Vertov's Cinematic Hybrid.

Dziga Vertov and his wife founded the Kinoks (cine-eyes) in 1920’s Soviet Russia, emphasising the importance of 'life caught unaware' and working towards a film industry of nought but documentary*. 

“Man with a Movie Camera” (1929) is seminal to this movement, exploring ‘the language of film’ involving “Experimentation in the cinematic transmission of visual phenomena” without intertitles, script, actors or sets as posited (ironically through the use of intertitles) at the commencement of the film. National, non-narrative documentary was viewed as the solution to the corrupting influence of drama imported internationally. 

In terms of this unit’s progression, this film is an interesting exploration of the collective – individual dichotomy. W. Ruttman’s “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” (1927) presents an intense focus on the collective, the teeming mass of the city. “Man with a Movie Camera”, a mere two years following, does not contain this near-total exclusion of the individual, nor the pejorative idea of collectivism as propagated by Rand and Vidor in various expressions of “The Fountainhead”, instead presenting a transition and/or hybridised idea. 

The recurring female figure, at first supine then dressing, is one body that represents this interest in the private sphere and individual. The camera moves through the window into the bedroom, to her hands and face as she reclines, then again her hands as she clasps her under-garments. Such a degree of intimacy was unexpected in a film so similar to Ruttman’s Berlin, structurally and stylistically, in the suggestion of a city symphony (except a ‘city’ spread across Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and elsewhere, as such acting more of a panorama of Soviet cities). 

Vertov’s interest in ‘life caught unaware’ is here at odds, in the necessarily staged nature of such behaviours. Similarly, the endearing animated sequence involving a camera and tripod taking on a life of their own, such a style of animation dictating lengthy preparation, furthers this ideological ambivalence between ‘experiment’ and ‘documentary’. 

This animation is one example of the vast range of cinematic techniques employed, including fast/slow motion, Dutch angles, backward footage and split screens. These techniques take “Man with a Movie Camera” beyond the city symphony, for although it roughly follows the structural shape of the progression through a day to the extent of chapter titling (i.e. “Work Day Begins”, “Open for Business”) it adds layers beyond what the human eye can perceive. This self-awareness of medium is indicated through the blatant welcome of animated theatre chairs, opening in preparation, and ostensibly desire, of audience.

The recurring image of the eye superimposed upon the camera’s lens unambiguously directs attention to the visual element; the camera as a vessel through which to record and film as the medium through which to manipulate, yet this is not to the exclusion of the auditory sense. Vertov extended his conception of the Camera-Eye to the Radio-Ear in the mid-1920’s, “Man with the Movie Camera” explores the transition from the Cinema-Eye to the Radio-Eye, incorporating ideas about sound cinema into the technologically advancing film industry. The recurrence of the radio speaker, with Vertov’s own left ear superimposed on the cone of the loudspeaker, is indicative of this notion.

“Man with a Movie Camera” purports to be documentary and experiment, communal and individual, visual and auditory – this fascinating panoramic view of Soviet life and industry is a guise for a self-reflexive exploration of film; film as developing, evolving and in transition.  


*Pardon the pompous phrase.