Man with a Movie Camera
About Man with a Movie Camera
A cameraman, played by Mikhail Kaufman, walks a Soviet city with the camera on his shoulder. The film is in six reel-length parts and has no story and no intertitles. Waking, work, sport, machines, and evening crowds are cut with double exposure, slow motion, fast motion, and split screens. Editor Yelizaveta Svilova is shown at the bench, cutting the same footage.
Cast & crew
More about Man with a Movie Camera
Dziga Vertov directed for VUFKU, Mikhail Kaufman shot it and appears as the cameraman, and Yelizaveta Svilova edited. Wikidata dates the opening 8 January 1929 and gives 68 minutes. The cities include Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa, and the Sovkino premiere arrangement was later lost.
Themes
Look
Mikhail Kaufman shot from trams, beside machines, and in the street, and Vertov and Svilova cut the six reels with superimposition and speed changes.
Technique
Freeze frames, split screens, and stop-motion sit inside a silent documentary that shows its own editor at work.
Preservation
EYE and Lobster Films restored a complete 35mm cut in 2015. Flicker Alley released that version on Blu-ray.
Notes
- Gleb Troyanski is also credited on camera.
- The opening gag is a number that appears and then falls flat.
- A 2015 restoration by the EYE Film Institute, with digital work by Lobster Films, used a 35mm print of the only known complete cut.
- Flicker Alley issued that restoration on Blu-ray in North America. Eureka issued it in the United Kingdom, and Divisa in Spain.
Scenes
- Kaufman climbs with the camera over the street.
- Svilova holds a strip up to the light.
- A stop-motion camera walks out of its case.
Also available
- Internet Archive (ChelovekskinoapparatomManWithAMovieCamera)
- Wikimedia Commons (Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by Dziga Vertov.webm)
- Flicker Alley Blu-ray (2015 restoration)
