Jeff Holley
Richard Simpson
ENGL 342
September 29, 2020
Dziga Vertov
Vertov introduced Man with a Movie Camera in 1929, over a decade past the infamous Russian revolution. He had been an accomplished film producer before this film, but his new film, void of actors, stages, and scripts (Nichols, 163), had been compromised upon or evolved significantly compared to his previous films.
The Film-Truth series, which included several films but the most famous of those series being One Sixth of the World (Barnouw, 58), explained through his unique concept of cinema a larger truth through his camera's mechanical lens.
Vertov collided with other filmmakers of his time, perhaps because his ideology stubbornly prevented him from "making films" that supported a staged or fictitious end. Neither did he correspond to the political efforts that Stalin had hoped for that would shape a narrative to feed the workings' minds classes.
The filmmaker describes his film brand as the "antidote" – he rejected the "opium for the people," as Karl Marks would have agreed to religion's likes. His vision aimed at the representation that would counter thought against Hollywood trends.
Lenin's ideology saw that "of all the arts…film was the most important" (54). This political leader and revolutionary was probably more in tune with Vertov's who said, "I am cinema eye—I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you a world such as only I can see" (Barnouw, 58). Vertov eventually collided with other documentary filmmaking of the times because his ideals ultimately would be considered a filmmaker "with dangerous anti-planning views," probably because Stalin wanted a more potent, more controlled product that would shape the working class (61).
Although visible throughout the film, Vertov and his cameraman counterpart, even one time on top angling downward onto the streets below or riding on a motorcycle camera mounted on the handlebars, displays a Russian landscape, predominantly urban of the early 20th century. The fantastic camera shots and angles cleverly crafted and sequenced depicted an industrial setting that included telephone operators, factory workers, and women getting her makeup done. Other shot sequences show a man getting a shave and another grinding an ax…all which in some chaotic form gives life to the scene as the cross from one frame to another.
This film is about human interaction its machine repetition all, as Vertov suggests, "the new man, free of unwieldiness and clumsiness, will have the light, precise movement of machines and he will be the gratifying subject of our films (Vertov,8). It’s a story in a film about Soviet Russia through the lens of a camara but it’s the camara that actually tells the story. There is no doubt that Vertov understood that truth-making and filmmaking were synonymous and more appealing to the educated mind and Populus, but he was perhaps way ahead of his time.
Works Cited
El Lissitzky / MFAH, museum purchase with funds provided by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, The Manfred Heiting Collection © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Erik Barnouw, Documenetary: A History of Non-Fiction Film, Oxford University Press, (1993) pp 51-71
Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary, Third Edition, (2017) Indiana University Press, pp 161-168
Jeff I think you're really on to something when you say "It’s a story in a film about Soviet Russia through the lens of a camera but it’s the camera that actually tells the story". I think that we get this idea of the camera's influence in the stop motion scene where the camera appears to be sentient. In this we can see the way the camera/film takes on a life of its own and get an idea of the way that what a camera captures creates a sort of truth.
ReplyDeleteLike Kali brought up, I think that your discussion on the camera telling the story Jeff is important to the concept of this documentary. In my own post, I discussed how the film seemed to be more of a representation of life, rather than a documentation of it, and this has me questioning how much of that claim is true.
ReplyDeleteThe connection to Lenin--and not Stalin--is a good one here, Jeff. Vertov is very much interested in what unique truths can now finally be captured due to this new technology of the film. And if new truths can be found, a new world can be found. There is a strong revolutionary and futurist feel to the aesthetic the likes of which we might not have access to in our own time. You mention an educating impulse at the end of your post--in what ways can we identify Vertov as an educator. What truth is this film teaching the audience exactly?
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