Silent Cinema (Man With A Movie Camera & APDN): Revision Guide

Film Movements: Silent Cinema (MWAMC & APDN)
- Film Form
- Meaning & Response
- Contexts
- Critical debates

- relate the chosen film to the realist / expressionist critical debate.
- explore the significance of a particular key element of film, such as editing, in the film and how far this reflects the film movement more generally.
- consider how far specific issues relating to silent cinema, such as the absence of recorded speech, are significant in explaining particular creative practices in the chosen film / film movement.

Constructivism & Modernism:
- Realist/ Expressive critical debate

This debate centres on whether film should be a ‘realist’ or an ‘expressive’ medium. In other words, should a filmmaker be concerned with representing the world as is, for example in the manner of a documentary, or should a filmmaker regard the medium as a creative one in which the everyday world is transformed? In film history this divide is traced all the way back to the period around 1895-1902 in France. The Lumiéres Brothers conceived of this new invention as one for recording found reality and in so doing encouraging the spectator to gaze freshly on a world that might otherwise be taken for granted. By contrast George Méliès made fantasy films of great imagination and creativity. 

- In 40's, French film critic Andre Bazin set in motion a major debate as he argued both German Expressionist & Soviet Montage filmmaking went against what he saw as 'realist' calling of cinema

Opposition b/ween realist & expressive informed thinking about film from beginning of cinema
Realist vs Expressionist
Realism:
- Representation: As unmediated as possible
- Visual Aesthetic: Simple
- Principle: Respect/Truth
- Intent: Spectator reflection

Expressionism:
- Representation: Highly mediated
- Visual Aesthetic: Highly constructed
- Principle: Manipulation
- Intent: Spectator 'agitation'

Constructivism

- The constructivists believed art should directly reflect the modern industrial world. - Vladimir Tatlin was crucially influenced by Pablo Picasso’s cubist constructions (Construction 1914) which he saw in Picasso’s studio in Paris in 1913. These were three-dimensional still lifes made of scrap materials. Tatlin began to make his own but they were completely abstract and made of industrial materials.

- By 1921 Russian artists who followed Tatlin’s ideas were calling themselves constructivists and in - 1923 a manifesto was published in their magazine Lef:

The material formation of the object is to be substituted for its aesthetic combination. The object is to be treated as a whole and thus will be of no discernible ‘style’ but simply a product of an industrial order like a car, an aeroplane and such like. Constructivism is a purely technical mastery and organisation of materials.

- Constructivism was suppressed in Russia in the 1920s but was brought to the West by Naum Gabo 
and his brother Antoine Pevsner and has been a major influence on modern sculpture.

MODERNISM

Modernism refers to the broad movement in Western arts and literature that gathered pace from around 1850, and is characterised by a deliberate rejection of the styles of the past; emphasising instead innovation and experimentation in forms, materials and techniques in order to create artworks that better reflected modern society
What unites these different movements of the 1920s is Modernism. There is a strong commitment to the machine, including the machinery of cinema, as a progressive force, promising to create a bold new future. Culture celebrates the invention of a whole new way of life; indeed it has been described as the period in which ‘modern’ life was invented. There is a looking forward, a sense of a new and different world under construction and this is experienced not only materially but also psychically.

For Soviet Montage / Constructivism, the human body was seen as machinic so actors could communicate states-of-mind using their bodies as precise instruments
There is often a sense of a ‘collective’ of filmmakers and thinkers who all know each other and influence one another’s work. This is certainly the case with Soviet, German and American film in the 1920s
Other key movements: Bauhaus, Cubism, Futurism

Engaging with Silent Film:

Trying to recapture this sense of the brilliance and independence of mature silent cinema is important. Instead of seeing silent film study as nothing more than an historical curiosity, and working from a deficit model in relation to their experience of contemporary cinema, spectators should be encouraged to appreciate the thrilling qualities of a quite distinct kind of film.

