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The modern citizen is an engaged citizen, and it's through the use of documentary media
that we become aware, identify, and reflect within our urban environment. The notorious
Dziga Vertov revolutionized the documentary, and social discourse, through his grandiose
1929 production "Man With a Movie Camera", which was known for disheveling social conventions
by using an experimental cinéma vérité methodology. This caused controversy for its
upheaval of the staged world, throwing down the theatrical curtains in favor of a less
romantic exposition, the depiction of the real world and its non-actor inhabitants.
By revealing the truth, he opened up a new form of reflection upon the real world, while
also inciting a reactionary engagement with audiences.
Dziga Vertov would pave the way for a personal relationship betwe en the individual and the
collective. The movie camera, along with the art of cinematography, was a collaborative
invention that came from a variety of great minds and therefore remains the most prominent
tool for representing the collective conscious. Born from French romanticism and discoveries
in photographic technology, the film market rapidly grew in all the major cities around
the world during the late 1800s. Collections of archive footage was filmed, yet for the
most part disregarded as unfavorable compared to the filming of the staged dramas that rose
in popularity for their romantic qualities. Aligning with the views of John Grierson,
there was social activist spirit that sought to document the raw nature of life, yet still
retained a "creative treatment of actuality".
The documentary film was introduced by the Lumière Brothers, after the cinématographe
patent was acquired from Léon Bouly, when in 1895 Louis Lumière trained a camera on
factory workers leaving for the day in "Exiting the Factory". Although it was a promotional
film, in many ways it was the first observational film. These sort of films were reproduced
around the world through the Lumière's brilliant sales strategy that consequently developed
the market for theatrical cinema, yet they failed to predict the long-term success. As
the travelogue films grew in popularity, the French Pathé Brothers acquired the Lumière
Brothers' patents in 1902 and pathed the way for the invention of the newsreel, such films
like the 1909 "Moscow Clad in Snow" could be described as the foreshadow to the city
symphony films that would later be introduced on mass scale. Several city symphony films
arose prior to "Man With a Movie Camera", films such as Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's
Manhatta 1921, Nothing but the Hours by Alberto Cavalcanti in 1926 Paris, and Walter Ruttman's
1927 Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis. Manhatta was designed as an experiment of photography
and film to show New York with minimal camera movement. Nothing but the Hours was set to
show Paris within a single day, though only 45 minutes in length. Ruttman was actually
inspired by Vertov's earlier films, through his use of montage to capture Berlin, yet
focused on the unscripted aesthetic of early avant-garde. Vertov also incorporated aspects
of these films into his own work, not representing just one city, but revealing urban life universally.
Another Russian filmmaker, the infamous Sergei Eisenstein is known as the pioneer of the
montage and the theorist behind montage as film form. As a film theorist, he clamored
that the montage was an essential part of cinema, which he showcased to its effect in
his film Battleship Potemkin made in 1925, one of the earliest works of propaganda used
to propel the Bolshevik manifesto and win hearts against the former Tsar. Eisenstein
declared that it was his responsibility as an artist for the good of society to use his
methods of montage; metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual, were techniques
that implied different measures of tension through the correlation between images. Many
of these images were in contrast, like the plot of the film, and heightened the dramatization
of human expression. This created a sense of "dynamism", coined as the "nerve of cinema"
by Eisenstein, in order to reveal social interaction through visual reflexes. This dialectic approach
of this art-form was the principle that art contains a social mission, context of nature,
and a methodology, revealing visual conflict. Eisenstein's films however, unlike Vertov's
cinema verite, were mise-en-scene theatrical productions that manipulated the truth in
favor of film form. Two opposing objects were deliberately sequenced in order to create
an artificial effect- the scene with a machine gun firing on the steps of Odessa, and next
a woman holding her hand over her eye with blood dripping down with a stroller appearing
to fall- much like practical effects and graphics used in modern film to reveal artificial imagery.
Eisenstein disrupted the traditional ways of handling plot, liberating action from time
and space, to enhance drama. Vertov however, sought to reveal society through another form
of film liberation.
