Man with a Movie Camera

Man with a Movie Camera is an experimental film made by Dziga Vertov in 1929. It is difficult to assign a genre to the movie because, as the film itself states as it begins, there are no actors, characters, or screens with dialogue. This means there is no way for Vertov to explain what is occurring in the film. There is no narrator, and the film contains footage of different aspects of life. If I had to give Man with a Movie Camera a genre, I would say that it is a documentary that concerns life. The film is simply a montage of different occurrences and aspects of life, and there is little structure to how the clips are presented to the viewer.

            The one aspect of this film that was phenomenal was the music. The music synchronizes perfectly with the film, and it is entertaining. At times the music would contain the sounds of what is being shown in the film. For example, bells ring when there are bells in the film. I thought it was interesting how the music would change when horses were present. The music changed to sharp, staccato notes, making the music sound like horses’ hooves. When the film showed the couple filling out wedding papers and then filling out divorce papers, the music was well done. When the couple is filling out the wedding papers, a wedding song is being played. The wedding song is happy and light. When the couple is filling out divorce papers, the song is still the same wedding song, but lower and with different notes, making it a darker song. This conveys different moods to the viewer. 

            I noticed was that Vertov used a montage of events to show the viewer the cycle of life. First, the viewer sees babies and children. Later, the viewer sees the couple with the wedding papers, and then the couple with the divorce papers. After this, the viewer sees sickness and death. This gives the viewer an insight into what Vertov sees as major life events. 

Vertov’s use of montage is different than Eisenstein’s use of montage. In Man with a Movie Camera, there is no plot or actors, so the events that make up the montage seem random and thrown together. In Battleship Potemkin, there is a plot and characters present, so the montage focuses on these aspects of the film. This makes the montage by Eisenstein easy to understand when compared with the techniques employed by Vertov.