Dziga Vertov II. Man with a Movie Camera

FOR VIEWERS' ATTENTION:

THIS FILM PRESENTS AN EXPERIMENT
IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION
OF VISIBLE EVENTS

WITHOUT THE AID OF INTERTITLES
(A FILM WITHOUT INTERTITLES)

WITHOUT THE AID OF A SCENARIO
(A FILM WITHOUT A SCENARIO)

WITHOUT THE AID OF A THEATER
(A FILM WITHOUT ACTORS, SETS, ETC.)

THIS EXPERIMENTAL WORK AIMS
AT CREATING A TRULY INTERNATIONAL
ABSOLUTE LANGUAGE OF CINEMA
BASED ON ITS TOTAL SEPARATION
FROM THE LANGUAGE OF THEATER AND LITERATURE

An unexpectedly extraordinary motion picture. If you know me, beware: I am going to buy this movie and show it to you. If you are a music lover, don't wait for me to find you. Watch it yourself now.

You might wonder how the above titles, which open the 1929 film, could precede anything other than a pretentious bore. My most vigorous assurances to the contrary. What we have here, in modern terms, is a 68-minute music video constructed without any specific music or sound at all. Understand how incredible this is. Of course the movie would be shown with orchestral accompaniment, but performing a piece composed afterward as with all scored films. A music video, on the other hand, does not precede the song. Point being that you know a music video when you see one by the way, even muted, the editing and the motion of the images create an undeniable rhythm.

Try watching on mute the scene in Clockwork Orange wherein Alex listens to the Ninth in his bedroom, with the chorus line of Jesuses. It's a short music video — impossible to imagine cutting those images together as Kubrick did unless he were taking dictation from a song. But that's exactly what Vertov did: create a continuous music video for an entire symphony except there was no symphony. He dictated music with film, frame by frame, note by note. I'm trying to say it's a goddamn work of genius. A summer of blockbusters is not so thrilling.


Version I saw is the 2002 Image Entertainment DVD release. The featured score is an original composed by the Alloy Orchestra in 1995, based on Vertov's own notes and instructions, and by many accounts it is the most preferred. I was spellbound.