David Abelevich Kaufman, also known as Denis Kaufman born in 1896, was more prominently
known in the film world by his "spinning top" pseudonym Dziga Vertov, a pioneer in the search
for the recorded truth. Denis Kaufman was one of three sons, born into a Jewish family
whose father was a librarian, giving an early advantage into intellectual learning. At the
start of World War 1, while the Germans were invading Russia, their family had to move
from Poland to the urban city of Petrograd, Russia (now known as St. Petersburg). Here
the young Denis would stem his idealism in poetry, science fiction, and satirical writing.
While studying medicine, he would also experiment with sound collages in his spare time. These
studies and early writings, which mostly focused on perception of nature, would foreshadow
the foundation of techniques he would later employ into his newsreel series and philosophical
writings of the Kino-Eye. Modernism and Surrealism were gaining popularity throughout the arts
in Europe, with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's Un Chien de Andalou being the antithesis
of Man with a Movie Camera, while Futurism directly appealed to Vertov's avant-garde
artistic sense and idealism in rapid efficiencies. These convictions were first witnessed in
the 23 series Kino-Pravda newsreels, an entirely unique style of reality that was as shocking
as Buñuel and Dali's abstract dreams, yet both containing no inherent plot structure.
Coming of age with the February Revolution of the Bolsheviks, Vertov went to work for
the Communist state, and while a strong believer, developed his theory of "film-truth", the
Kino-Pravda, in favor of immersing the country into the lives of the proletariat. Vladimir
Lenin realized the propagandic usage and supported Vertov's techniques. It led to increased awareness
throughout the Soviet empire, focusing on tangent individual stories, that when combined,
helped rally the countryside to support Communist nationalism. A mobile recording and projection
studio, this propaganda was a new truth in delivering the maximum amount of prints and
screenings to wide sums of audiences. He believed that the radio broadcast would eventually
unite "all workers" through a single consciousness. Radio broadcasting was still in its infancy
of its time, yet Vertov predicted the global culture that's now permeated by the internet.
Art was secondary to truth and function, becoming a peripheral of the vision. In his 23 series
Kino-Pravda, he did not ask for permission, for he felt that truth was permission enough,
this idea resonates with investigative journalism tactics used nowadays. Ahead of his time,
Vertov even attempted a social engagement with his audiences, including his contact
information at the end of some reels. This would be akin to Vertov having a YouTube nowadays
and encouraging comments on his documentary featurettes.
Jean Luc-Godard would later pick up on this avant-garde documentary style in his 1960
narrative film "Breathless", where he introduced the "jump cut" realism to new audiences, but
Vertov was the pioneer of the jump cut decades prior. Kino-Pravda has influenced the modern
newsreel, independent films, and micro-budget online videos.
Vertov transformed filmmaking through his avant garde manifesto with the help of brother
Mikhail Kaufman (Man with a Movie Camera was their last collaboration). The manifesto of
the collective Kino-okis (The Kinoks), the "cine-eye" group would sign a declaration
for their new approach of filmmaking. He was proudly call them "The shoemakers of cinema",
for they didn't have the Capitalist money of North America or Europe, but had to build
the cinema from their bare hands. Their equipment was mostly second hand or built from scratch,
compared to the "Shoe-shiners" of Hollywood, who painted a rosy picture of the world, what
we could also call Disneyesque. As the truth was hidden from three-fourths of the world
in an "*** of the bourgeois film-dramas", the shoe-makers embraced this truth, as "creators
of film-objects". The irony is that they had another cinematography brother, Boris Kaufman,
who worked with Canadian documentary filmmaker John Grierson briefly before winning an Oscar
in the U.S. for the film "On the Waterfront", starring Marlon Brando. However Vertov, independent
in spirit, held the convictions that many Do-It-Yourself filmmakers of the digital age
follow, currently through online video sites such as YouTube or Vimeo, throwing off the
shackles of Hollywood distribution. The Jean Luc-Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin "Dziga Vertov
Group" of the 1960s would've been seen negatively as the "intermediate is dangerous" according
to Vertov, where Kinok methods are adopted for docudramas.
"The camera is present at the decisive battle between the one and only Land of the Soviets
and all the bourgeois nations of the world."
