Man With A Movie Camera

Directed by Dziga Vertov in 1929 this is an exciting MTV paced rush through pre-WWII Russia. I watched the version on google video with The Cinematic Orchestra providing the soundtrack.

The film sets out to expose the process of film making and turns the camera on the audience themselves (several shots are of the camera lens with a blinking eye staring out). It is much like Koyaanisqatsi although far more inventive. It explores Eisenstein's montage and uses the camera radically to compose many shots that feel entirely fresh today.

The film is very cleverly humorous through the editing, choices of shot, and speeding up and slowing down of the footage.

The soundtrack by TCO makes the various montages and sequences with the filmmaker stick together in a way it wouldn't without the sound. Whereas Koyaanisqatsi flows seamlessly from beginning to end, Man With A Movie Camera progresses through disjointed bits of narrative or theme and seems to follow them at a whim -the subject either tails off or is cut abruptly. But this seems to be what it's about. A very exciting document of early cinema and would have given G.A Smith and Melies something to think about. (they were still alive. I wonder if they did see it. hmm)