One thing always to remember: silent film was never silent – it just didn’t have recorded speech. A silent film always had a musical accompaniment, the function of which was very much to influence spectator response. This was in part to provide a consistent experience for the spectator – otherwise every viewing of the same film was potentially an entirely fresh experience because the improvised musical accompaniment was unique to that performance.

Of all the learnt pleasures of watching silent films, the most important is to recognise that the lack of recorded dialogue can be seen as a strength, not a weakness. The argument is that lack of recorded dialogue draws the spectator into a much more active engagement with the film. Even when we have inter-titles, these rarely do more than provide a summary indication of what is being spoken between characters. As spectators we are able to make the detail of the film story our own, thanks to the sketchy way in which the spoken word is indicated. Indeed, the ultimate ambition of the great filmmakers of the mature silent cinema period such as Eisenstein was to make films with no inter-titles at all. Rather a film would be a visual canvas on to which the spectator could project their own imagined detail, in other words become co-storytellers. 

Dziga Vertov (1896-1954):
- Was a constructivist
- trying to represent reality

For him, montage was part of the selection process. The combination of shots would affect the audience, making them aware. He founded the experimental group Kino eye together with his wife Elisaveta Svilova (co-editor) and his brother Mikhail Kaufman (cameraman). They felt the task of the Soviet film was to document reality ‘to reveal truth’ and were opposed to the fiction film that depended on artifice ‘the ordinary fiction film acts like a cigar or cigarette on a smoker. Intoxicated by the cine-nicotine, the spectator sucks from the screen the substance which soothes his nerves… distorting his protesting consciousness in every possible way’. 

Man With A Movie Camera:
- Vertov, USSR, 1929
- 'film hooligan'
- 'unmotivated camera mischief'
- 'a visual symphony'
- a self-reflexive film about the making of the film
- 'experiment in the cinematic communication of visible events'
- Exhilarating, dynamic & collective experience about the life & rhythm of a city, in which the spectator plays an active role as both subject & audiences

Key Scenes:

Opening: the empty cinema

08:50 – 11:30: waking, washing

19:20 – 23:50: split screen, stills, slow mo, the editing process

25:20 – 29:50: life cycle – birth, marriage, death

37:00 – 42:00: work

44:40 – 47:00: leisure and sport

53:00: rotation

54:30 – 57:30: entertainment, drinking – reverse motion, chess, stop motion

59:20 – end: stop motion, editing, celebration of film

How far your film reflect aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement.
Man with a Movie Camera and A Propos de Nice - Constructivism and Modernism 
- Understanding of characteristic aesthetic qualities associated with relevant film movement, applying these to film
- Discussion of aesthetic qualities which, depending on the film movement, may relate to cinematography, editing, mise-en-scène or performance or combination of all four
- Recognition aesthetic qualities of the films are integral to the film movement associated with them
- Wider context of the film movement and its aesthetic characteristics.
- May recognise that aesthetic qualities associated with film movements are ideological.

Innovative techniques:
- double exposure
- superimposition
- animation
- speeded up action
- freeze frame
- reverse motion
- overlapping motion
- split screen techniques
- slow motion
- stop motion

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
- A ‘city symphony’ but not just one city but a mixture of Odessa, Moscow and Leningrad. The film begins with morning, the city wakes up. People go about their daily tasks, traffic fills the street. As the day progresses all aspects of human life are covered ̶ birth, marriage, divorce, death, work, leisure. 
• Images of hands performing various tasks: cleaning, sorting, folding, editing the film. Parallel sequences: woman washing herself, washing a window paper, newspapers flowing from a printing press, water flowing over a dam. 
• Children eagerly watch performances, we see their participation and then stills, photographs of their participation. Cinema brings them to life

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
- The film jump cuts between action and watching action. Freeze frames on a strip of celluloid are examined by editor Elizaveta Svilova. 
• Dissolves, split screen: hands playing piano, dancers. Double exposure of the Bolshoi the bourgeois home of prerevolutionary ballet and opera which splits into two and collapses in on itself. 
• End of the film 90 shots at 2 frames each - eyes, train, crowd, metronome, traffic signal. 