Dziga Vertov's chelovek s kino-apparatom, Man With a Movie Camera embodied the Kino-Oko
or "Cine-Eye", as he stated in 1923: "I am kino-eye, I am a mechanical eye. I,
a machine, show you the world only as I see it." (Kino-Eye)
This would be called "fly on the wall" filmmaking, and not fully embraced in the documentary
world until the 1960s and 1970s when television reduced the technology gap, through films
such as Primary (1960) and Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976), both films gave audiences a
new form of insight into politics and the proletariat, while at the same time representing
a new kind of platform for social change. This is the sort of social change Vertov would
have intended with his audiences. As most films had an average shot length (ASL) of
11.2 seconds, the 2.3 ASL for "Man with a Movie Camera" was compelling for its time.
Using a Debrie Parvo wooden camera, the hand cranking determined the amount of frames that
would be shown. Typical silent films were shot using 16 frames per second (fps), yet
Vertov considered the lens as a "second eye" and knew that life was perceived through any
speed. Through the use of montage, he wanted to compare
"all points of the universe" while at the same time "breaking all the laws and conventions
of film construction." In this manner, Vertov is able to achieve timelessness and formlessness
in his works, not just capturing a time in history, but representing an ahistorical truth
consistent with the past, present, and future. We see this nowadays through the collective
use of mobile video.
While in Petrograd, Vertov was influenced by futurism, inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Futurism started in 1909 in Italy and France, invading all the arts, it "Glorified in the
clamor and rhythm of machines, and the dynamism of a world in change." (Barnouw, 52) The mechanical
process was critical for propelling the Soviet nation into the new world of improved industrial
efficiency. Vertov prefered to equalize the imparting views of the working class, rather
than just the bourgeois or the elite, as was common in other parts of the world, this offered
a point of view for the common man. This idealism stemmed from the rapid industrial mobilization
between World War 1 and World War 2 that sought to accelerate the place of mankind. Like Leonardo
Da Vinci being capable of painting a beautiful masterpiece, such as the "Mona Lisa", he was
also a conceptual artist for machinations of war. During the era of the Talkies, Charlie
Chaplin would later embody this in his film Modern Times, yet focusing on Capitalism.
Vertov realized the nature of violence and destruction was an innate attribute to the
art of truth, and considered it essential to the bigger picture to be captured on camera,
claiming: "Life's chaos gradually becomes clear as he observes and shoots. Nothing is
accidental." (Kino-Eye) We see the homeless on the streets. We witness Vertov in the ambulance
with a man being taken to the hospital. A divorce is shown. We're in the factories with
mechanical moving parts. Amidst the traffic of automobiles, buses, trains, and even in
the air with planes. Finally we see the camera come alive at the end with a stop motion animation.
Even the demonstration of sport is shown as a machination to improve the physicality of
the common man's ability to produce labor.
Man with a Movie Camera, although a silent film, would not be the same without music
or the sounds of the city. The symphony aspect of the "Symphony films" is not just the fact
that they would be shown with an accompanying orchestra, but also the sound-like visual
veracity that existed in the abstract of imagery. As Roger Ebert would note, "Movies could move
with the speed of our minds when we are free-associating, or with the speed of a passionate musical
composition." Dziga Vertov began Man with a Movie camera
through a statement that there would be no dialogue, intertitles, or characters, like
the images, there was a fast moving musical score, which several exist for this film,
Michael Nyman's being the most recent which demonstrates a successive momentum. The Cinematic
Orchestra devised another score, along with the Alloy Orchestra, who performed a restored
print held from the Moscow Film Archive. Without continuity between scenes, there is a rhythm
developed that gradually increases and decreases in momentum, with a crescendo at the end.
Silence takes place as the frame freezes and we are given a behind the scenes look at the
film itself, creating a sense of self-awareness, like a singer in the street hearing his echo
bouncing from the building facades. As John Ford would call it, the "invisible editing"
led attention to the story rather than the editing itself, yet Vertov did not mind breaking
down the fourth wall.
