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52

Man With a Movie Camera

Chelovek s kino-apparatom

Soviet Union

1929

68 Min
Black and White
1.33:1
Silent
Subtitled in English
Audio in Silent
  • Currently 4.4/5 Stars.
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DIR Dziga Vertov

SCR Dziga Vertov

DP Mikhail Kaufman

CAST Mikhail Kaufman

ED Yelizaveta Svilova

MUSIC Pierre Henry, Nigel Humberstone, Konstantin Listov, Michael Nyman

Berlinale (Retrospective), London (Treasures from the Archives)

Synopsis

This playful film is at once a documentary of a day in the life of the Soviet Union, a documentary of the filming of said documentary, and a depiction of an audience watching the film. Even the editing of the film is documented. We often see the cameraman who is purportedly making the film, but we rarely, if ever, see any of the footage he seems to be in the act of shooting! —IMDb

Director

Original

Dziga Vertov

The theories and experimental films of Dziga Vertov revolutionized documentary cinema and continue to influence filmmakers ranging from Godard to Stan Brakhage to Chris Marker. He was born Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman in Bialystok, Poland (which at the time was part of Czarist Russia), the son of a librarian. His brothers, Mikhail Kaufman and Boris Kaufman, both became noted cinematographers. Vertov began writing poetry at age ten and at 16 was attending the Bialystok Music Conservatory where he studied violin and piano. A resident of Russia since 1915, Vertov studied neurology in St. Petersburg in 1917. While there, he began researching human perception with sound and created a Laboratory of Hearing in which he made montages of natural sounds and then tried to re-create them by grouping them in phonetic units. He took his pseudonym (loosely translated as “spinning top” or literally “top turning”) at this time.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Vertov was invited to become… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 63 wall posts.
Picture of Lorna Singh

Lorna Singh

17May13

An amazing,important work of art. Shows the power of film to educate re history and,most of all,to celebrate life.

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NEIL

7May13

Beats Koyanistasi to the punch by 50 years.

Picture of Sudipto Basu

Sudipto Basu

7Apr13

A comedy that anticipates everything from Playtime to F for Fake and conceptual music videos.

Picture of Charles Ziegler-Hartmann

Charles Ziegler-Hartmann

5Apr13

A early testament to the power and potential of the film camera and its operator's ability in capturing life and refitting it to establish its own frame of mind and, better still, its own essence of being.

Lorna Singh likes this

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Fans

Displaying 5 of 2869 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

Movie Poster of the Week: “Battleship Potemkin” and the Stenberg Brothers at Auction

By Adrian Curry on October 26, 2012

A look at a rare auction of Stenberg brothers posters of the 1920s.

read article
W184

Sight & Sound's "Greatest Films of All Time"

By Notebook on August 3, 2012

The British magazine unveils the results of their 2012 poll of the greatest films of all time.

read article
W184

The Subject Objects: Five Montages for Man With a Movie Camera (III/IV)

By David Phelps on April 27, 2011

III. “And this is the liberating discovery… the man-made alone can be made, whereas whatever else the environment has to show

read article
W184

Dziga Vertov's Storyboard for "Man with a Movie Camera"

By Daniel Kasman on April 23, 2011

Vertov, Dziga: Kiev I sent. 28g. celovek s kinoapparatom Storyboard Kiev 1 Sept[ember] [19]28 Gun apparatus directs its muzzle towards the

read article
W184

The Overheard Record: Five Montages for "Man with a Movie Camera" (I/II)

By David Phelps on April 16, 2011

“Nor is there any ‘figurative’ and ‘nonfigurative’ art… A person, an object, a circle are all ‘figures

read article
W184

Movie Posters of the Week: The Posters of Dziga Vertov

By Adrian Curry on April 15, 2011

Some of the first movie posters that I ever took seriously, or seriously loved, were Soviet posters of the 1920s. Instantly arresting, intensely

read article
W184

Vertov @ MoMA

By David Hudson on April 15, 2011

Updated through 4/20. MoMA's Dziga Vertov retrospective opens today with the US premiere of the newly restored, original full-frame version

read article

Lists

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Reviews

Displaying 4 of 7

Foncez!

By Benoît on June 19, 2011

Je dois avouer que je partais assez perplexe face au concept du ciné-oeil, ne sachant pas trop à quoi m’attendre. Au final, j’en ressors séduit. La caméra est le véritable acteur du film et j’ai énormément…  read review

Untitled

By Roman Petrov on November 22, 2009

This film is a tour de force of cinema. I had the great fortune of seeing this in a theater which had a print of the film, and a live orchestra played in sync with the picture. It is editorially brilliant…  read review

Untitled

By Slaviri​sh on October 30, 2009

The Man With the Movie Camera- (USSR, Vertov, 1929) 17 stars

Facinating celebration of modernity and motion and the urban clockwork world of rational order of machine and men and the underlying…  read review

Untitled

By Sam Cooper on July 30, 2009

Now this is interesting. Made as an experimental film in 1929, Man with the Movie Camera toys around with the concepts of cinema, while also using new and innovative techniques. Through the use of…  read review

Forum

Displaying 1 discussion topic.

film annex.com

1 post by 1 person almost 3 years ago