Review Of The Film A Man With A Movie Camera
The most extraordinary Vertov’s work. Maybe even the unique in its kind. It seemed completely different from all that he did before and that he even did later. Finally, we have Vertov’s creation, in which there is no smell of Soviet propaganda either. Here comes the metaphor of the “pure cinema”. The film has unusual and complex syntax, difficult form of editing, jumping rhythm. He was overloaded with stunt shots, unusual angles and the like. It’s idea, even his name, suggested the demonstration of all the capabilities of a person armed with a movie camera.
The film “A Man with a Movie Camera” is a dissertation on the topic “100% Language of Cinema”. Why don't we make a film about the film language, the first film without words, not requiring translation into other languages, an international film. The Man with the Camera has neither text, nor script, nor actors, and transmits life taken by surprise in all its amazing dynamism, maximum expressiveness of each shot. As Vertov said: “I was particularly interested in the chronicle possibilities of the camera - the ability to record pieces of real life, a chronicle of outgoing and unique events on film”. Cinematographer performed by Vertov’s brother Mikhail Kaufman puta a camera on his shoulder, travels around the city, shooting it from above, and below, and the trains, and houses, and people, and cars, everything that falls into his lens. The author wanted to show a camera that captures the smallest household and life phenomena. The camera was supposed to be present at the birth of a person and escort him to the cemetery, shoot a man and a woman at the time of registration of their marriage in the registry office and be near when their life paths diverge. The camera accompanied the newlyweds from the registry office to the church, looked into the hairdresser and the factory, swam in the air between the streets, blast furnaces. Suddenly it became a traffic policeman. Cars, trams, carts pass by in different directions. This whirlpool of traffic, underlined by the movement of the camera around its axis, caused the spectator to be dizzy and thought that a regulator should feel something like that.
But that is not all! This movie does not end there. Because there is another cameraman who is shooting Kaufman himself, the cameraman himself is the movie "Man with a Movie Camera. " It turns out such a reflection of cinema: a movie about a cinematographer who makes documentary films in Kiev, Odessa and Moscow. As critics says: “The hero of the movie is not a film director, tormented by contradictions, but a man with a film camera, who also opens to the viewer a spacious panorama of life, not dark, but light”. This is a bright film, devoid of propaganda, aggression and any kind of Soviet evil.
Worth noting that when releasing a movie for hire, Vertov personally wrote wishes about what music would be played and at what point: here is brisk music, a march, and here is a quiet piano, and so on. But, nevertheless, no matter how loud the praises were, “The Man with the Movie Camera” was taken to hostility. Most of the Soviet critics did not share the opinions of Vertov about the success and the more necessity to even create such a movie.
