The Man With the Movie Camera

Went to Pacific Film Archive last night to see The Man With the Movie Camera, a film from the series Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov. We’d seen this film once before, a decade before in my studio apartment in San Francisco. We watched it from bed, pillows propped against the wall, the images playing across a 24-inch cathode ray tube television. We played an exterior soundtrack by Biosphere which further psychedelicized the whole cinematic experience. It made an impression back then despite (or maybe amplified by?) the small television screen and homespun environment.

In the PFA auditorium, this print was much larger than life and accompanied by a live piano score. Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov (born Denis Abelevich Kaufman ~ 1896–1954) is an essential name for any film student, of whom there were many in the audience last night. And this particular film, I think, is a must-see for anyone interested in the evolution of cinema.

The 1929 silent documentary, edited by Vertov’s wife Elizaveta Svilova, records life in Odessa and various other Russian cities. Certainly the subject matter, getting such an expansive glimpse of 1920’s Russia, is enough to hook a viewer. But it’s the stylistic elements of the film that create the experimental excitement, with slow-motion, split screens, inconceivable angles, and the most powerful technique -- frames flickering by in a breathless, almost contemporary MTV-ish manner. In the span of just a few moments, we see a row of newborn babies in a hospital room, a beggar on a dirty sidewalk, a crowded lunchtime coffee shop. And of course, we see the camera, literally and figuratively, aware of its presence in every frame. With no story and no actors, the camera becomes a protagonist.

As Vertov himself wrote:

"The film Man with a Movie Camera represents
AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION
Of visual phenomena
WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES
(a film without intertitles)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCENARIO
(a film without a scenario)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF THEATRE
(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)
This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema – ABSOLUTE KINOGRAPHY – on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature."

One of my favorite scenes is of a convertible speeding down the open road, the driver and passengers all young and fresh-faced, laughing into the camera – and Vartov balancing himself on the side of the car as it bumps along, impossibly juggling tripod and camera while filming the jubilant faces against the backdrop of the countryside. He is filming and being filmed; in this scene and throughout the entire film, we witness subject and object simultaneously.

Though not all the images are uplifting or triumphant, there is a joy that threads the entire film. Vertov’s work has often been compared to Whitman, and this connection struck me immediately. The rapture of the ordinary, the pulse of life, the simple and profound joy inherent in the act of observation.

I went back to some Whitman this morning; here’s a passage that would be a perfect companion to Vertov’s man with a camera:

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.