The Man With The Movie Camera (1929) - Thoughts
The Man With The Movie Camera is a 1929 silent film by Dziga Vertov. He described his goals as trying to make a movie "without actors, without sets, without a story, and without intertitles." I would say he succeeded. He does so by making the other aspects of the film as great as they can be(at the time). He employs several different editing methods like fading, slow motion, fast motion, and double exposure. This allows the film to have a very unique flow without having any sort of plot. In conjunction with the editing, the soundtrack was phenomenal. It really accentuated the quality of the film overall.
The film shows various scenarios all around Russia. Sort of a "day in the life" film. Vertov gives you shots of anything from the front of a train to the inside of a factory to a group of athlete's pole vaulting. Like Professor Pagano had said to look for, I noticed that the camera could indeed be everywhere. Sometimes it was on top of a moving car. Sometimes it was inside another camera. Other times they were showing this imagery of an eyeball, perhaps an homage or reference to the "all seeing eye." That so many belief systems incorporate into their lore. I find it funny that most modern films I can't find myself able to sit through the whole thing without getting bored out of my mind. The Man With The Movie Camera offers such a different perspective on film that despite, on paper, how it may seem boring, I was almost always engaged. I would recommend giving it a shot.
Notes while watching
The camera can be anywhere
The music is good
There are always hard cuts to weird things
I feel like almost all of the visuals are unnecessary
But they're probably intentional and artistic
Inside the factory that we keep seeing, is that the inside of the camera?
Is he filming a day in the life of someone?
A movie is being made?
Why are shots being recycled over and over again
The camera almost never pans
Crazy camera angles
Keep seeing an eye - All seeing eye?
Camera inside of a camera
Filming literally anything
Hard/strange cuts
The film shows various scenarios all around Russia. Sort of a "day in the life" film. Vertov gives you shots of anything from the front of a train to the inside of a factory to a group of athlete's pole vaulting. Like Professor Pagano had said to look for, I noticed that the camera could indeed be everywhere. Sometimes it was on top of a moving car. Sometimes it was inside another camera. Other times they were showing this imagery of an eyeball, perhaps an homage or reference to the "all seeing eye." That so many belief systems incorporate into their lore. I find it funny that most modern films I can't find myself able to sit through the whole thing without getting bored out of my mind. The Man With The Movie Camera offers such a different perspective on film that despite, on paper, how it may seem boring, I was almost always engaged. I would recommend giving it a shot.
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