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

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-106 ◽  
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.

Dziga Vertov

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Gadassik
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Political Cinema ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Dziga Vertov ◽  
Movie Camera

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.

Alternative Cinemas

2014 ◽  
pp. 103-128
Author(s):  
Keith Withall
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Sergei Eisenstein ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Dziga Vertov ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
The One ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter assesses alternative cinemas. In the 1920s, there were a series of film movements that were motivated by very different interests than mainstream cinema, primarily political. The most important at the time and the one that has had an enduring influence in world cinema became known as Soviet Montage. Because of their influence, there is an extensive selection of Soviet Montage films available. The chapter then considers filmmakers Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. It also looks at the avant-garde and the late silents. Meanwhile, documentary film and especially animation crossover with the mainstream cinema. The developments in the 1920s and John Grierson's founding of the British Documentary Film Movement initiates an important trend in documentary film that still influences film and television today. It also feeds into an idea of ‘British realism’ still apparent in British films.

scholarly journals Time - Backwards: Mayakovsky Quotes Vertov

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.

scholarly journals The Kino-Eye Montage Procedure as a Formal Experiment

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

scholarly journals Dziga Vertov — Boris Kaufman — Jean Vigo

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.

scholarly journals ‘There Must Be a Poetry of Sound That None of Us Knows…’: Early British documentary film and the prefiguring of musique concrète

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-186
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Cox
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Post Office ◽  
Coal Face ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Musique Concrete

Standard histories of electronic music tend to trace the lineage of musique concrète as lying mainly in the Futurists’ declarations of the 1910s, through Cage’s ‘emancipation’ of noise in the 1930s, to Schaeffer’s work and codifications of the late 1940s and early 1950s. This article challenges this narrative by drawing attention to the work of filmmakers in the 1930s that foreshadowed the sound experiments of Pierre Schaeffer and thus offers an alternative history of their background. The main focus of the article is on the innovations within documentary film and specifically the sonic explorations in early British documentary that prefigured musique concrète, an area ignored by electronic music studies. The theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the documentary movement’s members, particularly their leader John Grierson, will be compared with those of Pierre Schaeffer, and the important influence of Russian avant-garde filmmaking on the British (and musique concrète) will be addressed. Case studies will focus on the groundbreaking soundtracks of two films made by the General Post Office Film Unit that feature both practical and theoretical correspondences to Schaeffer: 6.30 Collection (1934) and Coal Face (1935). Parallels between the nature and use of technologies and how this affected creative outputs will also be discussed, as will the relationship of the British documentary movement’s practice and ideas to post-Schaefferian ‘anecdotal music’ and the work of Luc Ferrari.

scholarly journals FROM ʽNEWSREELʼ TO ʽTV NEWSʼ IN SERBIA

2020 ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Marija Vujović ◽  
Anka Mihajlov Prokopović
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Television News ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Development Path ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The Moment

Prior to becoming the most dominant cultural product of the modern age, the film began its history as a journalistic concept. The first films made by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière in the late 19th century were documentaries. The first film made at the beginning of the 20th century in Serbia was also a type of a newsreel, a documentary. Some of the first cinema owners and cinematographers were journalists. This paper explains the development of documentary film in Serbia, which, in addition to being a film genre, also became a television genre in the second half of the 20th century. The goal of this paper is to show the development path starting from the first feature film and newsreel, to television news - one of the most frequent TV programs of the moment – by using the example of Serbia.

scholarly journals Las exposiciones de El Lissitzky a través del Cine-ojo

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Luz Paz-Agras
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Human Eye ◽  
Photographic Camera ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Movie Camera

The Avant-Garde movements of the twentieth century explored the creative possibilities of new types of media in architecture, such as the photographic camera or cinema. In a series of experimental projects, authors such as El Lissitzky based their work on assimilating the human eye with a mechanical lens, making it possible to create new concepts of space. A simultaneous consideration of the resources of Vertov’s Cine-Eye in relation to the exhibition projects of El Lissitzky reveals some of his proposals as paradigmatic examples of the perceptive experimentation of the viewer in relation to art, and in a wider sense, to architecture. By analysing the cinematic resources of the film <em>Man with a Movie Camera</em> (1929), architectural aspects are analysed in the exhibition spaces of the Abstract Cabinet and PRESSA, identifying connections that break down the boundaries between the different disciplines.

African American Queer Cinema

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Evans
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Queer Cinema ◽  
Hiv Epidemic ◽  
The Color Purple ◽  
Academy Award ◽  
Black Queer ◽  
Color Purple

African American queer cinema was born as a reaction to the AIDS/HIV epidemic as well as the blatant homophobia that existed within the Black community in the 1980s. It began with the pioneering works of queer directors Isaac Julien and Marlon Riggs and continued during the new queer cinema movement in the 1990s, particularly including the works of lesbian queer director Cheryl Dunye. However, these works were infinitesimal compared to the queer works featuring primarily White lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) protagonists during that time. That trend continues today as evidenced by looking at the highest-grossing LGBTQ films of all times: very few included any African American characters in significant roles. However, from the 1980s to the 2020s, there have been a few Black queer films that have penetrated the mainstream market and received critical acclaim, such as The Color Purple (Spielberg, 1982), Set It Off (Gary, 1996), and Moonlight (Jenkins, 2016), which won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture. The documentary film genre has been the most influential in exposing audiences to the experiences and voices within the African American queer communities. Since many of these films are not available for viewing at mainstream theaters, Black queer cinema is primarily accessed via various cable, video streaming, and on-demand services, like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO.

Breaking Stereotypes

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Manisha Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Women Characters ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Short Films ◽  
First Time

Indian films are gradually coming of age: becoming more realistic, bold, and daring. Indian short films are getting candid: talking openly about issues rather than brushing them under the carpet. The digital media boom and the advent of social media have made the short film genre popular. In the fast-paced age where people, caught up in the humdrum and rat race of everyday life, are generally becoming impatient about everything, the short film has come to the rescue of filmmakers and film lovers. Gone are the days where everyone had ample time and patience to watch a three hour feature film or a two hour saga. In case of a short film, the message gets conveyed in a quick, crisp, and focused manner, without beating about the bush. Women-oriented short films like Her First Time, Juice, The Day After Every Day, Mama's Boy, Going Dutch, Pressure Cooker, The Girl Story, Ek Dopahar, Khaney Mein Kya Hai, White Shirt, Naked, etc. are breaking stereotypes of the patriarchal notions about women. The chapter probes the portrayals of women characters in Indian short films.

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