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Already garnering 5-star reviews, Dziga Vertov's newly restored masterpiece returns to cinemas this month.
This film is an experiment in cinematic communication of real events. Without the help of intertitles. Without the help of a story. Without the help of theatre. This experimental work aims at creating a truly international language of cinema based on its absolute separation from the language of theatre and literature.” Dziga Vertov.
★★★★★ “Its multifarious technical trickery whips up an ecstatically cinematic delirium” Trevor Johnston, Little White Lies
The best-known work of experimental documentary pioneer Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera is one the most influential films in cinema history. A poetic vision of urban life in 1920s Russia, Vertov’s extraordinary montage presents a bustling city at work and at play – a high-octane metropolis invigorated by an increasingly industrialised economy.
Narrative-free and stripped of many of the conventions of silent cinema, the film exhibits a technical confidence that belies the fact that it was the director’s first feature. With its stunning range of camera angles and imaginative use of cinematic tricks (including dissolves, split screen, slow motion and freeze-frames), Vertov’s ‘mechanical eye’ takes centre-stage, his images ingeniously edited together to present an exhilarating ode to Bolshevik Russia.
A major inspiration to Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker and others, Man with a Movie Camera remains as mesmerising and mind-blowing as ever. The chance to experience its creative energy on a big screen will be one of the key cinematic highlights of Summer 2015.