"Man with a Movie Camera"

Paper Summary:

This paper describes how, while working within the most innovative period in Soviet cinema, before the coming of sound, Dziga Vertov created the film "Man with a Movie Camera", a tribute to the newly formed Communist State, urban environments and technological advancement. It analyzes how in order to create a variety of themes, including those comparing the bourgeois and working classes, man and machinery and the nature of film itself, Vertov uses editing to relate a series of seemingly unrelated shots. It looks at how these shots are comprised of five types of images: industrial construction, traffic, machinery, recreation and citizen-workers. It also shows how he constructs meaning through editing in the film to form an argument in favor of the newly formed soviet state by juxtaposing disjunctive images, but also linking the images through composition.

From the Paper:

"The main theme of Vertov's film is a cameraman performing his daily routine in an urban environment, and this meaning is produced through the films ability to show both the cameraman at work and the reaction he receives from the people he films. The entire film is reflexive in the sense that the audience is constantly reminded that film is a constructed environment, designed by the filmmaker. Mixing in shots of the camera, the cameraman, and the editing process maintain the idea that the film is just a part of Vertov's usual routine. The sequence opens with a shot of the cameraman reflected in the camera's lens, continues with a shot of the urban setting in which the events will unfold, and then returns to the filmmaker's "work" of filming traffic."

More papers on "Man with a Movie Camera":

• Research Paper # 74871 : "The Man With a Movie Camera" - An Analysis"
• Film Review # 83601 : "Dziga Vertov's "A Man with a Movie Camera" "
• Film Review # 57049 : "Man with a Movie Camera"

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