Man With The Movie Camera

Film: The Man With The Movie Camera (1929)
Created By: Dziga Vertov
Length: 68 Minutes

Another film we looked at was The Man With The Movie Camera, which has a different approach. This film is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film which contains no narrative and therefore no actors. The film presents urban life in Odessa and the other Soviet cities. We're shown the citizens of those cities as they work and play, as well as their interaction with machinery in the modern age.

After researching the origin of the film, I noted that it was famous for its range of cinematic techniques, which as the cinematographer of my project, caught my attention. For this documentary, Vertov invents, deploys and develops techniques such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, track shots, stop motion animation, reversing footage and extreme close ups.


The film follows an avant-garde style and therefore emphasises the vast direction in which this film could go. An example found was ' the film uses such scenes as superimposing a shot of a cameraman setting up his camera atop a second, mountainous camera, superimposing a cameraman inside a beer glass, filming a woman getting out of bed and getting dressed, even filming a woman giving birth, and the baby being taken away to be bathed'

Vertov created the film through shooting all the scenes separately, by not following an intention of creating a narrative but rather taking all the random clips and putting into a database, which Svilova later edited and therefore created the narrative. For this film, Vertov's purpose has to break the mould of linear film that the world and it's audiences had come to expect.

The film appears to begin with a wide range of cutaways which present the mood, location and ambience of the piece. We see city streets and mannequins (which pose an enigma at this time) and bring the location of piece into familiarisation with the audience. The film then goes on attempting to capture people in their natural habit. By that, I mean the subject not noticing the camera and going about their lives as if no one was watching them, however many a times the camera is caught and the subject smiles and looks into the camera. It's very confusing at this point, but raises up many questions, is the piece about presenting a camera into the real life and seeing how people react? Or is it trying to hide to see how everyday people go about their lives, and unfortunately get caught.

There are also juxtapositions between shots showing the 'Man with the Movie Camera' as well as the footage which would be recorded through that specific camera. This is clever and allows the audience to understand the narrative between the juxtaposing shots.  We learning about behind and in front of the camera.

I did at points find this film hard to follow, however I feel it has been successful, I understood the purpose and questions raised, and maybe because it's a silent film I couldn't connect emotionally. There weren't any intertitles like Nanook of the North, and maybe therefore wasn't as easy to follow. However I enjoyed the rapid cutaway shots introducing the piece, made me very interested.

I like the technique and feel that this allowed me to think about expanding techniques when it comes to introducing the work to the audience.