Reviews (17)

A Russian movie classic
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.

The Visual Language of Creative Zeal and Activity
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.

Obviously inspired Reggio and Fricke
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.

Kino Eye
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).

A mixed bag
"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. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Dziga Vertov, the Soviet Union's revolutionary documentarian and film theorist, put his years of experimentation in weekly newsreels to work in the 1924 feature film Kino-Eye, a continuation of his work on the Kino Pravda series. The mixture of slice-of-life observations (often captured with a hidden camera) with documentary studies and playful cinematic tricks was his first attempt to create a new kind of filmmaking about life in the Soviet Union under Communism. The episodic film is structured something like a variety show, with the recurring thread of "Young Pioneers" (a youth brigade of Soviet boys and girls dedicated to helping the poor and needy) running through the film as a kind of narrative glue. Nestled between these uplifting sequences are glimpses into taverns and bars, a state home for the mentally ill, and the black market, fanciful documentary investigations into the origins of bread and meat (from the slaughterhouse to the farm), and a scene of kids at play in the water that turns into a gorgeous diving montage that presages Olympia by over 10 years. Though never more than an accomplished curiosity, Kino-Eye is a pleasant diversion and an essential piece of Soviet film history. Vertov's finest work was to come with his dazzling 1929 masterpiece The Man with a Movie Camera, in which all of his ideas and experiments come together in a spellbinding piece of nonnarrative cinematic poetry. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (17)

A Russian movie classic
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.

The Visual Language of Creative Zeal and Activity
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.

Obviously inspired Reggio and Fricke
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.

Kino Eye
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).

A mixed bag
"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. ... Read more