Analysis of the Man with the Camera Directed by Dziga Vertov - Movie Review Example

Running Head: Documentary Cinema Man with the Movie Camera – Linking politics and Art s Introduction Documentary film refers to a nonfiction report focused upon a particular thesis or subject. Documentary cinema basically depicts the western consciousness to view the world more clearly while getting an objective view (Feldman, 1998). Documentary movies are regarded integral and notable branch of the film industry because they present the indispensable historical moments with unique blend of script, visual images and sound effects. The present day documentary cinema has gone through long excursion to reach its present status and there are some transformational innovations and philosophies being introduced by some field experts that changed the direction of the documentary filmmaking practice and bestowed certain new ideologies and theoretical foundation to the documentary cinema (Tsivian, 2004). The following essay aims to discuss and analyze the movie “Man with the movie camera” directed by Dziga Vertov in 1928. The essay puts the movie in to the theoretical framework of documentary filmmaking and analyzes the procedure, techniques and intentions behind the making of the movie in political and professional context. The entire discussion aims to reveal the relation between art and politics as depicted by Vertov in the movie. It is found that “Man with the movie camera” is an outstanding effort that illustrates the practicability and scope of staging political thoughts in art form. The Philosophy behind the Man with Movie Camera The modern day documentary clearly reflects the developments occurred in the field of audio-visual and other related technologies. However, rendering the essence of innovation and inducing technology to enhance documentary presentation is not a new conception for the documentary cinema. The idea of developing and using innovative techniques and technology to enhance the documentary film making began several decades ago and it is widely believed that Dziga Vertov took the first step towards the effort of bringing innovation in the making of documentary films through the development of Kino-Eye experiment (Cook, 2007). He made significant contribution towards bringing technological advancements in the field of documentary cinema. The experiments conducted by Vertov provide indispensable guidelines that were widely followed by the filmmakers of that epoch. Moreover, the theories divulged by Vertov also worked for building the conceptual work to revolutionize the documentary cinema. He conducted research upon the human perception with sound and established a laboratory of hearing where he compiled some combinations of natural sounds and then re-created and grouped them in certain phonetic units. The manifesto issued by Dziga stressed upon the requirement of brining new style within documentary making (Feldman, 1998). His “Kinoks-Revolution manifesto” was enormously emphasized upon documenting real life situations and incidents in the documentaries rather depicting fiction and fanciful scripts. In fact, the fictional techniques commonly used by the soviet film industry of that era were strictly criticized by Dziga as they merely focus upon fiction rather reality. Dziga expressed his views that documentary cinema should not rely upon spectacular and fanciful scripts but the film makers have to exert their efforts and skills to report truth and reality in the documentary films (Feldman, p67). The theories and concepts introduced by Vertov were also used to explain certain ideologies and conceptions during the Cinema Verite Movement. The French movie makers specially revert back to his work and integrated it to the ongoing developments in the field of documentary making (Tsivian, 2004). Vertov bestowed a new idea to the film making as he not only stressed upon the significance of combining machines and humans but he went one step beyond and proposed that the camera eye itself has its own voice. (Austin, p76) He positioned the kino-eye as a functionary authority that has the ability to capture and present objects to enhance the human vision. The philosophy of Vertov regarding the Kino-eye’s own voice is explicitly explained in his words that kino-eye states that “I make the viewer see in the manner best suited to my presentation of this or that visual phenomenon (Vertov, p16).” He presumes that the eye of the camera directs the actions of the camera and works to determine the height or depth of film resolution (Cook, 2007). The “Man with the movie camera” is not merely a documentary film but through this movie, Vertov explains how the art of documentary making could be utilized to depict social as well as political ideas. He uses the movie as platform to express his political ideology that illustrates the possibilities of portrayal of political thoughts in to the art form. This is one of the pioneering brainwave divulges by Vertov that gave new dimension of European Documentary cinema. In sum, the movie could be regarded as artistic blend of political expression and cinematic proficiency and this idea was widely praised as well as followed by the following filmmakers (Feldman, 1998). The Making of the Movie During the Russian civil war, Vertov got excellent opportunity to polish his skills and conducted some revolutionary experiments. As a manager of film periodical he got access to the snippets of common citizens that enabled him conducting experiments with creating editing. These experiments were basically intended to increase the audience impact regarding the sounds. He developed a film that depicts the lives of the common Soviet people. He produced the film “Man with the movie camera” in 1928 that was a non-linear production showing parts and activities of people life like their routine activities, births, deaths, marriages and divorces. He also included the snapshots of different workplace setting where the film shows how the manual production process was being transformed in to mechanical production by the virtue of advanced technology (Tsivian, 2004). The film acted as great source of acquiring information, guidance and ideas regarding the documentary making because Vertov used various techniques in the making of the documentary like slow motion, animation, freeze frame, multiple-image, split-screens, zoom and reverse zoom etc. The film was widely noticed and appraised by the critics and film experts and it was commonly regarded as the text-book on film making. The masterpiece created by Vertov not only provided extensive information and explanations regarding the flair of camera work but also exemplified the latitude of editing in the production of documentaries. All the efforts and experiments conducted by Vertov were based upon the idea that the impartial camera eye has the capability to better record and organize the truth and subjectivity and compared with the human eye that can make several faults (Feldman, 1998) Vertov built his ideas and innovative design upon the belief that the human capabilities and machine abilities could be combined together in