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The Man with a Movie Camera
(Dir. ... " Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertovs The Man with a Movie Camera is a compelling and delightful exploration of the life of a cameraman in the Soviet Union of the 1920s. From the opening superimposed shot of a tiny cameraman climbing atop an oversized camera, Vertov is acquainting his audience with the ability the camera has to manipulate images. Vlada Petric notes, "Whether it is lighting, montage, camera angle, fast or slow motion, freeze-frame, flicker effect, or any other technique, the manifestation of the actual filmmaking forces the viewer to acknowledge the motion picture as reconstructed reality rather than its representational reflection" (Petric, 1987: 9). Erik Barnouw places Vertovs reflexivity in a historical perspective: "Since much of the film shows Mikhail Kaufman in action…The Man with a Movie Camera involves staging and contrivance to an extent previously rejected by Vertov. ... Exposing the workings of the camera and the editor revealed a truth about film; that it can be just as contrived as fiction and must be viewed with a critical and educated eye. ... As Petric points out, "…the Cameraman appears on the screen in a double role: he is a worker (who makes a film) as well as a citizen participating in daily life, whether by shooting on location or by posing for another camera" (Petric: 51). ... In The Man with a Movie Camera the viewer sees the cameraman on screen and knows that there must be other cameramen filming him as he films. ...
The Man with a Movie Camera is in many ways a film about film. ...
Petric interprets the inclusion of the camera itself in the film both as a way of mechanizing humans and humanizing machines: "by comparing industrial movements with those of athletes, Vertov suggests that machines also possess an expressive visual beauty.
Approximate Word count = 1476
Approximate Pages = 5.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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