Dziga Vertov

Firstly, it is important to understand how the documentary form is best suited to illustrate the film’s theme. In order to do this, one must have an overview of the documentary style of filmmaking. Documentaries concern themselves with the “exploration of

Soviet Montage is a movement driven by “Marxist [politics]” and an “economic philosophy” developed in Soviet Russia at the time of revolution. Lenin himself considered film, as an art form as the “most influential of all arts” as it not only entertained but could be used to “[mould] and reinforce values.”( Mast, G. & Kawin, B. F.) Sergei Eisenstein, himself a Marxist, is no exception to this and not only are his films are full of political propaganda, but he is also considered “the greatest master of montage.” .”( Mast, G. & Kawin, B. F.) His film October, called Ten Days That Shook The World in the Western world at the time and butchered due to its content, has always been considered problematic for audiences and critics alike and the standard critique of the film soon became “The Film as a whole is difficult and incoherent.” (Sperbur) Although if analysed properly, you can see that it has powerful political and social messages to convey and comprises of film form that Eisenstein himself called “intellectual film.”

The directors chosen camera technique, a simple two composition that progresses the scene a steady pace, forces the audience to feel a part of the awkward exchange; obviously, a quality of film that could not be as profoundly achieved through the narrative in the novel.

Theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin claims that narrative films are mainly a “product of construction” and cautious compilations of “selections of images that have been shot” (Renée).

Wislawa Szymborska's "The Kindness of the Blind" describes the challenge of reading a poem to a blind person. The poet is not the speaker, but the speaker knows what the poet is thinking as he reads the poem, allowing the reader to understand the poet's emotions. Initially, the poet is surprised by his own anxiety over reading the poem; he "did not suspect it was so hard" to read to a blind person (2). He is conscious of his own apprehension, and the speaker notes that "his voice is breaking/his hands are shaking"(3-4). The reader is left wondering why the poet is so nervous, and the speaker explains the source of the apprehension in line 5. Because his audience is a blind man, the poet feels that "here each sentence is put to the test of the dark" (5-6). He cannot rely on outside scenes or the listener's own mental images to enhance his writing; it is laid bare in front of him, causing him to critique his own

This documentary features familiar, and credible, faces who provide detailed biographies, stories, and facts on film and art. Due to the relatively basic vocabulary used throughout, it is apparent that this film’s intended audience is very broad. It could be viewed by someone with a very fundamental knowledge

Through a synthesis of observational photography and cinematic montage, Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov created Man With A Movie Camera, a radical work that is fully divorced from the theatrical and literary tradition of the use of fiction to communicate deeper truths and themes of reality. The film captures a day of urban Soviet city life and through juxtaposition and abstraction, morphs into a rhythmic visual poem that conveys a utopian vision of an egalitarian socialist society. Rejecting the formalism of bourgeois melodrama and rigid objectivity of Soviet realism, the film also boldly celebrates the transcendent power of cinematic expression. The cinematographer, editor, and the camera itself become primary characters as, for the first time, documentary filmmaking pulls back the curtain on itself, revealing the constructivist nature of the medium as well as its ability to exceed the limitations of time, physical space and human observation. Vertov’s conception of “film-truth,” sought to unify the authentic and abstract into a cohesive work of film art, free from the restrictions of language, that would assist the proletarian masses around the world in developing a more profound and

In the beginning sequence of the film, Vertov creates a unique narrative framework that loses many facets that make up the definition of a plot. Differing itself from other films, Man with a Movie Camera does not contain any characters in its narrative, no protagonist, no supporting characters, no antagonist. This absence is very odd because characters usually drive the narrative of the film through their motivations and goals. Even in documentaries, such as 4 Little Girls, include many characters that drive the story of the 16th Street Baptist church bombing. Without including any characters, Vertov wants to focus on realistically depicting the city he’s filming without the need of a character driven plot. Technically, if the sequence was analyzed at face value, the film does not have a conflict because there is no straight-forward narrative to the movie. Instead, Vertov simply shows a compilation of what he has filmed, and the audience has the responsibility of piecing together the “narrative.” He accomplishes this plot by using an array

Driven by the same communistic idea, Dziga Vertov presents another, all different way of his propaganda style. His vision applies to the beauty of the regular daily life and he starts experimenting with to demonstrate the objective eye of the movie camera of recording and showing the un-staged events that are not noticed by the bared human eye. His movement Cine-Eye distinguishes his position from the idea of the

The city is an integral and evocative theme in Dziga Vertov’s Man With the Movie Camera. The film is a kaleidoscopic rendering of urban life in the Soviet cities of Moscow, Odessa and Kiev. Through the use of editing and cinematography, Vertov creates a progressive and complex urban landscape that highlights both the rhythm of the city and the constructed nature of the cinematic medium. Vertov’s film can certainly be considered in relation to the ‘city symphony’, a genre of films made during the 1920s and 1930s that were greatly influenced by modern art movements such as impressionism and constructivism.

In this essay, I will explain why a documentary is always more realistic than a fiction film. I will show my thesis by exploring elements that influence how realistic a film is: film editing and format, genre, and transparency. I will use the documentary of Armadillo (2010), by Janus Pedersen, and the fiction film of The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), by Danièle Huille as examples.

The concept of the soviet montage movement is to show a certain idea to the audience through the use of film. This movement can show any idea that the director intends for the film, this can go from harmless ideas to the extreme of propaganda. The soviet montage movement began in Russia in 1924 until 1930.

Both Eisenstein and Vertov used montage in their films to generate revisionist histories of the Soviet Union. Though both were

A single camera production is the use one single camera to film all of the diverse shots. An advantage of single camera production is the flexibility with shots due to other cameras not being in the frame and also the low budget. On the other hand, single camera production comes with disadvantages such as being time consuming and difficult to consistently reposition; furthermore if the camera is damaged all work may be lost. Within this essay, I will be discussing the elements in which make up a single camera production along with indicating an understanding of the codes and conventions that relate to this area of media. Single camera productions can use certain narrative structures such as linear, where the narrative runs in chronological

The Kuleshov Workshop explored the effects of juxtaposition in film, and how sequential shots convey a