Cinematography:
• Vertov used many cinematic techniques and effects that emphasized the contrived nature of the film. These included double exposure, superimposition, animation, speeded up action, freeze frame, reverse motion, overlapping motion, split screen techniques, slow motion, stop motion. 
• The film consists of approximately 1,775 separate shots, average shot length 2.3 seconds. Vertov’s brother Mikhail Kaufman is the man with a movie camera who goes to great lengths to get his shots recording life in the Soviet Union ̶ climbing, riding in cars and on a motorcycle, lying under the railway tracks. 
• The stress on film as a constructed artefact starts with an empty cinema and ends with the cameraman rushing the film to the projectionist. We constantly see the shots being reproduced by a camera with its lens as an eye and it also becomes animated fitting itself together, putting itself on a tripod and walking around. 

19:20-23:50

- Split screen 19.38 – of same location in different times, almost prolepsis (flash Freeze frames celebrate the constructive movement by breaking down and showing how film is made and celebrating it

- Being communist propaganda showing a wide range of people shows that they are equal with each other. The film shows that everyone in the community is involved

- The use of film techniques (such as split screen) were modern to the film form –  expressionism

- Constructive movement mirrors how film was made; a celebration of film showing what film is capable of doing

- Sped-Up with train -> celebrating what they can do with film & the constructive movement using fast motion. Revolutionary in this. This particular sequence is fast motion -> symbolises rapid production that occurred in Russia at this time. Made trams look faster, shows technology in a better light, influenced by the Italian futurism movement
- Entirely filmed on location & natural lighting, gives it an extra documentary dimension, accurate representation of reality at the time
- Contrast between realism of the shot & a documentary film but its been edited and speeded up shots, excessive & abstract, Symmetry of the shot adds aesthetic
- Dutch angle shot shows chaos. Split screen with canted angle gives it a sense of fluidity with constant movement
- City symphony shot on location -> dynamism and fluidity to it

- Brechtian distanciation
- Split screen -> engineered process
- Celebrating beginning of film with Lumiere brothers of train going in and out
- Kuleshov Effect -> Evolution of transport. People walking, then horses, then cars, then trains -> constructivism
- Music creates illusion that its played with fast motion (don't delve too deeply, maybe not at all into sound)
- People trying to cover their faces -> adds a sense of authenticity to the film but at the same time it makes you aware that its a construction -> shows the effect of having a camera present in society
- Eadweard Muybridge -> photos of horses
- Still pictures celebrate the individual but in a bigger framework -> this city exists as its made up of many individualß -> individuals are part of a greater society
- Extreme long shot of the city -> moves away from close up to celebrate the whole place
- How the city functions in a day
- Fetishisation of the apparatus of film -> obsessively devoted to an object -> example: the woman editing -> deconstruct in order to construct
- Reverse shot -> advancement of technology abilities, showing different angles & perspectives
- Two close ups of film than to the woman -> a pattern -> deconstructing/reconstructing

Discuss how far your chosen film or films reflect cultural contexts associated with a particular film movement.

Man with a Movie Camera and A Propos de Nice - Constructivism and Modernism 

- Understanding of characteristic features associated with the relevant film movement, including the cultural context of the film movement

- Depending on the film movement, discussion may involve a specific art movement (e.g. Expressionism, Constructivism) or a broader cultural shift (Modernism)

- Consideration of challenge & modernity represented by each film movement to varying degrees

- Understanding of the relationship between cultural contexts and the chosen films.

- May recognise that cultural contexts are a determining factor in the style, form or ideology of the chosen film. 

