Man With A Movie Camera (1927)

Man With A Movie Camera  (Soviet Union 1927 : 70 minutes) Directed by Dziga Vertov

Early experimental Soviet "propaganda" film from director Dziga Vertov, aiming to document the realities of everyday life in a bustling Russian metropolis, celebrating the impact of industrialisation and the processes of urban progress.

This is an extraordinary film.

At a time when most US and British film makers were content with a single set and a fixed camera position Vertov took his camera out on to the streets of Moscow in an attempt to capture the look and feel of a single day in that city's life.

The novelty of this approach aside he then used the footage to create a dazzling collection of images using every single camera technique available to him and a structure that today would probably be called meta-textual.

So many shots are of the titular man with a movie camera speeding from location to location, several sequences are followed by brief "how we did it" explanatory footage, there are scenes set in the editing suite. The film stops resolves in to a single frame, reverses, winds in on itself and then speeds on.

The pace is frenetic, cut to a seemingly industrial rhythm that pounds and marches into the future at a relentless pace.

The camera is itself the starring character - at the centre of everything while also giving context and a wider view to the images that we are watching. But the people of the city are also given starring roles with big, full-frame close-ups of older people, their faces ceased and worn from a lifetime of struggle and worry; younger people smiling and happy in the sunshine as their day unfolds.

Beginning with empty streets and people waking and rising the film rushes on through all the aspects of modern life : births, marriages and deaths, industry, commerce, relaxation, dancing are all captured by the camera's roving, restless eye.
The streets change from deserted wastelands into bustling thoroughfares filled with horses, carriages, motor buses and cars and people. Thousands of people all moving at once, scattering in every direction under the unmoving eye of the camera.

The camera is hoisted high, slung low, spun, twisted - held stock still and shot forward on foot, in cars and on a train. The effect is a visual poem to the city and it's many facets.

There is criticism that the film is little more than propaganda for the new Soviet regime, but that's patently not true.
There are, for example, several shots of rough sleepers, the film isn't uncritical - but it's aim is not to celebrate the successes of the new government but to capture the effect that change has had on the population.

It's a joyful, uplifting celebration of life and a Utopian hymn to a possible future.

These days Man With A Movie Camera is most often seen with a newly composed Michael Nyman score ; while (in places) the soundtrack pulls against the images, for the most part Nyman's music underpins and accentuates the visuals, feeling like an integral part of the film rather than a (much latter) addition.

This is an extraordinary film.