Documentary Analysis Man With a Movie Camera
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In 1923, Dziga Vertov composed a manifesto in which he stated: "My path leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world I decipher in a new way a world unknown to you." The embodiment these intentions is The Man With a Movie Camera. This film is an avant-garde rendering of documentary techniques which constructs a meta-narrative that promotes Soviet society, and reconsiders the role of the documentary filmmaker an industrial world. Vertov elevates the process of filmmaking to an art form, establishing a role for cinema in art and politics. Vertov considered the perception of life captured by camera as superior to human perception. In the Man With a Movie Camera, Vertov attempted to produce a catalog of film making techniques, resulting in a documentary dominated by montage sequences that illustrate themes such as movement, industry and the synchronization of man and machine. Vertov experimented with the optical techniques available at the time, incorporating variable camera speeds, scene dissolves, split-screen effects, prismatic lenses and multiple exposures in an effort to transform the structure of traditional narrative cinema.
Through the use of these methods, Vertov combines seemingly disparate sequences to construct a dialog portraying a typical day in Russia from dawn to dusk. Vertov layers Socialist imagery over images such as typewriter keys, spinning wheels, and gears with images of people walking in the walking the streets, driving cars or resting at the beach. Vertov attempts to transcend the recording of reality, by presenting an enhanced perception of reality through the cinematic eye...