Dziga Vertov was a Russian filmmaker alive during Russia’s Stalinist era. Man with a Movie Camera applies what Vertov saw happening in his city and the communist landscape of Russia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16GETB5rv-c). He was interested in film as more than just a means of entertainment…he didn’t like how fiction films acted as a distraction rather than a tool to advance film and put more thought into the purpose of films (he felt fiction films were the opiate of the masses). His directorial name, Dziga Vertov, meant “sound in motion.” This is relevant because this particular film he created had no dialogue, and did not have a linear plot that laid assault to human intellect; rather, he created sound montages, applied them to images he shot/that showed him shooting, and does not tell the viewers what to think about what’s happening in front of them. This film employs the postmodern idea of reflexivity, and purposely employed artificial scenes for a heightened sense of awareness on the part of the viewers. A good example of this actually also illustrates a concept he created: the cinema eye and Kino-Pravda (aka “film truth”). The idea behind this concept was that film should carry a deeper meaning beyond what the naked eye was seeing on the screen.
illustration of Vertov’s concept of the “cinema eye” and film truth
Other notable films from the painterly mode include Rain, Berlin: Symphony of a City, and Balet Mecanique, just to name a few. These films were influenced by futurism, a fascination with parts and machines, and their movements. It utilizes sounds as symbols to life (as seen by the music that accompanied the scenes in these aforementioned films). This is very apparent in Balet Mecanique, for example, with it’s flurry of images accompanied by chaotic and random sounds.
In all these films, the images, and sometimes the music, drive what is happening in front of the viewer. They employ no dialogue or other sounds, and even though they reject the type linear storytelling of fiction movies, the images paint a story with a beginning, climax, and end. Rain, and Berlin: Symphony of a City illustrate this point well. In Berlin, the story begins with the city waking up. The day-to-day happenings and the people and the city functions act as an international language that employs visuals as opposed to grammar and words.
“Berlin: Symphony of a City” Poster
still from the Dutch silent film “Regen” (“Rain”)
These films were very influential to documentary and film in general. After Vertov’s film, a lot of Russian fiction films began incorporating neo-realistic themes. For documentary, Vertov’s use of juxtaposition of the film being made while showing the scenes broke down the third wall and showed people that film was portable and able to go places it hadn’t before. In addition, these films marked an era when documentary was becoming more experimental and abstract in nature, proving to the masses that film could be entertaining, interesting, and thought provoking without dialogue or a linear plot. Also, these films are innovative because they focused on images carrying the story, using light as the medium. These films showed that documentary, and film in general, could push the boundaries by forcing people to think about what was in front of them, rather than pulling the wool over the eyes of society.