From "The Eleventh Year" to "The Man with a Movie Camera": conceptual search of Dziga Vertov

Dziga Vertov (b. 1896, Bialystok, Russian Empire–d. 1954, Moscow, USSR) was a pioneering Soviet filmmaker, whose films and manifestos played a central role in 20th century documentary, experimental film, and political cinema traditions. Working in the USSR in the 1920s–1950s, Vertov led the radical Kino-Eye (Cine-Eye) collective, which championed a new film language that would draw on the unique mechanical and audiovisual properties of cinematography, rather than on theatre or literature traditions. His polemical resistance to narrative fiction films contributed to the development of avant-garde documentary techniques in the Soviet Union and abroad. Long after Vertov fell out of favor in his native country, his work continued to influence international documentary cinema and political media groups. Born as David Abelevich Kaufman, Dziga Vertov adopted his pseudonym in early adulthood, and his subsequent work often blurs the lines between the filmmaker’s personal experiences and ideas ascribed to his alter ego. This split between Vertov’s personal life and his constructed persona reflected his belief that cinema, too, could simultaneously document observed reality and construct an entirely new reality from captured slices of life. Vertov maintained that filmmakers should seek out and expose the hidden social and political forces that govern life, using moving images and sound to shape spectator consciousness. His films were in dialogue with several avant-garde art movements, and he often experimented with different film techniques in hopes of both depicting and transforming reality. Moreover, Vertov argued that media technology, especially the movie camera and the wireless radio, would radically change how human beings navigated the world and how they understood their place in society. His theoretical writings are foundational to the discipline of film studies and to writings on film cinematography and montage. His seminal 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s Kinoapparatom) is a cornerstone of film courses worldwide.

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V-v-Vertov R-r-Re-Made

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Film and Media Studies ◽

10.1515/ausfm-2015-0004 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 77-106 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Peter Ole Pedersen ◽

Jan Løhmann Stephensen

Keyword(s):

Digital Media ◽

Documentary Film ◽

Participatory Culture ◽

New Materialism ◽

Film Genre ◽

Avant Garde ◽

American Artist ◽

Dziga Vertov ◽

Film Language ◽

Movie Camera

Abstract The seminal work of pioneering avant-garde filmmaker Dziga Vertov, The Man with the Movie Camera (Chevolek s kino-apparatom, 1929) has given rise to a number of discussions about the documentary film genre and new digital media. By way of comparison with American artist Perry Bard’s online movie project entitled Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake (2007), this article investigates the historical perspective of this visionary depiction of reality and its impact on the heralded participatory culture of contemporary digital media, which can be traced back to Russian Constructivism. Through critical analysis of the relation between Vertov’s manifest declarations about the film medium and his resulting cinematic vision, Bard’s project and the work of her chief theoretical inspiration Lev Manovich are examined in the perspective of ‘remake culture,’ participatory authorship and the development a documentary film language. In addition to this, possible trajectories from Vertov and his contemporary Constructivists to recent theories of ‘new materialism’ and the notion of Man/Machine-co-operation is discussed in length.

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VJ Vertov: from the compositing interface to the use of the projection space

Visual Communication ◽

10.1177/1470357218772187 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 363-380

Author(s):

Oswaldo García-Crespo ◽

Diana Ramahí-García ◽

Alberto Dafonte-Gómez

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Traditional Concept ◽

Creative Processes ◽

Starting Point ◽

Dziga Vertov ◽

Practical Research ◽

The Subject ◽

Representative Work ◽

Time Image ◽

Movie Camera

Once digitization had been standardized in the process of audiovisual creation, there has been an improvement over the last decades in the efficiency of storage, coding and transfer systems, an integration of editing and compositing procedures, an increased potential for real-time image and sound manipulation and an increase in the mediation of software and its interface in creative processes. On the basis of both a representative work – Chelovek S Kino-Apparatom ( Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929) − and the considerations of Lev Manovich, one of the leading theorists on the subject, this essay is intended as a starting point for addressing issues related to the mutations produced in the traditional concept of film editing as a consequence of the digitization process described above. For this purpose, the authors summarize the results of practical research based on the real-time filmic reinterpretation of the film’s editing.

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Time - Backwards: Mayakovsky Quotes Vertov

Journal of Flm Arts and Film Studies ◽

10.17816/vgik6426-32 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 26-32

Author(s):

Alexander Alexeevich Pronin

Keyword(s):

Public Interest ◽

Literary Text ◽

Vladimir Mayakovsky ◽

Avant Garde ◽

The Third ◽

Dziga Vertov ◽

History Of ◽

Russian Cinema ◽

Significant Figures ◽

Movie Camera

The article is devoted to the problem of creative interaction of such significant figures of Russian revolutionary avant-garde of the 1920's, as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Dziga Vertov. The relevance of the study is determined by everlasting public interest in one of the most significant pages in the history of Russian cinema, and its novelty stems from the fact that the author has discovered and analyzed previously unnoticed evidence of citing of Vertov's Kino-eye (1924) in the screenplays by Mayakovsky How are you? (1927). In his article the mechanism of Vertovs cinema texts incorporation into their own literary text script is thoroughly investigated, and a convincing proof for the reason why Mayakovsky resorted to this technique is provided. In addition, the article convincingly shows how the lyrical theme of the script changes the meaning of the quotation, which allows to arrive at the conclusion that quotatione, demonstrated in the original that is the power of cinema over time (negative of time), in the script by Mayakovsky becomes a metaphor for the lack of it as such. In the third script, the author shows breads way back from the shop counter to the peasants fields (frames 16-39), which fully corresponds to the action of the fourth part of the D. Vertov's documentary Kino-eye (32-40 minutes). The article advances the hypothesis that Mayakovsky was counting on recognition of the twist, and a possible D. Vertovs response on this creative game, proposed by Mayakovsky, might be Man with a Movie Camera (1929), since according to the plan and the composition it resonates with the script by Mayakovsky being a likewise lyrical diary of the artist as How are you?. The author concludes that Man with a Movie Camera is probably a sort of intravitam screen adaptation of Mayakovskys script.

