El hombre de la cámara

Although I had obviously heard of this before watching it, and had been told enthusiastically by all that it was incredibly interesting, I found it hard to believe that a film with a) no storyline, and b) no dialogue or intertitles could be so exciting. I am now more than willing to eat my hat.

This is quite simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Probably best described as a documentary about itself (although by no means only this), this film and it's creator were way before their time.

An interesting point to note: I've watched this twice, once with a traditional musical score, and once with a much more dynamic modern score, and it does have to be said that music can make the movie. I'm not a purist, so found the modern score much more interesting.

One of the most essential movies of all time.

A cameraman (Mikhail Kaufman) travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

This film is said to be a document of Soviet life, with Vertov "working within a Marxist ideology" striving "to create a futuristic city", but I think that is just too narrow a view. While there are aspects of Soviet Russia here (since that is where it was filmed), this is really just life in general. The scenes of the "Lenin Club" and the bust of Karl Marx make it clear we are viewing a Communist society, but the scenes of life in a working class country basically look the same in all industrial countries at this time, regardless of political ideology. The film is a time capsule of the human race at this point in history, and it is beautiful.

The camera shots and angles and movements are to be commended, and I think if I were to list all the creative uses of the camera I would be going on for a few pages. While we have to give credit for the "unchained camera" to the German Karl Freund, my cinematic hero, we can see here that the Russians (or at least one Russian) had some thoughts of his own on the camera's limitless potential. (I am told that although "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" came first, the techniques used in this film had already had their prototype in Russian film reels.)

We could debate the idea of "cinema truth" and whether or not what was shown is an accurate portrayal of unscripted life. I think that debate is largely based on exaggerated criticisms, however. Yes, a few scenes were staged. And yes, some clever editing made certain scenes not strictly "real". But the bulk of the film had people doing what people do without acting and in many cases not even knowing they were being filmed. This is about as real as film gets (aside from, say, a tape retrieved from a security camera -- but is that a "film"?).

The New York Times review written by Mordaunt Hall lamented that the film "does not take into consideration the fact that the human eye fixes for a certain space of time that which holds the attention." Indeed, the average shot length of the film is 2.3 seconds compared to the contemporary standard of 11.2 seconds. Yet, this is a key component in what sets the film apart from its peers. The film works by interspersing several sequences together, cycling through them. A longer shot length could have happened, but would not have forced the viewer to meld the various scenarios together in her mind. Whether Vertov knew it or not, he was creating new thoughts through juxtaposition.

Absolutely crucial to this film is the score. While there are any number of scores out there and your preference may vary from mine, I can say that watching this film with any music is better than watching it without. There is no dialogue, there are no characters, and there are no intertitles (with is a gross departure from his previous film, "One-Sixth Part of the World", which had excessive intertitles). Trying to stay focused without words or sound is a feat, and one I advise against.

Dziga Vertov's `The Man with the Movie Camera' begins with a prologue that explains that the director is attempting to stretch the boundaries of the cinematic medium, trying to achieve `a total separation from the language of literature and theater.' It accomplishes this by throwing out conventional storytelling and taking a non-narrative approach. Basically, the entire film consists of different series of shots that illuminate day-to-day life in Moscow and Odessa. The periods of the day- dawn, working hours, and resting hours- are represented by the activities of the ordinary people that make up the `cast' of the film, while the activities of certain citizens are contrasted with activities of others to create a panorama of Russian urban life in 1929.

The first thing we see is a projectionist threading film through the spools of a projector. An audience pours into the movie theater as the seats magically flip out; this stylized movement establishes a sense of choreography that will frequently reoccur. The projector comes to life and images appear on the movie screen.

Now we see the details of a woman's bedroom. The camera starts by focusing on her window, then moving inside and examining her belongings, such as pictures that hang on the wall and items scattered on her dresser. The woman herself rests in her bed. Then we gradually move outside to see the world in a seemingly frozen state; streets are empty, the parks and benches are unpopulated, telephones are silent, and the wheels and gears of the factory remain still. More people are seen resting in their beds. Then a solitary car moves out onto the street with a cameraman perched in it, and, as if the filmmaker was signaling the start of the day, the city comes alive. The woman wakes up, begins washing herself and attending to her appearance, and flickers the shades to her window. Intercut with this are the images of trolley cars leaving their stations and moving about in synchronized motion, as well as people arriving at factories to begin labor. The gears that were previously silent begin to shift and churn, and they grow more and more rapid in movement as the film progresses. Similarly, there are images of a train moving at high speed, quickly intercut with images of crowds in parks, cars streaming through the streets, and telephones buzzing with activity. They make the working hours of the day seem all the more hectic.

Another interesting aspect of Vertov's editing is the way he contrasts the upper-class members of society with the lower-class. One scenario involves the residents of a barber shop: women get their hair primped while men sharpen razor blades for shaving. This is intercut with images of workers in a factory: women get their hair dirtied as they shovel coal, while men sharpen axes for chopping. Shots of trolleys moving about in various directions are placed in almost every sequence, to convey the idea of people moving constantly, anywhere at anytime.

When the working hours end and the resting hours begin, the gears come to a sudden halt and, moments later, we see people's bodies at rest, this time on the beach. Athletic events are photographed in a way that makes them seem energetic, but still allows for slow-moving photography to show that such activities are intended to be relaxing. We see a buff athlete jumping a hurdle; his expression is very animated, but his body moves with slowness and ease. We see families on a merry-go-round intercut with bikers on a motorcycle track. Eventually, we are back in the movie theater, where the audience watches joyfully as stop-motion animation shows a tripod and camera moving about on their own.

There is no actual `story' to Vertov's film. It is an attempt to use the camera to capture things other mediums of entertainment, such as books and plays, cannot. It is fascinating for its dazzling technical skill, and noteworthy for its movement towards a new cinematic direction.

I'm writing about the Cinematic Orchestra version. It might possibly be the music, but somehow, in the first half of this film, I get overwhelmed by sadness. To the point where I feel I'm gonna start crying. Why? All we see are mundane scenes of everyday life. My daughter told me she has the same reaction. This must be a statement to the highly poetic nature of the film. I had seen the movie before with a different score and it didn't have the same effect. Blame it on the score, I guess.

The fact is, everything we see in this film will be annihilated in the following turbulent years. It's all done with a hand-cranked camera and is very powerful indeed.

I disagree with the other reviewer who compares Dziga Vertov to Leni Reifenstall and calls for his branding as a war criminal. TRIUMPH OF THE WILL was exalting the virtues of the Nazi party itself while this film is more about the communist way of life in general. Even if Stalin turned out to be a war criminal afterward, in my opinion this is different.

This film is a major achievement for it's time and is still relevant.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this film (for several reasons previously mentioned), I think it is important to clear up a one thing that has been repeatedly mistaken in these user comments.

This was NOT produced under Lenin's Soviet Regime, but rather shortly after Stalin took over in 1928. The government, then, disapproved of Vertov's film style, not seeing the proletariat message but rather only the formalistic errors that they saw as inherent. After passing directives to forbid formalist methods of production (most likely specifically for Eisenstein and Vertov), Vertov moved to Kiev to produce this film, where I apparently the government was less strict.