight minute work.

According to the audio essay by Yuri Tsivian, in the film's time and social context, it was used partly for entertainment and partly to further a particular ideology, or interpretation, of communal life within the Soviet Union. Vertov was a visionary, however, who always carried with him the poems of Walt Whitman, so this film might now be better considered as highly accomplished artistic work, rather than as an obsolete socialist manifesto.

"Man With The Movie Camera" is recommended viewing for all students of new media. It provides some first-rate examples of inspired film editing, along with creative uses of camera placement and innovative choices for camera motion. It holds up well to, and perhaps requires, repeated viewing for a full digestion of it's dense content.

Dziga Vertov's Man With the Movie Camera (1929) is a narrative-free silent film plucked right from Stalinist Russia. In it, Vertov envisions a world as seen from the lens of a camera...marriages, divorces, deaths, accidents, transportation, daily work, sports, beach-going...everything is seen from the camera's eye view. The film is edited using a number of innovative techniques, and throughout the 68 minute assault on your visual sense, you as viewer basically BECOME the Man with the Movie Camera, but because we frequently see a man with a movie camera, it becomes multi-layered. We are the camera filming the filmer. Vertov believed that film would triumph as a medium free of the narratives of literature or the standards of the other arts, that it could be truly an exquisite tool of the proletariat. Interestingly, he was not given approval from the Stalinists who felt that his commitment to aesthetics went beyond his commitment to ideology.

One of Vertov's key themes is the comparison of human labor with machines. He wrote, ""I am kino-eye, I am mechanical eye, I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it. My path leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world I decipher in a new way a world unknown to you."

Incidentally, a collection of Vertov's writings called The Kino Eye does exist in the world (1984).

"Man with the Movie Camera" is a technically audacious film which chronicles daily life in Russia in the 1920's. Vertov's innovative use of rapid camera movement and split-second editing are often startling, at times dizzying to behold.

The images which Vertov juxtaposes are incongruous and entertaining. In one frame you see a dog sitting on a sidewalk. In another, you view people huddled together going to work and then a close-up of someone brushing their teeth. Many scenes feature machines, factories and buildings representing Russia's industrialization. There is a sense of detachment and dehumanization conveyed in the starkness of the concrete and steel structures you see emerging over cities as Russia modernizes.

Vertov introduced new and exciting techniques to the craft of filmmaking. Yet I found his use of these techniques excessive, self-indulgent, and distracting as if he were "showing off" his technical prowess instead of enhancing the story. Also, his repetition of the same or similar images dulls their impact.

Still "Man with the Movie Camera" is worth seeing. But it's a mixed bag.

Dziga Vertov's 1929 film is a montage of one day in the life of the Russian people as told (or viewed) by a cameraman. Starting in a movie theater with the audience preparing to view the film, Vertov's cameraman takes them on a whirlwind tour of Russian life, from daybreak and visions of people sleeping on the streets and benches, interspersed with a young woman lying in her comfortable bed, to the everyday people working in the mines and factories.

It's a fascinating way to show the usage of the camera as a tool to document life, to display reality. In addition, the viewers get to see how a movie is made, with many shots of the cameraman hulking the huge camera from place to place, cranking the handle in order to get the desired sequence on film.

The version I saw also has a great score by composer Michael Nyman and written biographies of the Dziga Vertov and michael Nyman. A unique film that is a must-see for any cinophile.

This is the best film I've ever seen from that particular period of Rusian cinema, I even believe that this film is better than Battleship Potemkin and other works by master filmmakers such as Sergei Einsenstein (not sure about the spelling) This particular DVD edition contains the new Score made by the Alloy Orchestra, acording to Vertov's directions, it is way better than the older version, made with some weird classical music score. If you are interested in really learning how to tell a "story" without ANY words, intertitles or anything but images and "sounds" (it is a silent film, but the score resembles mechanical sounds at times, this sounds fit perfectly with Vertov's beliefs and his artistic movements), this is the film. Buy it ASAP!!!
Vertov, as many other great filmakers was much into ideology issues, please, don't look at this film as socialist propaganda, but as a masterpice, this is the way this films should be appreciated.

I was curious to see "Man With the Movie Camera" ever since reading 'Kino-Eye', the director's rather bombastic manifesto about the virtues of nonfiction film making. Soon after the DVD was released, I ordered it online. I was not at all disappointed upon satisfaction of my curiosity.

The film is all montage, not story or lecturing, and makes a fetish of modernization and industrialization. It derives its power from the pure artistry of editing, from the rapid justaposition of images and of snippets of action from everyday life.

There's something about the total effect of Dziga Vertov's film, its zestful "sense of life", its manic energy, that may especially (and very surprisingly) appeal to fans of Ayn Rand, the anti-Soviet novelist who left the USSR for the USA during the mid-1920s and who went on to eventually write Atlas Shrugged.

It's interesting that Vertov is considered one of the trailblazers of cinema verite, the recording of the quotidian as-it-happens, whereas his film is actually a collage of kinetic images symphonically woven into an architechtonic whole of visual and spirtual unity. A product of organizing intellect, not mere assemblage, his documentary does not so much 'document' as utterly transform -- it is not so much true-to-life as true-to-vision.

Please note that this film is in the public domain and available on DVD from different companies. The Kino version does not contain the audio essay referred to in some of the reviews. The only extras on the Kino version are some short biogaphies about people involved in making the film. It's worth noting that the film has some scenes of topless women at a beach and also a somewhat graphic birth scene which some viewers may find objectionable.