Man With A Movie Camera: Notes on reflection of aesthetic qualities in relation to a movement
Discuss how far your chosen film or films reflect aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement:
Look at printed sheet in folder or in email with examples from class & teacher
^Summaries:
Entertainment & Leisure section:
- Vertov eschews classical forms of art -> conforms to constructivist & modernist forms of art & filmmaking
- Fast motion shot for 'Proletarian Film Theatre' -> represents quickness of society changing due to industrialisation
- Modernism = growth of film as 'contemporary' art form -> shot ends on film theatre
- 'Proletarian Film Theatre' -> correlates with constructivist ideas -> emphasise importance of breaking from tradition -> broadens art forms + makes it more accessible to larger demographic
- Double exposure technique used (long shot of man constructing movie cam on top of building over a city) -> art piece within art piece -> link to Soviet Montage constructivism -> central theme combining 2 shots to create new meaning -> meaning created of how powerful a camera is, towers over city, film becoming more accessible
Sport & Leisure section:
- Shot of carousel: 'Match dissolve' effect -> shows time moved forward, expressionism through abstraction of reality -> spectator gets trance-like notion -> experimental technique at time
- Athletics segment: slow motion to show potential of camera -> focuses on woman throwing discus in long shot -> allows spectator to admire Russian woman showing strength/robustness/athleticism & how dif 'Eastern' woman was from western/capitalist restricted woman
- Slow motion embraced by Vertov, essentially invents language of film as understood today
Lifestyle Sequence:
- Celebrates modern lifestyle in USSR
- Camera shown in high angle extreme long establishing shot
- Camera personified as powerful panopticon
- Demonstrates power of new technology reflect constructivism
- Kuleshov effect: camera shows marriage then divorce -> celebration of development of modern society where divorce more possible + ancient traditions broken
- Graphic medium shot of birth -> images intercut with shots of camera as prop over city -> voyeurism -> brechtian distanciation (feeling of intrusion separates us from prev societal norms) -> society changed by technology + Vertov's modernist ideology expressed
- Montage around motorbikers riding around a track & merry-go-round -> new technologies = entertainment for everyone, industrialisation = more entertaining + thrilling life, rotating camera used to overwhelm viewers + show how camera can be like a ride for viewer
Opening/The Camera:
- Opens with static close up of cine-camera, lens face out towards spectator
- Vertov's focus is on apparatus of filmmaking
- Close up -> perceives an all-seeing eye that'll come to dominate artistic expression: de facto panopticon capturing all facets of human life
- Incorporated split screen in opening shot: above camera is a dirt mound (at first barely perceptible to spectator's gaze)
- Titular camerman ascending this mound in extreme long shot, plants camera into mound -> emphasises notion cam lens is omniscient
- Combination of extreme long shot & close up suggests cameraman standing on enlarged camera, latter a kind of monument
- Importance of cam + machinery of filmmaking exploring in subsequent shots of the cinema
- Culminates in series of shots focusing on accomplishments of society during 20's -> highlighting success of socialist rev in Russia
- Repeated motif of transport = interweaving relationship of individuals, variety of shots present diverse group of people walking, riding carriages & driving cars -> organised mess of transportation = energetic 'city symphony'
- Vertov uses Kuleshov effect -> transitions from trains to people to horses to cars -> symbolises belief in industrial revolution
- Editing process revealed to audience -> celebrates individual achievement + constructivism as art movement -> focus on woman editing (Vertov's editorial assistant Svilova) demonstratres Vertov's fetishisation of editing process as new progressive era -> celebration of ilm
- Communist industrialisation presented as work done by ordinary people = equal importance in society rather than divided class system
Mise-en-scene:
- Within MES in the film -> see diegetic audience in cinema watching a camera & the audience's fascinated reaction to it -> used to mediate spectator's response to it -> constructivism as depicts movement's strong commitment to machinery -> celebrates machinery but explores mechanics of human body/communication through humanlike personification of film camera (moving on own accord through stop motion) -> film's constructivist aesthetic adds meaning art more than a painting, cinema = art -> modernism includes machinery of cinema to outline future, MWAMC signifies fetishisation of camera + strong significance it'll have on next generation
Editing:
- Multiple cuts used per second during end sequence to make up extreme fast pace of editing, makes use of Kuleshov effect -> represents small fragments used in constructivist movement as part of technical organisation of materials, reflects soviet montage movement
- Fast paced editing sequence requires lots of work to put together -> celebrates constructivism's ideologies of work & labour
- Vertov celebrates industrial age & Soviet Union
- Exemplified in repeated shots of trains -> editing starts at fast pace, increases until use of overlapping motion occurs -> pace of editing so fast that transition to overlapping motion = seamless
- Revolutionary influential technique -> reflects modernism as example of experimentation
- Modernism gave people free reign to be experimental
