BFI Top 50: Man with a Movie Camera, Released in 1929, Directed by Dziga Vertov

What I know going in

That the film is an experimental, Koyaanisqatsi-esque experimental documentary about life in the Soviet Union.

Immediate reaction 

Eighty-five years later Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera still feels like a cinematic call to action. It proves that the things we all say we want from a film (interesting characters, a good story, catchy dialogue) are totally unnecessary, and an engaging, exciting film can be made without any of those elements. Film truly only needs two things to work: the construction and juxtaposition of arresting images, and Man with a Movie Camera has both in spades. I sometimes worry that overly-academic film criticism does the movies it’s discussing a disservice in that it may push people away from film that are enjoyable but are outside the norm of narrative filmmaking. Case in point, if I were to tell someone what Man with a Movie Camera is I would probably have to say something to the effect of: “A black-and-white, experimental silent documentary about life in the Soviet Union.” Every single one of those words would probably turn a non-film buff off the film, or set up a bunch of wrong expectations that film is a total slog to watch. It’s not, I actually think if you go in with an open mind, and are willing to accept the premise of the film, that anyone, regardless of their cinematic knowledge or lack thereof, could enjoy the film.

 

The main reason I think this is that Vertov’s joy in making the film is so palpable that it becomes infectious. He applies almost every off-the-wall cinematic trick that had been developed up to that point (double exposure, split screen, jump cuts) and includes footage in fast, slow, and stop motion. He applies these techniques with such abandon, and in addition, seems fascinated with close-ups, tracking shots, and whip-pans, that the negative labels typically thrown at avant-garde films (pretentious, boring, confusing) objectively do not apply. The other reason I think the film works so well on such a basic, primal level is that the film is free from any moralizing. As much as I like Koyaanisqatsi, I sometimes find its message and juxtaposition a little too simplistic and easy. The same cannot be said of Man with a Movie Camera. If anything, it is a celebration of life, not a warning about the perils of industrialization. There are few shots of machinery that maybe play on the hectic nature of city living, but I wouldn’t say they are overly critical of anything. Only one sequence, that in the steel mill, which almost outdoes Metropolis for sheer industrialized terror, has a whiff of social critique. For the most, the film is content to oscillate between joyous human movement and huge, impossible city vistas, with a few dashes of fourth-wall-breaking to add to the giddiness.

 

Speaking of those fourth-wall-breaking elements, I find myself once again kicking myself for being shocked that a movie made so early in film history would explicitly bring up complex topics that have been intensely debated by cinephiles since the late 50’s. I’ve had this feeling multiple, so I don’t know it popped up again, maybe it’s just so ingrained in our culture that new is better and that past entertainment is corny and simple that I have trouble checking my expectations at the door whenever I watch a silent film. I think all of the silent films on the BFI list disprove that notion though. I would list Metropolis, Battleship Potemkin, and now Man with a Movie Camera among my favorites, with the last blasting its way into my top ten on first watch. I’ve found these feels manage to combine the best of both sides of the movie world, the spectacle and the intellect, in a way that I think few modern films are able to do. But, anyway, back to my main point. Man with a Movie Camera has multiple meta elements. If you were to force characters and story onto the film, I guess you could say that the lone, daredevil cameraman is the main character and that the film is about the making of itself, much like 8 ½, in that it shows the cameraman trying to capture the very scenes we, the audience, are being shown. It also explicitly acknowledges the process of film editing by showing a woman, the filmmaker’s wife, handling strips of film at a table, cutting pieces together, labeling them, and putting them on a shelf. Another meta element is the sequence at the end where an audience is being shown the very film we are watching.

 

The film also explicitly acknowledges the link between film and the eye. For example, in several breathtaking sequences, the film cuts between standard footage and an eye moving rapidly back and forth trying to keep up with what is going on, and the film closes with one of the all-time great closing shots of a human eye juxtaposition with the closing of a camera shutter. All of these issues, the importance of film editing, the relationship between audience and film, the documentary aspect of any film narrative or otherwise, the way the camera fundamentally changes peoples actions, and the link between the camera and the eye, that have obsessed film buffs for at least century, and, in my opinion, subconsciously ensnare anyone watching movies, are brought in a breezy, non-didactic manner.

 

I feel like I’ve talked around, but not necessarily about, the film a lot. Maybe a basic description with a listing of few favorite images is in order? You have to squint a bit, but the film does have a basic arc. It starts out with a few, plaintive sequences of all aspects of the city (the people and the machines) waking up to start a brand new day. It then transitions into a frenzy of human and mechanical activity as people flit about from place, shovel coal, run trams, smelt iron, sew, pack cigarettes, get married (and divorced), and even give birth. Meanwhile, the machines give everyone a ride, spin thread, and spew molten lava. The film then moves onto a typical afternoon, showing people working out in both serious and humorous ways. Finally, the film descends into a reverie of meta juxtapositions. A few highlights are the huge scenes of people flowing together and dodging a series of trams. The slow-mo Olympic feats Vertov captures. And the gleeful double exposures he throws into the film, which include a cameraman on top of a camera and random images trapped in a speakerphone as classical music mash-ups play in the background.

 

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to the Alloy Orchestra’s absolutely kickass score. I’ve only seen two films set to their music, this and He Who Gets Slapped, but both breathed new life into old films without seeming too modern as to be out of place. Here they switch from pounding martial rhythms, more typical orchestrations, synced sound collages, and sci-fi-esquetheremin riffs with ease. Their score makes an already exciting film a giddy, elating experience.

 

Further thoughts

My immediate reaction upon finishing Man with a Movie Camera was: “Fuck, that was awesome! Why aren’t there more films like this?” The only similar films I can think of are Koyaanisqatsi, its sequels, and its “spin-offs” made by cinematographer Ron Fricke (Baraka, Samsara, Cronos). I guess Wings of Desire is also similar, but more in terms of subject matter than technique. Apparently, there is also an early city symphony film made before MWAMC called Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, but I haven’t seen it, so I can’t comment on its similarity. It seems to me that non-narrative films like MWAMC are rare and story-driven films are the norm is that near at the end of the silent era with the introduction of sound, a choice had to be made. That choice was whether or not to continue in the mode of pure experience films like MWAMC or Sunrise or embrace the narrative side of sound and make film heavily dialogue and story-driven. Obviously, the narrative people won, which makes me sad on some level, I wish the balance between experimental and narrative films wasn’t quite so one-sided, but, that choice does make MWAMC special and radical even today.

 

Vertov’s film was only heralded by a select few academics between the time it was and the 60’s. In fact, it was so radical, that Vertov was semi-disowned as a director once Stalin established social realism as the official mode of the Soviet film industry in the 30’s (another blow to experimental film). Then again, maybe that’s how it should be? I don’t really know where filmmaking in Vertov’s could have gone after MWAMC. It’s basically the beginning and end of the soviet montage style. As it stands now, the film seems to have made the most impact during the French New Wave, when directors like Godard and Truffaut plundered MWAMC for a wide variety of techniques and applied them to more narrative-driven films.

 

Why is the film on this list?

Man with a Movie Camera begins with the following quote: "The film Man with a Movie Camera represents

AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION
Of visual phenomena
WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES
(a film without intertitles)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCENARIO
(a film without a scenario)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF THEATRE
(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)

This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema – ABSOLUTE KINOGRAPHY – on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature."

 

The fact that Man with a Movie Camera gloriously surpasses that goal makes it one of the greatest films of all time.