Context:
-> Social: 1929 (Soviet Rev into & beyond first decade), role of new Soviet Citizen, Openness to experiment initiated under Lenin now beginning to close down under Josef Stalin. 
-> Historical: 1928 Stalin introduced the First Five- Year Plan whose chief aim was to rapidly expand industrial production to bring a vast country into line with Western Europe. 
-> Political: Vertov associated with the Revolutionary LEF group (Left Front) whose members included Rodchenko, Mayakovsky and Eisenstein. In 1928 the first All-Union Party Congress on Film Questions criticised ‘formalist devices’ as used by Eisenstein and others. These were considered to make films inaccessible to a mass audience 
-> Technological: recording images & events, then edited them together to form newsreels & documentaries. Vertov had worked on the agit-trains, mobile propaganda centres sent to the Eastern front and the far corners of the Soviet Union. Their task was to disseminate propaganda through films, plays, leaflets and posters. To do this they both projected films (giving many audiences their first experience of cinema) and recorded images and events, which they edited together to form newsreels and documentaries as the train was speeding across the USSR. They worked on the move.
-> Institutional: Early 1922 Lenin established a fixed ratio between entertainment and documentary film ‘The Lenin Proportion’. This was 75% fiction films to 25% documentary films. By 1925 cinema was a vital public institution. Production was rising. Policies of distribution and exhibition ensured that even remote areas had cinemas. 

Film Movements:
- 1917: Tatlin, Malevitch formulated theories of Constructivism. Emphasis wasn't on reproduction of reality but was making/building from pieces or fragments and analysing reality. Cinema became synonymous with progress in its combination of both art and technology.

- The artistic revolution that had begun in Europe in the early years of the century had spread to Russia before 1917. Young artists attacked traditional art forms and absorbed European modernist movements such as Cubism and Futurism with their interest in abstract forms. Constructivism was the new art form of the Revolution. Art also had to free itself from its bourgeois past; new ideas and experimentation were taking place in all the arts. Easel painting was linked to bourgeois decadence. There needed to be new forms.

- After 1917, Russian artists such as Kasimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin formulated the theories of Constructivism using a combination of technology, science and art. The emphasis was not on the reproduction of reality but ‘making’ and ‘building’ from pieces or fragments and analysing ‘reality’. Rodchenko used photo-montage, in which fragments were given new meanings. The artist, a technician first and foremost, used his or her labour to produce a work of art as a social product that served the needs of the proletariat, no longer divorced from everyday life but part of the revolutionary struggle. Theatre was bourgeois; film was the art form of tomorrow. Cinema became synonymous with progress in its combination of both art and technology. 
- Vertov was a Constructivist, for him montage was part of the selection process. The combination of shots would affect the audience, making them aware. He founded the experimental group Kino eye together with his wife Elisaveta Svilova (co-editor) and his brother Mikhail Kaufman (cameraman). They felt the task of the Soviet film was to document reality ‘to reveal truth’ and were opposed to the fiction film that depended on artifice ‘the ordinary fiction film acts like a cigar or cigarette on a smoker. Intoxicated by the cine-nicotine, the spectator sucks from the screen the substance which soothes his nerves… distorting his protesting consciousness in every possible way’.

Aleksandr Rodchenko

Russian artist Aleksandr Rodchenko was a leader in many avant-garde movements during a time of great change for his motherland. Known especially for the Constructivism movement, he has made contributions to painting, photography and, most notably, what became known as modern graphic design. His works were as radical as his causes, but his dedication has also helped art flourish across Russia.

Silent Cinema:
- Films in 20's often considered amongst greatest masterpieces created in whole history of the medium -> cinema should be regarded as primarily a visual medium -> believe by mid 20's, filmmakers developed ways to tell film stories visually with great skill & ingenuity
- Filmmakers & critics alike despaired with the coming of sound at the end of 20's as the unique dimension of film had been discarded
- Dialogue-driven narrative perceived as dragging cinema backwards as a form of theatre, rather than as the brilliantly new, innovative & artistic form of visual expression it was proving itself to be#

Art so far:
- Talkies controversial when originally introduced
- Film seen as a form of art and mass media when it came about
- MWAMC: experimental, took on concepts never done in films before, created idea of art
- Art is no longer just a painting, cinema is art

Representation:
- Different images of work, routine, rhythm, repetition. Images industry, traffic, machinery, recreation, faces. Theme of production demystify the film making process, film as just another object that is mass produced and then consumed by workers. 
• Opening title, the only one in the film ‘This film presents an experiment in the cinematic communication of visible events/ without the aid of intertitles/without the aid of a scenario/ without the aid of theatre/the experimental work aims at creating a truly international absolute language of cinema based on its total separation from the language of theatre and literature’ . 
• Importance of women to the life of the Soviet Union. Seen giving birth, dancing, doing heavy and dirty manual work, washing, sewing, styling their hair and putting on make up. 

