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Человек с кино-аппаратом (Man With A Movie Camera)

Director: Dziga Vertov
Year: 1929
Runtime: 1 hr 7 min
Source: Amazon Video

Wikipedia

Kyle Kallgren's Video Analysis

Notable for: Being one of the most critically acclaimed silent films (although not at the time of release).  It was voted the 8th best film of all time by Sight and Sound in 2012, and the best documentary of all time a few years later.

Critics respond to many things about the film, including but not limited to:
  • Putting the act of film-making front and center, including the editing process (here undertaken by Vertov's wife).  Previously the task of editing was considered secondary to artistic vision.
  • The invention or innovation (there is some debate here) of many editing techniques, including split screen, stop or slow motion, and double exposure. Vertov wanted his audience to know that this was not magic but a mechanical science.
  • Vertov's radical belief in the power of cinema to create a communal, universal perspective on the world, independent of any authoritarian (read: directorial) vision.  His faith in technology to guide us to the betterment of our species is the very definition of modernism, and that makes Vertov's film the culmination of the "city symphony" movement (films like Manhatta and Nothing But Time).
Verdict: Devoid of historical context, MWAMC still makes for a fun watch, since its fast pacing dispels most of the boredom that usually attaches to such experimental works.  It's a much more joyous work than I was expecting, especially after the industrial nightmare that is The Eleventh Year.  There are still moments that revel in the joining of man and machine, but that impulse is just one of many competing ideas.  There's a lot of humor, and even eroticism, in this film.

For me, the most interesting aspect of Vertov's philosophy is how it compares to modern technological utopianism, currently shattered in the ruins of our realization that social media is a prison.  Vertov's vision came true in many ways, the least of which being that everyone is a man with a movie camera.

Best paired with:  Knausgaard's anti-fiction fiction provides an interesting humanist counterpoint to Vertov's.
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