MUBI

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 apprécié aussi bien la mise en abyme (le film dans le film à travers l’opérateur que l’on filme) et cette volonté de montrer une journée quotidienne des Russes que ce soit à travers le travail, le loisir, la vie, la mort, etc. Pendant un peu plus d’une heure, Vertov va s’essayer à différentes techniques de montage, ce qui donne un véritable rythme à l’oeuvre. Ralentis, effets accélérés, écran scindé, etc. Bref, il semble que Vertov veuille montrer que tout est possible avec une caméra. Au niveau du scénario, pour Vertov il n’y en a pas. Il situe d’ailleurs son film comme étant une oeuvre sans scénario, sans acteurs, sans décors et qu’il s’agit bien d’une expérience pour tenter d’affirmer un langage cinématographique par rapport au théâtre. J’ai aussi trouvé que toutes les superpositions d’images, les effets, cette vie quotidienne filmée, ces instants figés donnait un ensemble assez poétique et singulier à ce film. Et même si, au fond, Vertov avait une idée en tête, un plan précis par rapport à la façon de faire le film, une préparation, il s’agit bien d’une oeuvre unique qui a inspiré pas mal d’autres cinéastes par la suite.

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 for early cinema, juxtaposing birth vs death, the power of nature vs the power of man, and the eye vs the lens to supreme effect. What makes the film so especially brilliant is that it essentially is just a collection of commonplace occurrences that happen in Russian cities in the span of a single day. There is no narrative to the film, but it makes wonderful use of the montage theory (as developed by the Soviets themselves) in order to give seemingly unrelated images meaning when juxtaposed together. This mirrors when cinema itself actually began, when photographers would go out into the world and simply film everyday things. The difference here is that this film turns everyday occurrences into art. A cinematic work of art if ever there was one.

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 pulsing rhythm that unites them. Socialist in its depiction of labor and production as the central facet of life, the film also explores the world of leisure, particularly the body in motion. There are two interconnected levels of the camera- the immeidate point of view and a cameraman depicted in the film as an integral and natural part of modernity, the camera itself being a machine with its particualr form of industrial production (crucial segments demonstrate the cutting and editing of film stock). Asn the naked eye is too weak to eprceive the rapidity and complexity of modernity, only the camera can capture modern reality. The film makes no atempt at verite reality, using quick cuts of parallel action, repeated central motifs (the trams), and the fluctuations in film speed, in order to synchronize all the visual material with the aural context of clock-ticking, metronome rhythm. Through these techniques the the seeming chaos of modernity is revealed to be a pulsating, energetic machine that goes by itself.

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 cinema, and without the aid of title cards and theater (actors, sets, etc.) Dziga Vertov shows the world that you can communicate through cinema.

What follows is an average day in Soviet Russia. We see beautiful black and white photography of Russian cities and train depots. We see people awaking and rising into the morning sun. We see a marriage and a divorce. We see a child born and death. The editing is slick in juxtaposing these images together, and it doesn’t stop there. Soon we begin to bounce around particular jobs, such as coal mining and the police officers who control the traffic lights. It’s interesting, since it seems that most of these people are unaware that the camera is present, which is neat because, like in a fictional film, the actors/actresses have to turn a blind eye to the machine that is recording them. However, there are a few scenes in particular (like the woman getting changed) that are obviously staged, but who cares? This movie is a marvel to look at.

We see dutch angles, double exposure, and a really cool editing trick that juxtaposes two dutch angles together. Man with the Movie Camera is short, sweet, and can be found on your Netflix Instant Queue. If you’re interested in film history, documentaries or experimental films, then you should make sure you get the chance to see this.

Es nada mas que el cine en su quintaescencia mas pura. Lo cinematográfico como parte del día a día, como algo necesario, vitual. El experimiento de Vertov, eso del “Cine Ojo” es tan claro en esta pelicula que resulta dificil poner palabras en una obra que no necesita ninguna, porque las dice todas mediante las imagenes, desaforadas, descontroladas, multiplicadas por todos lados.

La idea casi antropomorfa de Vertov es, tambien, la mas extrema de todas las teorias cinematográficas. Utilizando miles de imagenes tomadas de la calle, sin nigún tipo de idea en la mente, la pelicula surge en la sala de montaje, asi, como un acto mágico de creación pura. No hay guión, ni literario ni técnico, no hay ningún tipo de mediación entre la cámara y el hombre, solamente el hambre de imagenes en movimiento y la idea de crear no solo algo completamente radical, sino tambien de transformar al cine en un arte independiente de todas las demas, en la purifación misma. Con “The Man With The Movie Camera” se puede decir que lo consigue (despues, las otras teorias soviéticas se encargaran de traer la polémica, pero eso es otra cosa), pero, mas allá de todo eso, lo que Vertov hace es darnos clamor, calor, amor, ritmo y pasión. Y todo a partir de unas cuantas imágenes tomadas de ahi, de la vida, y puestas una detras de la otra. Fácil, no?

Dziga Vertov and his Kino-Eye theory of film-making, using purely visual cinematic tricks to make a documentary film without the help of intertitles, is proved almost imperceptibly efficient with this legendary experiment in montage, following a cameraman (the director’s brother, cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman) and editing him, and his footage, of city life to rapid-fire symbolic effect. One example of the way in which Vertov and his editor (wife Yelizaveta Svilova, seen as part of the film editing it together) use a forced montage approach to suggest an emotion: a woman wakes up (obviously staged), brushes her teeth and blinks into the mirror, while rapid fire cuts of a camera lens closing, with the opening and closing of blind shutters, finally lead into a shot of an eyeball superimposed over the camera lens, suggesting the ever present totalitarian voyeurism of the camera eye and its ability to capture found life (staged or not) at any time, anywhere. The whole film is filled with similar brilliant instances of symbolic montage (life and death are juxtaposed with a birth and funeral procession, happiness and bitterness with a marriage ceremony and a divorce signing), as Vertov’s pseudo-documentary approach finds a bustling city, the city of the future, teeming with life, unaware that it’s constantly under surveillance, malleable for anyone’s political designs.