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The Kino-Eye Montage Procedure as a Formal Experiment

AM Journal of Art and Media Studies ◽

10.25038/am.v0i15.227 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Amra Latifić

Keyword(s):

Visual Arts ◽

Visual Experience ◽

Russian Formalism ◽

Avant Garde ◽

Dziga Vertov ◽

Dominant Characteristic ◽

The Impact ◽

The Relationship ◽

Formal Experiment ◽

Movie Camera

This text presents an analysis of the relationship between Kino-Eye, the Russian montage technique that was most clearly demonstrated by Dziga Vertov in his 1929 film The Man with a Movie Camera, and Russian Formalist theory, which underwent an intensive period of development during the 1920s. Russian Formalism, established primarily as a theory of literature, was likewise applied in film and the visual arts. A dominant characteristic of Soviet film authors and theorists from the avant-garde period was a preoccupation with linguistic aspects and an understanding of film itself in terms of language. Transposing Viktor Shklovsky’s notion of defamiliarization [остранение, ostranenie] to the visual experience of Vertov’s film contributes to an additional understanding of the usage of unconventional camera angles, diagonal camera positions, as well as to the interpreting of the Kino-Eye montage procedure. The experimental montage procedure of Kino-Eye is posited as an attempt to decode the world through the lens of a film camera, while understanding this procedure is linked to the impact of Shklovsky and Russian Formalism on Russian 1920s cinema. Article received: December 15, 2017; Article accepted: December 30, 2017; Published online: April 15, 2018; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Latifić, Amra. "The Kino-Eye Montage Procedure as a Formal Experiment." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 15 (2018): . doi: 10.25038/am.v0i15.227

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Dziga Vertov — Boris Kaufman — Jean Vigo

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University Arts ◽

10.21638/spbu15.2020.402 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 560-570

Author(s):

Ekaterina A. Artemeva ◽

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Early Career ◽

Cutting Edge ◽

Material Objects ◽

Avant Garde ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Dziga Vertov ◽

Transnational Film ◽

The Impact ◽

Movie Camera

The article is an attempt to discuss Dziga Vertov’s influence on French filmmakers, in particular on Jean Vigo. This influence may have resulted from Vertov’s younger brother, Boris Kaufman, who worked in France in the 1920s — 1930s and was the cinematographer for all of Vigo’s films. This brother-brother relationship contributed to an important circulation of avant-garde ideas, cutting-edge cinematic techniques, and material objects across Europe. The brothers were in touch primarily by correspondence. According to Boris Kaufman, during his early career in France, he received instructions from his more experienced brothers, Dziga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman, who remained in the Soviet Union. In addition, Vertov intended to make his younger brother become a French kinok. Also, À propos de Nice, Vigo’s and Kaufman’s first and most “vertovian” film, was shot with the movable hand camera Kinamo sent by Vertov to his brother. As a result, this French “symphony of a Metropolis” as well as other films by Vigo may contain references to Dziga Vertov’s and Mikhail Kaufman’s The Man with a Movie Camera based on framing and editing. In this perspective, the research deals with transnational film circulations appealing to the example of the impact of Russian avant-garde cinema on Jean Vigo’s films.

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Man with a Movie Camera: Economy of Movement and ASMR Videos on Youtube

Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies ◽

10.46539/gmd.v2i1.97 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 104-119

Author(s):

Alina S. Holmowaia ◽

Maria S. Danzis

Keyword(s):

Media Culture ◽

Domestic Life ◽

Dziga Vertov ◽

Tingling Sensation ◽

Constructivist Perspective ◽

Contemporary Media ◽

Economy Of Movement ◽

Upper Spine ◽

Movie Camera ◽

Life Movement

The article examines the ASMR phenomena through the perspective of early USSR philosophy of technic, especially, of the constructivist movement (Gan, Ginzburg) and of works of film director Dziga Vertov. Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. The aim of research is to reconstruct the notion of «movement», «machine» and «technique» in constructivist writings and to transfer this notion on contemporary media culture. For the analysis authors use ASMR videos on Youtube in order to discover new possible connotations of the term «movement» in a constructivist perspective. The ASMR phenomena could be considered as a merge of Haraway’s cyborg metaphor and the constructivist conception of domestic life, movement and technique.

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La modernidad estética: una noción por repensar

Estudios Artísticos ◽

10.14483/25009311.13492 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (5) ◽

pp. 174-191

Author(s):

Jacques Rancière

Keyword(s):

Dziga Vertov ◽

Movie Camera

Repensar la modernidad estética consiste en tratar de identificar un aspecto del tiempo como una forma de compartir lo sensible, más allá de concepciones simplistas de la temporalidad. Se trata de mostrar que hay un elemento esencial que constituye una revolución estétical que consiste idea de una comunidad sensible liberada de cálculos estratégicos.Así, la política inspirada en este régimen estético, es una política de indeterminación, de libertad, que da origen a la idea de una política propiamente estética, de un comunismo estético en el que hay comunicación directa entre las formas del arte y de la vida. Esto se muestra analizando dos afiches de la publicidad de la película: The Man with the Movie Camera (1929) de Dziga Vertov. En consecuencia, la política estética ya no consiste en producir obras, con mensajes específicos que provoquen efectos precisos, sino en construir un tejido de fondo sensible, común, no determinado que al poner distancia produce espacios de libertad.

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