The Man With the Movie Camera

Wow . . .

There is no way I could categorize this. At first I was thinking psuedo-dadaism, but there was just enough of a relationship between scenes to put that one out.

The beginning explanation, of how there would be no intertitles- cinema void of language and theater- kind of made me think of Twain's Prologue for Huck Finn:

NOTICE

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

I have a feeling this post will be as disjointed as the film. I found it funny that it was a film of a man filming.

I did note at the beginning, there was the huge poster with a couple, and the man had his fingers to his lips in a "Shhhhhh" motion. Now, all was quiet at this point. Simple music, little to no action- and then the transition to the train! Crazy shots, loud, upbeat music, people waking up- it was as if the movie had awakened.

I enjoyed the contrasts in the film. The couple registering for a wedding, the wedding music happily playing . . . and then the divorcing couple, signing the document to a warped, minor version of the wedding music. Also, the birth and death scenes.

At times it seemed everything went back to the train: the mentronome-esque ticking of the music, the shots of the train, the way it paralleled with both the movement of a filming camera and the printing of newspapers.

One could view this as having a feminist perspective, I think. It is the woman who is piecing together the film reels. Although women are portrayed doing domestic work like sewing, and "girly things" like getting manicures, they are also shown in stronger settings. Participating in co-ed track & field sports, playing basketball, and shooting guns shows that the women are not as feeble as I think more western women were seen.

The spinning scene, with the carousel and motorcycles, made me nauseous and somewhat claustrophobic. I had to look away for a bit. I really liked the use of stop-motion with the camera and tripod (also the cylinders earlier in the film).

Kudos to Vertov for keeping me predominantly interested in an almost plotless movie. Aside from that one spinning scene, my eyes were glued to the screen.