Man With a Movie Camera
• Context – post revolution• Propaganda – presentation of ideal soviet community• Lenin: importance of cinema in establishing socialism• Constructivism & Rodchenko as influence• Agit trains and newsreel• Other filmmakers: Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin• Kuleshov effect• Vertov & Kino Eye• Cinematic achievements in film
Kino-Pravda checklist of essentials for a Kino-Eye
filmmaker:
•
1. rapid means of transport2. highly sensitive film stock3. light handheld film cameras4. equally light lighting equipment5. a crew of super-swift cinema reporters (etc)
Experimentation
The film drama is the Opium of the people…down with Bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is!
—Dziga Vertov
Dynamic composition
The primacy of the camera
Man and machine in harmony
Comrades in both work and play – emphasis on the individual as part of a whole
The process of filmmaking
The act of spectating