Part of the Kinok core, Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova is seen editing and splicing film,
which consisted of 1,775 individual shots, made more challenging by the different frame
lengths scene to scene. This meant that Vertov filmed a symphony-city film, yet then created
a film about that film, introducing a new layer of film-reality that defied the placement
of time. The process that's revealed becomes a sub-theme to the Kino-Eye, which is an awareness
of the environment, context of its perception, and the machines enabling it. Therefore he
deconstructs the film for audiences at the beginning, middle, and the end. Filming in
Man with a Movie Camera would span an entire day, but take four years to make, the city
was anonymous, filmed in Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa, yet it felt like a singular city,
a collective urban environment. The citizens, the storefronts, the interior buildings, there
is an organized pattern in its reveal. We witness the audience witnessing itself. There
is a mechanical nature of the city to perform for the audience (the seats fold down by themselves),
the audience is watching this film, which is about the film being made. Another radical
aspect of this film is the small crew, in actuality a singular camera man, Vertov, and
at times Mikhael - almost simultaneously playing the same non-character. Camera technology
rapidly developed by this point, and 35mm camera advancements enabled greater mobility,
like Buster Keaton's character in "The Cameraman (1928). The Parvo camera in the 1920s was
what the mobile phone camera is today, an enabler of mobility, and an ominous observer
to reality.
XI. Influence and Legacy of Man with a Movie Camera
Robert Flaherty took the documentary to new regions by filming his excursions into the
polar landscape, yet when his nitrate stock footage was destroyed in an accidental fire,
he went to new heights in achieving the "aggie" of his vision. Nanook of the North, his film,
became the result and it employed unique craftsmanship into the production. His film however, in
an attempt to film a historical truth, was flawed in its ability to capture the essence
of the Inuit, and thereby influenced the outcome of the image through personal manipulation,
such as avoiding the use of rifles to protect Nanook and his crew when in danger while hunting
a walrus. Vertov did not want to narrate his story nor did he want to use re-enactors,
he wanted the film to speak for itself and develop its own narrative. His excursion was
the chaos of the urban environment rather than the arctic tundra. Vertov's "aggie" was
risking life or death for the perfect depiction of truth, digging trenches to film oncoming
trains, climbing smokestacks without safety lines, and sitting in a basket held from a
zip line, all to capture the urban reality that had gone unrecognized for several decades.
He developed an avant-garde freedom that's still relevant nearly 85 years later. The
ability to become witness to, to be witnessed, to package the film product, analyzing, and
then actually seeing. It was a rhythm of the visual urban language, the everyday occurrences
that we may witness as updates in an ever lasting stream of knowledge, information,
and digital socialization. Reality was introduced to the theater, then television, and now into
our hands, more than that, it is now something we can participate in rather than just speculate.
XII. The Modern Urban Excursion and Conclusion Everyone who holds a mobile camera and films
his or her daily life, contributes to the modern symphony and reveals his or her own
cine-eye. These are tangent and individual lives that are made public for the world to
see, however when analyzed as a group, over time, they form a collective documentary that
has never been seen in the world before. It was Vertov's attempt to film the urban chaos
and interject social conversation through film, that we are now seeing extrapolated
around the world through the advent of the social internet. High quality mobile cameras
increased bandwidth speeds, and the dissipation of knowledge have contributed to this effect.
It may be a coincidence that at the same time as we are witnessing a rapid growth of amateur
videography and independent journalism, there is also a larger number of protests and micro-revolutions
happening around the world almost simultaneously, as the battle between privacy, capital, and
citizen rights are contested from country to country.
Perhaps Vertov's manifesto was just the beginning of a trend that would take decades to materialize
on a global scale. The film Man with a Movie Camera itself was paramount in its mission,
however it was also the philosophies, technology, and cinema techniques that allowed the experiment
to flourish for generations to come, through an emphasis on the rhythm of rapid montage
imagery. A succession of images that moved as rapid and fleeting like the spoken conversation
without written context. More than an effort to just depict life as it was, Vertov looked
at the crude light of reality with a veneer of romanticism, the romantic notion of an
attempt to gain an intellectual and functional transcendence from the chaos of life, forever
documented as reality.