Aesthetics:
- Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman adopted the name Dziga Vertov which means ‘turning’, ‘revolving’ as an expression of the dynamism of everyday revolutionary life. He studied medicine for a short time, wrote poetry/ music/science fiction before becoming a lifelong advocate of the documentary film. 
• Manifesto Kinok’s (Kino Eye) Revolution written in 1923 ‘I am the cinema-eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, can show you the world as only I can see it. From today I liberate myself forever from human immobility, I am in perpetual motion… my way leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world. And this is how I can decipher a new world unknown to you.’ Machinery, people, actions, rhythm. 
• Repeated circular motions Union ̶ camera hand cranked, cameraman rides around and around track, merry-go-round, spinning wheel.


A propos de Nice:
- A documentary about Nice
- Expressionistic -> designed to make people angry about the rich
- directed by Jean Vigo, France, 1930
- Silent short documentary
- Photographed by Boris Kaufman (brother of MWAMC's director Dziga Vertov)
- One of the first very low budget independent style of filmmakers
- Film depicts life in Nice, France by documenting people in the city, daily routines, a carnival & social inequalities
- Vigo described the film in an address to the Groupement des Spectators d'Avant-Garde: 'in this film, by showing certain basic aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial... the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you & makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution'
- Although French, heavily influenced by Soviet Modernism & Constructivism - not least through family ties to Vertov - & as such sits firmly in that genre
- Is a montage film
- Mediates to the point where its nearly fiction but its still a documentary
- APDN & MWAMC are both modernist, constructivist & city symphonies films
http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/cteq/politics-and-metaphysics-of-jean-vigos-a-propos-de-nice/ -> further reading on APDN

Context:
Social:
- '29: Soviet Revolution into & beyond its first decade -> socialist unrest across Europe & world to varying extents
- Ideas about role of work classes rights changing -> power to question wealthy & status quo growing rapidly
- Spain -> homeland of Vigo's parents & when Vigo was young -> under a military dictatorship
- Vigo's father, a prominent Anarchist journalist, imprisoned for political views, dying whilst incarcerated under suspicious circumstances
Historical:
- Prior to Wall Street Cash -> wealthy, inc. those in France, lived highly opulent life styles, v. different to poor & the wealthy's own circumstances post '29
APDN takes a modernist & expressionist view on wealth & the rich -> hypocritical of them
Political:
- By association with Vertov's brothers, Vigo associated with Revolutionary LEF group (Left Front) -> members included Rodchenko, Mayakovsky & Eisenstein -> all prominent socialist film-makers -> Vigo's peer group & people he spent his time with were pro-USSR, pro-Socialist Revolution, very left wing, staunch advocates for fairness, harsh critics of private wealth & riches
A socialist making a condeming film of wealth, riches & capitalism, different to the others in Russia who celebrates the equality through their films
Technological/Institutional:
- Vigo, suffering from tuberculosis, worked as an assistant cameraman for a small company in Nice
- After his father-in-law gave him & his wife $250, Vigo bought his own Debrie camera
- Summer of '29 in Paris: Vigo met Boris & Mikhail Kaufman (brothers of Dziga Vertov). Boris was interested in Vigo's idea about making a film on Nice & them (with their wives) created a script
- Vigo saved ends of film from his work in order to shot APDN & filming underway by year's end
- In the film, Vigo wanted to avoid a travelogue approach & show boredom of upper class in casinos & at the shore + struggle of poor inhabitants in slums

- Vigo & Kaufman unable to shoot inside casinos, instead they decided to concentrate on strength of images & rely on editing phase

        

 Features of Modernist cinema in the 1920s?

Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera is just about the last word in this celebration of technology, 

    constructivism and modernism. (For the record the linkage of A Propos de Nice with A Man with a Movie Camera is because Dziga Vertov’s brother, Boris Kaufman shot the French short and both films can be regarded as representing an art genre of the time, the ‘city symphony’ characterised by its creative use of montage.) 

Features of a 1920's City Symphony
City Symphonies:

    Poetic, experimental documentary capturing life in a city at a particular time while attempting to capture something of the city's spirit using constructivist ideas. 

Handheld cameras used throughout -> technique to heighten social realism + demonstrate busy bustling beach city -> sutures audience allows them to become part of this world. 5:10-5:14 = example where technique used. As the audience, we see well-dressed people, some of them walking dogs. Another example at 6:23 -> low angle handheld shot pan of a boat sale. The theme of us as the audience 'watching' the middle class is recurring -> shot of boat sales to emphasize idea MC are dominant in society/overpower lower classes -> Captures city symphony as captures ideology of 1930's that MC were 'ruling' class, with their leisure activities & lifestyle dominating society.

Handheld camera used to heighten realism and demonstrate the busy bustling city. Allows viewer into world. (5:10-5:!4, 6:23) -> Recurring theme of 'watching' middle-class people. Low angle shot of boat sail (MC activity) -> recurring theme middle class are dominating society and are overbearing -> city symphony as captures the idea at the time that the middle class were the 'ruling' class as dominated leisure activities and society. 

High angle shots used, as if the viewer is watching over the city. At 6:06-6:10 & 6:14-6:18 = high angle shot of seemingly well-dressed people walking along the beach. Throughout the film, we see more of these shots looking down on the middle-class citizens. Thinks low of the working-class and highlights his dislike for them. Show the city symphony as represents the population excluding the middle-class, and how the rest of society has a dislike for the middle class due to their elaborate lifestyle and potential arrogance. 

High angle shots used so spectator can watch city (6:06, 6:14) -> Links to city symphony as captures idea of looking down on the middle class and dislike for them

Movements associated with both films:
Modernism
- Strong commitment to the machine, inc machinery of cinema, as a progressive force, promises to create a bold new future
- Culture celebrates invention of whole new way of life; period when 'modern' life = invented
- Looking forward, sense of new/different world under construction & experienced materially & psychically
- In opposition to the idea of films constituting 'art movements', is the idea they're contributing to an international effort to understand through experimentation what's possible within medium of cinema, an understanding informing art cinema & popular cinema equally

- Challenges & progresses what's been done before

Constructivism
Sergei Eisenstein, greatest filmmaker-as-theorist of all, used his 1st feature (Strike) as a laboratory experiment in power of montage
- However should be careful never to limit Soviet Montage to editing -> better to call moment Constructivism which links developments in cinema to wider artistic innovations of the time

- Constructivism celebrates the machine (inc human machine) with new theories of acting & physical movement based one exploring mechanics of human body & communication -> uses ideas of mechanisation of society -> move to industrialisation

City Symphonies:
- A type of constructivist cinema
- Early 20's (when silent era of film-making still in full swing): genre of city symphony emerged
- What constitutes a CS is somewhat fluid but broadly speaker it's defined as a poetic, experimental documentary that presents a portrait of daily life within a city whilst attempting to capture something of the city's spirit
- More specifically, refers to films that are influenced by the form & structure of a musical symphony, although it's debatable as to how many of the films labelled as city symphonies conform to this pattern. The city symphony tag is very slippery -> questionable whether even its most famous example (MWAMC) is a true city symphony
- City symphonies is a product of constructivism which is a product of modernism which is a product of expressionism

- Montage: puts shots in a non-chronological order, designed to create a specific meaning, idea of collage editing