Europe Cinema

Vertov’s Experimental Techniques in

Man with a Movie Camera

Prior to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian film industry was largely imported from Europe. In fact, prior to the beginning of World War I, about 90 percent of films shown in Russia were imported. During the pre-revolution period (between 1914 and 1916) however this number dramatically declined to only 20 percent, as Russian film-producers more than doubled to forty-seven. (Cook 113) Revolution, combined with a world war, a trade embargo, an economic collapse, and famine caused Bolshevik leaders to look towards film as a way to unify their nation. In the words of Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, “The cinema is for us the most important of the arts.” (DeBartolo Silents) This importance was shown through the production of agitki films; propaganda newsreels that toured Russia on specially equipped trains and boats. (Cook 116) While many directors started to produce these pieces of propaganda, none were perhaps as experimental as Dziga Vertov. As shown through his film, Man with a Movie Camera, Vertov experimented with both the subject matter and editing techniques showcased in his works.

At first, Vertov, as editor of newsreels for the Cinema Committee, was content with assembling his films in a functional, linear manner. Gradually however, he became interested in experimental ways to add to the expression of his films. (Cook 115) Along with other young documentarists, collectively called the Kinoki, Vertov began to denounce conventional narrative cinema in favor of films depicting reality, a doctrine he called kino-glaz. This technique attempted to “reproduced reality as it actually appears,” while using “editing to arrange this reality into an expressive and persuasive whole”. (Cook 117)

This focus on reality is easily seen in the subject matter of Vertov’s, Man with a Movie Camera. The film is actually a film within a film. Vertov focuses on Soviet life through the eyes of a...