In Theaters | New DVD | Find Reviews | Thumbs Up

	Man with the Movie Camera A Documentary about Soviet Society with a Mad Cameraman in Its Midst Reviewed by Bruce Cantwell There's a sequence in Dziga Vertov's THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA in which cameraman Mikhail Kaufman teeters atop the door of a Model T Ford to shoot a family riding parallel in a horse drawn carriage. The image is accompanied on the soundtrack by a driving rhythmic synthesizer/percussion score which raises a question about this movie as "documentary." How often in city life do you encounter a cameraman photographing another cameraman photographing people riding in a horse carriage? On the commentary track, by Yuri Tsivian, Vertov describes his film as "a philosophical study argued in the mode of fun." While the philosophical study has lost its impact over the years: happy Soviet workers filling cigarette packages, mining coal, driving buses and trolley cars at lightning speed, jumping over high hurdles and enjoying the beach at Odessa, the "mode of fun" is completely intact. This "day in the life" of a virtual city in the Soviet Union, composed of Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and elsewhere, is really about the sheer joy of making movies. To supposedly expose the cinematic hocus pocus used in fictional films, Vertov pulls out all the stops: fast motion, slow motion, reverse motion, split screen, double exposure, stop motion animation, you name it. In his effort to show us the future of cinema, with its essentially plotless nonfiction films, he creates a story of an obsessed cameraman risking his life to make the mundane seem thrilling. The DVD and video transfers of the film are more faithful than usual transfers of silent films that were shot at 16 frames per second but projected at 24. Though it's true that Vertov's film is "sped up," Vertov instructed the original projectionists of the film to show it at 24 fps. Audiences at the time, saw the film the same way we do. The commentary track points out some of the contradictions in Vertov's Quixotic mission. One critic notes that trying to teach an entire city to behave naturally before a camera instead of a few trained actors is analagous to trying to hammer a nail with a wall. Vertov and his cameraman Kaufman reportedly got into arguments over Vertov's goal to destroy the feature films. Kaufman felt it was hypocritical to attempt to destroy an art form that gave both men great pleasure. Ironically, Vertov's documentary succeeds because of its devices, not its subject. It's unlikely that a silent documentary from 1929 capturing a day in the life of Soviet citizens would have a very wide audience in 2001. Yet thanks to its endless inventiveness and energy, it's still a fun to watch.	Search Now:
In Theaters | New DVD | Find Reviews | Thumbs Up