Aesthetic program
The Kinoks group (kino “cinema” + oko“eye” and okno“window”)
Programmatic "Manifesto" “Kino-glaz” (“cine-eye”).
Documentary truth. Films as “wall-newspapers”
"It is far from simple to show the truth, yet the truth is simple." (DzigaVertov)
Using one's eyes (lens as an eye)
Cine-Eye
"Our eyes see very little and very badly – so people dreamed up the microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they invented the telescope...now they have perfected the cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into the visible world, to explore and record visual phenomena so that what is happening now, which will have to be taken account of in the future, is not forgotten." (Dziga Vertov)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Begins with a statement of values
Against theatre, acting, scenarios
No narrative No individual hero People merging
with machines
Constructivist aesthetic
Glorification of technology, delight in watching machines
Camera, machines, trains, trams A “choreography” of machines Machines as “perfect hands” – humans
become machine-like The camera “orders” the events to happen "I am the machine that reveals the world
to you as only I alone am able to see it." (Dziga Vertov)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
No intertitles (but many bits of text tell the story)
Continuation of "Kino-Pravda" ("film truth") – a film series started by Vertov in 1922, the title played on the state newspaper title Pravda (“Truth”)
Genre and devices
Documentary in the genre of "Life of a City"
Actually, several cities shown ( Moscow, Odessa, Kharkov)
Uses the conventions of film-making to “unmask” them (the Kuleshov effect with the dummies)
Rapid cross-cutting – “wake-up therapy”
Ideological message
Down with NEP (New Economic Policy)
Down with bourgeois values, including feature films
Manual labour versus service; down with service
Lev Trotsky’s quote illustrated (vodka, church and cinema as “drugs” used by world capitalism against the working class)