Part of the 30 Days in May challenge, 2014 edition

USSR

I’m positively gob-smacked.

Completely unexpectedly I’ve witnessed the birth of pure visual and emotional storytelling. Now, you can’t be completely caught off guard as director Dziga Vertov states the fact conclusively right at the start of the picture, but even that stern warning doesn’t prepare you for what is to immediately follow.

Man with a Movie Camera joyously bursts onto the screen like an invigorating swim at the break of dawn. It’s alive; its buzzing; it’s jubilant. Watching it is like being swept along by a coursing current twisting and turning through mountainside gorge; you’re helpless to resist it.

This is far more than simply telling a story visually;…

It's really a bittersweet feeling to know that I will never be able to truly understand what it must have been like to sit in a theater and watch one of the first screenings of Man with a Movie Camera. As enchanting as the images and editing techniques are to today's audience, I try to imagine how much more mindblowing such revolutionary concepts would be in 1929 and I fall far short. It's a virtual encyclopedia of techniques, performed with bravado and a certain show-offiness, but redeemed by the fact that it pulls off the act to perfection. How close to magic this must have been (frankly, it still seems as much), and how much more exhilarating and frightening the…

Part of Film School Dropouts 2017
My List | Master List
Week 5: Movement - Russian Montage (1923-1934)

How should one approach watching a film as important as Man with a Movie Camera? You can watch it academically as a showcasing of innovative editing techniques, or as a cinematic entry into the Russian Futurism canon. But if that sounds boring or intimidating to you, don't fret. Put your film theory textbook to the side and just watch. Little context is necessary to enjoy this, as it's wildly entertaining even by today's standards.

This is a ballet of images. The cuts make the movements being filmed appear to be rhythmic - industrial machinery chugging, folks riding bicycles, etc. The motionless subjects,…

It's hard to know where to start with Man with a Movie Camera. It's so influential, so monumental, so expansive, and yet so simple; a cameraman filming aspects of Soviet city life. Sports, transport, labour, leisure, marriage, divorce, birth, death, and cinema itself all make a grand appearance in this film, but it's more than that. This is a film about modernism, about industrialisation, and an optimistic take on the future, all of it that works beautifully.

Initially, it introduces us to a series of title cards which state that this is an experiment in cinematic communication, without the use of intertitles, narrative, actors, and sets, instead focusing on the authentic absolute language of life and cinema. Then it starts…