Monday, February 9, 2009

Dziga Vertov: "Man With a Movie Camera"


This Russian silent movie is one of my Favourite movies of all time, and it's on youtube for free! I own the version with the Michael Nyman soundtrack, but this is The Cinematic Orchestra soundtrack, which is more varied and more acclaimed.

The movie is kinda of a Russian precursor to "Koyaanisqatsi" - it has moody footage from daily life in Russian cities in the late 1920s, ind intercuts it with philosophical silent musings about the nature of cinematography.

Wikipedia:

"Vertov's feature film, produced by the Ukrainian film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in Odessa and other Soviet cities. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters," they are the cameraman of the title and the modern Soviet Union he discovers and presents in the film.

This film is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invents, deploys or develops, such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, footage played backwards, animations and a self-reflexive style (at one point it features a split screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles)."


To get more info about the movie, go read the WIKI-entry.

(The first few minutes are completely silent, until the orchestra in the movie starts to play, then the soundtrack music starts)



the rest of the movie:




at 11:17 AM

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