One thing that struck me about Man with a Movie Camera was the episodic element of the different parts. I kept trying to find a narrative arc or throughline, but didn't necessarily see one besides perhaps a very loose idea of the process of filming and editing. Chapter (if I can call them chapters) 3 seemed like it was all about the process of editing.
I found certain elements of the film surprising and pretty innovative for the time. Like the moments of stop motion as a way to anthropomorphize the film camera. I also thought the chattering crowd noises superimposed on the film were interesting. I wonder if those were added when the film was remastered or if that effect was attempted when the film first came out. It definitely did not feel diegetic, but I think that was the idea when this kind of sound was introduced. Also the moments of double exposure placing the filmmaker over buildings has some interesting messaging regarding the role of the filmmaker. The fact that he is the subject and also placed in this place of power is very telling. Through the whole montage of the film, the filmmaker is the only constant. His is the story we see, even though much of the film is through his lens. Perhaps that's what we can take away from this and apply to film in general, the subjectivity of it.
I'm curious what everyone else made of the meta elements in this film, which were many. I think that's what I'm looking forward to discussing most in class today.
It is interesting to think of the narrative arc here. The one I notice is the arc of one day: morning, afternoon, evening, night loosely organized the events of each chapter. But we must also say that Vertov does not present this arc for one protagonist, but rather for the entire collectivity of the people in the city. A collective protagonist. "We" is the name of his essay on this film.
ReplyDeleteThe editing moment (and the presence of the filmmaker who is all the time emphasizing the subjective or human-machine constructor of the image) comes out particularly in that section focused on production in general: the mines, the factory, the labor, the filmmaking. It invites the viewer, I think, to critique the binary of objective/subjective positions and perhaps might be exemplifying what Kracauer was calling for regarding the unique "cinematic approach" that is only available to filmmaking in which reality is enhanced by the particular technical capability of camera"work."