- Vertov eschewing classical forms of art = demonstrates inspiration from constructivist movement
Look at printed sheet in folder or in email with examples from class & teacher
^Summaries:
Entertainment & Leisure section:
- Vertov eschews classical forms of art -> conforms to constructivist & modernist forms of art & filmmaking
- Fast motion shot for 'Proletarian Film Theatre' -> represents quickness of society changing due to industrialisation
- Modernism = growth of film as 'contemporary' art form -> shot ends on film theatre
- 'Proletarian Film Theatre' -> correlates with constructivist ideas -> emphasise importance of breaking from tradition -> broadens art forms + makes it more accessible to larger demographic
- Double exposure technique used (long shot of man constructing movie cam on top of building over a city) -> art piece within art piece -> link to Soviet Montage constructivism -> central theme combining 2 shots to create new meaning -> meaning created of how powerful a camera is, towers over city, film becoming more accessible
Sport & Leisure section:
- Shot of carousel: 'Match dissolve' effect -> shows time moved forward, expressionism through abstraction of reality -> spectator gets trance-like notion -> experimental technique at time
- Athletics segment: slow motion to show potential of camera -> focuses on woman throwing discus in long shot -> allows spectator to admire Russian woman showing strength/robustness/athleticism & how dif 'Eastern' woman was from western/capitalist restricted woman
- Slow motion embraced by Vertov, essentially invents language of film as understood today
Lifestyle Sequence:
- Celebrates modern lifestyle in USSR
- Camera shown in high angle extreme long establishing shot
- Camera personified as powerful panopticon
- Demonstrates power of new technology reflect constructivism
- Kuleshov effect: camera shows marriage then divorce -> celebration of development of modern society where divorce more possible + ancient traditions broken
- Graphic medium shot of birth -> images intercut with shots of camera as prop over city -> voyeurism -> brechtian distanciation (feeling of intrusion separates us from prev societal norms) -> society changed by technology + Vertov's modernist ideology expressed
- Montage around motorbikers riding around a track & merry-go-round -> new technologies = entertainment for everyone, industrialisation = more entertaining + thrilling life, rotating camera used to overwhelm viewers + show how camera can be like a ride for viewer
Opening/The Camera:
- Opens with static close up of cine-camera, lens face out towards spectator
- Vertov's focus is on apparatus of filmmaking
- Close up -> perceives an all-seeing eye that'll come to dominate artistic expression: de facto panopticon capturing all facets of human life
- Incorporated split screen in opening shot: above camera is a dirt mound (at first barely perceptible to spectator's gaze)
- Titular camerman ascending this mound in extreme long shot, plants camera into mound -> emphasises notion cam lens is omniscient
- Combination of extreme long shot & close up suggests cameraman standing on enlarged camera, latter a kind of monument
- Importance of cam + machinery of filmmaking exploring in subsequent shots of the cinema
- Culminates in series of shots focusing on accomplishments of society during 20's -> highlighting success of socialist rev in Russia
- Repeated motif of transport = interweaving relationship of individuals, variety of shots present diverse group of people walking, riding carriages & driving cars -> organised mess of transportation = energetic 'city symphony'
- Vertov uses Kuleshov effect -> transitions from trains to people to horses to cars -> symbolises belief in industrial revolution
- Editing process revealed to audience -> celebrates individual achievement + constructivism as art movement -> focus on woman editing (Vertov's editorial assistant Svilova) demonstratres Vertov's fetishisation of editing process as new progressive era -> celebration of ilm
- Communist industrialisation presented as work done by ordinary people = equal importance in society rather than divided class system
Mise-en-scene:
- Within MES in the film -> see diegetic audience in cinema watching a camera & the audience's fascinated reaction to it -> used to mediate spectator's response to it -> constructivism as depicts movement's strong commitment to machinery -> celebrates machinery but explores mechanics of human body/communication through humanlike personification of film camera (moving on own accord through stop motion) -> film's constructivist aesthetic adds meaning art more than a painting, cinema = art -> modernism includes machinery of cinema to outline future, MWAMC signifies fetishisation of camera + strong significance it'll have on next generation
Editing:
- Multiple cuts used per second during end sequence to make up extreme fast pace of editing, makes use of Kuleshov effect -> represents small fragments used in constructivist movement as part of technical organisation of materials, reflects soviet montage movement
- Fast paced editing sequence requires lots of work to put together -> celebrates constructivism's ideologies of work & labour
- Vertov celebrates industrial age & Soviet Union
- Exemplified in repeated shots of trains -> editing starts at fast pace, increases until use of overlapping motion occurs -> pace of editing so fast that transition to overlapping motion = seamless
- Revolutionary influential technique -> reflects modernism as example of experimentation
- Modernism gave people free reign to be experimental
- Vertov eschewing classical forms of art = demonstrates inspiration from constructivist movement
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