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Dziga VertovChelovek s kinoapparatom (Man With A Movie Camera) (1929)

Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera is considered one of the most innovative and influential films of the silent era.
Startlingly modern, this film utilizes a groundbreaking style of rapid editing and incorporates innumerable other cinematic effects to create a work of amazing power and energy.
Film pioneer Dziga Vertov uses all the cinematic techniques available at the time - dissolves, split screen, slow motion and freeze frames.

This movie is silent!
But here are some music that i think fit to it
The Drum & Bass from Digibeat Music

and the groovy sound from Centerpole
If you know of music that you think do fit to this Movie please say so in your review and share with all of us


This movie is part of the collection: Feature Films

Director: Dziga Vertov
Production Company: VUFKU (The Ukrainian Photo and Cinema Administration)
Sponsor: www.k-otic.com
Audio/Visual: silent, black & white
Keywords: Silent; Documentary
Contact Information: www.k-otic.com

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: B-Movie Ben - - April 9, 2009
Subject: Honesty and perfection
Writer-director Dziga Vertov gained his skills during the Russian Civil War filming the red Army and showing the footage in villages and towns. This experience, combined with his association with those of the Cine-Eye, resulted in this outstanding production that was fascinating, innovative, and a captivating tale not only of Soviet life, but a praise to the Soviet system.

The film starts in the morning as the city (predominately Moscow, but others as well) awakens and people start to get ready to work. It follows the citizens through the day, and into the evening. It is non-linear. it does jump back and forth, but that only adds to the view. It shows birth and death, marriage and divorce, and, more importantly, the progress of life in the Soviet Union. We see manual sewing give way to the sewing machine, manual cigarette packaging transformed by machines, the abacus replaced by cash registers; all this to allow the citizens a more satisfying work experience so they can enjoy life after work and go to the shores on the weekend.

There are many techniques in this film: slow motion, animation, multiple-images, split-screens, zooms and reverse zooms blurring focus and freeze frames. It is not only a work glorifying the Soviet Union, but a textbook o0n film-making.

It is not only the camera work that is spectacular, but Vertov's wife did a spectacular job of editing. The sports segments were extremely imaginative in the way they were edited, as was the rest of the film.

It is a masterpiece that stands the test of time.

Reviewer: montague - - January 27, 2009
Subject: Soundtracks - multiple
There are many professional soundtracks available. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_with_a_Movie_Camera#Soundtracks for details.

Reviewer: 1984 Producciones - - October 14, 2008
Subject: THANK YOU!!!!
It´s, maybe, the most creative movie of the cinema begginings.
Vertov do a Jump in the edition theory.
This is the old version but in 2002 The Cinematic Orchestra it created an OST for this movie, and if you can see this with the new music, the spectacle is wonderful.
I recomended

Reviewer: bobt3ch - - March 12, 2008
Subject: LA MEJOR PELICULA
ES UN EXCELENTE MATERIAL EXPERIMENTAL DE LOS MEJORES DE LA VIEJA ESCUELA

Reviewer: gnu.animal - - March 6, 2008
Subject: good
good

Reviewer: diod - - March 1, 2008
Subject: somebody must be genious...?:)
i don't no if somebody read this reviews here, well, i've just read and was quite surprised with the note that "Man with a Movie Camera" isn't that original at all and even was plagiarized from "Berlin: Symphony of a great city". and so i decided to find out more (downloading "Berlin" in the mean time). actually, don't get me wrong, "Man.." now has fresh huge impact on me, i'm quite stunned, thinking that Vertov was an "ordinary" genious, that simply forestall his time. by the way, i'm from Ukraine, where "Man.." was filmed) still, here some quotes of what i've found - "Berlin review": "the film was heavily influenced by the earlier works of Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov", "it's hard to top Dziga Vertov's The Man With a Movie Camera, released two years after this film."..
http://www.answers.com/Berlin%3A+Symphony+of+a+Great+City?cat=entertainment

well, regarding the main idea of director Vertov - it's very hard to accomplish - to show life as it is. As it's just like in quantum mechanics: observer make impact on the object studied, and not simply by presence, but rather by this "so human" subjective seduction to find sense, to rationalize, to show someone's artistic view, rather than pure life of others. Say, imho, "Man.." in this respect maybe even better than modern films like, say, "Baraka".. As for Cinematic Orchestra soundtracking - it's actually one of my favourite bands and their album was the original motivation to find the film itself - well, CO made some really good job, but they are just talented=) - as i understand the original idea of music was to make it's floating under the human rush, as clouds in the sky.. but actually music at times "overfloat" the film, bluring sharp small details.. it's just to "cotton wooled", "clean", "safe" maybe... still the final scene is just greatly "sounding"!)

Reviewer: fotomatt - - March 29, 2007
Subject: Modern Soundtrack is Available
Haven't watched the movie just yet, so can't comment on it. But a modern soundtrack was recorded just a few years ago and it is excellent. My rating, therefore, is only in regards to this soundtrack.

From Wikipedia:

"Man with a Movie Camera" is the fourth album by The Cinematic Orchestra. It is the soundtrack to a re-released version of the (then ground-breaking) 1929 silent documentary film, Man with a Movie Camera from Russian director Dziga Vertov. The Cinematic Orchestra were commissioned to record the score to play as the opening event in Porto, Portugal's year as European Capital of Culture in 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_with_a_Movie_Camera_%28album%29

Reviewer: robcat2075 - - December 19, 2006
Subject: Not all that original
When I saw this film I thought it was quite stunning, both in itself and for its time. But then I saw "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" (which predates this film by a year or so) a few days later and realized how much has been plagiarized. The trains, the shop window displays, the machinery mechanisms, even the close-ups of the typewriter keyboard are all just too similar to be coincidence.

Watch it for the documentary view of early Soviet life, but don't take it as ground breaking