order to gain deep insight over the objects scattered all around the world. He held the belief that the advanced machine technologies have created the vision of “new, perfect man” because the advanced technologies all the human beings to make maximum possible use of their potential and explore the objects in details that was not earlier possible through the naked eye (Cook, 2007). The idea of Kino-eye promoted by Vertov also proposes that the machine eye or the camera eye has the aptitude to gain and present a cleared, deep and better version of the objects that is not possible to achieve by the human vision (Feldman, 1998). Vertov proposed that the human-machine interaction significantly enhances the human vision and based on this concept, he strived to explore the implications and practicability of advanced technology with the documentary film making (MacKay, 2007). The movie was filmed without casting any actor and there were no artificial sets created for the movie but all the scenes were shot at original sites where common Russian people use to remain engage in wide range of their routine activities. It is being regarded as the symbol of Vertov proficiency and genius that he vigorously expressed his political and social ideas without employing any actor or formal sets. (Tsivian, 2004) Depicting Political Ideas in Art forms – Theory and Practice Vertov believed in Marxist ideology and wishes to experience a futuristic city that could reflect the Soviet ideas. He expressed his desire through the movie and portrayed an artificial city with the intention to awake the Soviet citizens and worked to bring awareness among them regarding their actions. He shows the workers enjoying the fruits of their hard work that ultimately fostered the pace of industrialization process. This approach was commonly adopted in early modernized movies; however, Vertov took more interesting and compelling stance to make people aware about their potential and roles in the society (Tsivian, 2004). Vertov included different scenes of the people life in the movie one after one to refer hope of new day or change in the life of Soviets. For instance, the marriage scene was followed by divorce scene and the funeral moment was followed by the scene of child birth. He shows these scenes to present the present and future of the Soviet world and indicate that he has desire of change and wants the Soviets to start new lives disregard of the problems they had in the past or present. (MacKay, 2007) The main intention behind the movie “man with the movie camera” completely complies with reflexive mode of documentary that is supposed to create awareness among the audience. As Bill Nicholas proposes six modes of documentary in his book “Introduction to Documentary” and it is revealed from the analysis of this movie that Vertov basically strives to convey reconstructed truth to the people (Nichols, 1976). He includes the scenes of real life of the common Soviet people but arrange those in a manner that together they convey the message that was actually desired by Vertov. He achieved this objective through proficient editing, sound recording and camera work. The audience when watched the movie become aware of the techniques being used by Vertov to present the mechanized version of the life of the Soviet common people in front of audience. In this way, it seems reasonable to put the movie under the category of reflexive mode of documentary because it created the awareness among the audience regarding the process of documentary making and expose the constructive nature of documentary making. The review of the movie and the intentions, techniques and ideology behind its making further depicts that Vertov basically uses the documentary as a tool to shape the density of the nation. As Renov (1993) explains in “Toward a Poetics of Documentary” that there are four tendencies of documentary film making that determine the gap between image and its representation that allow aesthetic and political interpretation of the presented facts and information (Renov,1993). In the light of the Renov explanation of these four tendencies, it is observed that the work accomplished by Vertov in “Man with the Movie Camera” actually performs the function of “persuade and promote” the audience. Vertov in the documentary promoted his desired version of the Soviet lives and convincingly draw the attention of people towards certain political and social ideologies that he uses to pursue. Conclusion The above discussion accentuates some of the important aspect of Dziga Vertov’s movie, “Man with the moving camera”. The essay discusses the movie from the technology, social and political perspective and finds the implication of certain documentary theories in the work of Vertov. It is revealed that the movie has been created by Vertov as an attempt to illustrate the possibility of reflecting political and social ideologies within the art work. He not only uses the innovative cinematic techniques and camera work to accomplish this masterpiece but also shows that the artists can make efficient use of technology and cinematic proficiency to convince people by showing the reconstructed version of truth (Tsivian, 2004). The movie exhibits the Soviet lives in front of the people that is developed using all the real scenes and situations however, the camera work, selection of the sites, editing and arrangement of the scenes in exceptional manner allow the audience to perceive the message imparted by Vertov from their own lives scenes. The movie is not only an art work but it is also a political tool that echoes the Marxist views reflected though the life scenes of Soviets. The entire discussion could be sum up with the conclusion that Man with the movie camera is among the remarkable and revolutionary contribution towards the documentary film making. Vertov sets the example of linking politics with art and successfully transmitted his political thoughts and inclinations through the outstanding art work done in the movie. References Cook, Simon (2007). "Our Eyes, Spinning Like Propellers: Wheel of Life, Curve of Velocities, and Dziga Vertovs Theory of the Interval."pp 79-91 Feldman, S (1998). “Dziga Vertov’s The Man with a Movie Camera” in Grant, K. B. and Sloniowski, J. (eds) Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, pp4-54. MacKay, J. (2007). "Film Energy: Process and Metanarrative in Dziga Vertovs The Eleventh Year (1928)." pp 41-78 Nichols, B (1976). “Documentary Theory and Practice,” Screen 17.4 (Winter 1976/77):34-38. Renov, Michael (1993). "Toward a Poetics of Documentary," In Theorizing Documentary, New York: Routledge, 12-36 Seth Feldman (1998). "Peace between Man and Machine: Dziga Vertovs The Man with a Movie Camera." in Barry Keith Grant, and Jeannette Sloniowski, eds.Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Wayne State University, pp. 40-53 Tsivian, Y. (Ed) (2004). Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the twenties. Le Giornate del cinema muto Vertov, Dziga (1948). Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Ed. Annette Michelson, Trans. Kevin O’Brien. London: U of California P Read More