Certainly among the most exhilarating movies ever made, no matter that it’s nearly a hundred years old now, Dziga Vertov’s whirligig portrait of modern life as experienced in Soviet cities (Moscow, Odessa and Kyiv) uses a battery of innovative photographic and editing techniques (slow and fast motion; superimposition; freeze frames; jump cuts etc) in a way that might be compared to the cut-up techniques of cubism.
Vertov – the Ukranian nom de plume of David Kaufman, which translates as “spinning top” – composes his non-fiction film with artistic exuberance and freedom. In truth, this was a team effort. His brother Boris Kaufman (who would become a Hollywood cinematographer on films like On the Waterfront) was behind the camera (and in front of it, in the title role), and his wife Yelizaveta Svilova was the editor. Together, they created a film without a screenplay, without intertitles, without a debt to theatre or literature, a pure motion picture. In this instance, the avant-garde forges a universal language.
Man with a Movie Camera was the only silent film to crack the top ten in Sight & Sound’s poll and the highest rated silent in the Director’s poll (#30) alongside Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Sunday’s screening in our PANTHEON series will feature free refreshments and a short introduction by Ernest Mathjis, Professor in Film and Media Studies, UBC.
Presented by
Dziga Vertov
Ukraine/Soviet Union
1929
No dialogue
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Credits
Screenwriter
Dziga Vertov
Cinematography
Mikhail Kaufman
Editor
Yelizaveta Svilova
Also in This Series
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Céline Sciamma's queer costume drama -- about a painter covertly studying a young noblewoman who refuses to sit for her portrait -- was voted 30th Greatest Film Ever Made in a 2022 poll, the highest ranking film of the past decade.
I Am Cuba
Infused with a palpable love for the country and a righteous anger at the injustices of the Batista era, I Am Cuba features some of the jaw-dropping camerawork ever filmed. A euphoric celebration of Cuba, the Revolution, and revolutionary cinema.
The Colour of Pomegranates + The House Is Black
This month's Pantheon screening is a double-bill, Sergei Parajanov's extraordinary evocation of the life and work of C18th Armenian poet Sayat Nova, and, The House is Black (22 min), the only film directed by the great Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
Fantasia
Walt Disney pushed the boundaries of animation and sound recording when he put together a movie concert: eight classical pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Stravinski et al, each animated in a different style. It's playful, sometimes cute, other times inspired.
Image: © Disney, 1940