Blu Ray Review: Man With a Movie Camera (1929)

When Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera was released as the silent era was concluding, his form-over-substance approach was wildly misunderstood and not well appreciated. Over 90 years later, it represents a fascinating look at how his cinéma verité approach not only presents another time and place, historically, but expands cinematography beyond its parameters at the time.

No plot, story, or actors; Vertov instead investigates how he can present cinema’s visuals by offering a series of shots and scenes presenting everyday life in Russian villages. The camera is a focal point along with the shots it is taking, often becoming purposefully intrusive. And within its context, Man With a Movie Camera exhibits the filmmaker’s myriad of ideas that were then new concepts, including slow and fast motion, multiple exposures, freeze framing, and split screen visuals. Some of these ideas were invented by Vertov, others were established on a basic level upon which he attempted to expand.

What is most fascinating about Man With a Movie Camera is how involving and visually stimulating it is, even though there is no discernible structure. Vertov takes us with him on his journey, allowing us to not only see through his camera’s lens, but also his creative eye. In fact, among the most impressive portions of the film is the quick crosscutting from a closeup of a human eye, to a rapidly moving camera panning up, down, and around different scenes. There is real movement within the frame of every shot.

Some of Man With a Movie Camera is happy (carefree children playing merrily in the street) and other portions are unsettling (injuries, an open-casket funeral procession through the streets).

Kino Lorber’s blu ray release is enhanced by an excellent orchestral score by Michael Nyman, as well as informative and enlightening audio commentary by film historian Adrian Martin, The Life and Times of Dziga Vertov: An Interview with Ian Christie, and Dziga Vertov: Non-Fiction Film Thing, a video essay by David Cairns.

Man With a Movie Camera is certainly among the most powerfully influential and important films in cinema’s rich history, using the medium’s period technology to explore is visual possibilities. The Kino blu ray demands a place on the shelf of any film library.

The blu ray is available at this link: Vertov/Camera