“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
Tom Clancy
Do you know what the great thing about documentaries are? The camera basically becomes a character also. It is the seeing eye to the real world. Much more intimate settings and circumstances are created. Russian director Dziga Vertov was a pioneer of great documentary film making. He was able to use montage, and camera trickery to keep the audience riveted. One of his finest works is the 1929 avant-garde documentary Chelovek s kinoapparatom, or "The Man With A Movie Camera".
The idea for this film is simple yet original and striking. Vertov would go out on the streets of Moscow in 1929 to film a day in the life of the city and its people. Throughout this film we see shots of early Twentieth Century Russian life. The children are laughing, the beauty parlor is full, and the track stars and motorcycle riders are out on the track.
There is no dialogue during the sixty nine minute masterpiece. Just the rousing score from Pierre Henry. His score goes along with the bustling city life giving it a very memorable quality. Think of the film being like Fantasia only as a live action documentary.
What really struck me though is how flamboyant and pretty Vertov made the film. Just so the audience does not get bored he uses special camera techniques like stop-motion and split screens. Now, of course, these techniques are nothing by today’s standards but back then they were pretty fantastic and it still looks cool today.
Kudos need to go to cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman and editor Yelizaveta Svilova. The editing is so quick and hip. The cinematography keeps our eyes glued to the screen. It even has fun with it like a scene where the cameraman (Vertov) looks like he is taking himself and his camera out of a full glass of beer.
Even with this trickery the film still stands out for its realism. These are just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives and it's very interesting. Its a voyeurism into a time and place that looks so much happier than today. What upsets me is that films like this are not made and released anymore. I am sure that now days average audiences do not have the patience to sit through a movie like this. But I am losing the patience to sit through another movie like Scary Movie, Road Trip, or Bring It On.
This landmark silent masterpiece from Soviet avant-garde director Dziga Vertov stylishly highlights the buzz of everyday city life as seen through the...More at HotMovieSale.com
Described by dziga vertov, its director, as an experiment in thelanguage of pure cinema. It is perhaps the most dazzling and sophisticated, not only o...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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